Between reason of state and reason of market: the developments of internet governance in historical perspective

“No sovereignty, no elected government, no authority, no borders”. It was exactly twenty years ago, John Perry Barlow proclaimed his Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. And those were his keywords. Today, we can say that the development of Internet governance as a global policy arena is the answer to the questions that Barlow believed irrelevant to the proper development of cyberspace. If founding myths about an ungovernable, borderless, and intangible Internet have been demolished, what power relations have emerged in the Internet governance arena? What are the ideas –or the normative values– that sustain and legitimize the political role of governmental and nongovernmental actors? And, finally, is the multi-stakeholder model capable of grasping the real conflicts over political power, or is it part of those conflicts, a narrative supporting specific interests and coalitions? The main aim of this article is to consider these issues by analysing the developments of political conflicts over Internet governance, from the IAHC to WSIS, until recent processes such as the WCIT and NetMundial.“Ninguna soberanía, ningún gobierno electivo, ninguna autoridad, ningún confín”. Hace veinte años, John Perry Barlow proclamó su Declaración de Independencia del Ciberespacio. Y estas eran las palabras clave. Hoy día, podemos afirmar que el desarrollo del Internet Governance como ámbito de policy global responde a las preguntas que Barlow consideraba irrelevantes precisamente por lo que al desarrollo del ciberespacio se refería. Una vez que los mitos fundadores de un Internet sin confines, inmaterial y falto de estructuras de gobierno han sido derrotados, ¿cuáles son las relaciones de poder que han emergido en el campo del dominio del Internet? ¿Cuáles son las ideas –o los valores normativos– que sostienen y legitiman el papel político de los actores gubernamentales y no gubernamentales? Además, ¿el modelo multi-stakeholder sabe distinguir los conflictos de poder reales, o él mismo parte de esos conflictos, como un discurso de apoyo de los intereses y de las coaliciones en juego? El objetivo principal del artículo es analizar esos cuestionamientos a través del análisis del desarrollo de los conflictos políticos respecto de la gobernanza de la red: del IAHC al WSIS, hasta llegar a los procesos más recientes, como el WCIT y el NetMundial

Governing by internet architecture

In the past thirty years, the exponential rise in the number of Internet users around the word and the intensive use of the digital networks have brought to light crucial political issues. Internet is now the object of regulations. Namely, it is a policy domain. Yet, its own architecture represents a new regulative structure, one deeply affecting politics and everyday life. This article considers some of the main transformations of the Internet induced by privatization and militarization processes, as well as their consequences on societies and human beings.En los últimos treinta años ha crecido de manera exponencial el número de usuarios de Internet alrededor del mundo y el uso intensivo de conexiones digitales ha traído a la luz cuestiones políticas cruciales. Internet es ahora objeto de regulaciones. Es decir, es un ámbito de la política. Aún su propia arquitectura representa una nueva estructura reguladora, que afecta profundamente la política y la vida cotidiana. Este artículo considera algunas de las principales transformaciones de Internet inducida por procesos de privatización y militarización, como también sus consecuencias en las sociedades y en los seres humanos

ICTs Policies: E-Democracy and E-Government for Political Development

‘Electronic democracy’ is a concept with a relatively long history. It has been a central feature of the technological Utopias since the 1960s. Today, the trend is spreading worldwide, as public funding is made available for the exploration of the potential of new technologies to provide new channels of access to political information and participation in decision-making. Nevertheless, whereas e-democracy in Western nations is a tool for resolving the perceived crisis of liberal democracies, in the developing countries it is a tool to build democracy. This assumption is clearly important in the action plans and policies of International Organizations (World Bank, OECD, United Nations) which have assumed a leadership role in the reform of political institutions. This paper will focus on theoretical and methodological issues, such as the prevalent meaning(s) of e-government and e-democracy and their ideological roots in the context of political development

ICTs Policies: E-Democracy and E-Government for Political Development

‘Electronic democracy’ is a concept with a relatively long history. It has been a central feature of the technological Utopias since the 1960s. Today, the trend is spreading worldwide, as public funding is made available for the exploration of the potential of new technologies to provide new channels of access to political information and participation in decision-making. Nevertheless, whereas e-democracy in Western nations is a tool for resolving the perceived crisis of liberal democracies, in the developing countries it is a tool to build democracy. This assumption is clearly important in the action plans and policies of International Organizations (World Bank, OECD, United Nations) which have assumed a leadership role in the reform of political institutions. This paper will focus on theoretical and methodological issues, such as the prevalent meaning(s) of e-government and e-democracy and their ideological roots in the context of political development

Covid-19 Pandemic and the Fiscal Strategy of the International Monetary Fund: Towards New Directions in the Global Political Economy?

This article seeks to contribute to the analyses of the impact of the Covid-19 on the global political economy. It does so through a qualitative content analysis of the key policy documents published by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since the outbreak of the pandemic crisis. The IMF has been, historically, one of the main designers of international macroeconomic governance. The paper focuses on fiscal policy, which retains a central place in the strategy of the IMF to deal with the pandemic and especially for the post-pandemic recovery phase. The analysis of the documents of the IMF contributes (i) to appreciate the interpretation of the nature of the pandemic crisis through the lenses of a prominent international financial institution, (ii) to explore the policy strategy outlined to deal with the pandemic emergency, (iii) to assess possible changes at the level of policy, and accordingly, future directions in global political economy. Evidence suggests that fiscal stimulus, public investment and planning will likely have a prominent position in the future directions of the IMF policy advice

A formalized framework for mobile cloud computing

Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is an emerging paradigm to transparently provide support for demanding tasks on resource-constrained mobile devices by relying on the integration with remote cloud services. Research in this field is tackling the multiple conceptual and technical challenges (e.g., how and when to offload) that are hindering the full realization of MCC. The Networked Autonomic Machine (NAM) framework is a tool that supports and facilitates the design networks of hardware and software autonomic entities, providing or consuming services or resources. Such a framework can be applied, in particular, to MCC scenarios. In this paper, we focus on NAM’s features related to the key aspects of MCC, in particular those concerning code mobility capabilities and autonomic offloading strategies. Our first contribution is the definition of a set of high-level actions supporting MCC. The second contribution is the proposal of a formal semantics for those actions, which provides the core NAM features with a precise formal characterization. Thus, the third contribution is the further development of the NAM conceptual framework and, in particular, the partial re-engineering of the related Java middleware. We show the effectiveness of the revised middleware by discussing the implementation of a Global Ambient Intelligence case study

High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis.

The remains of those who perished at Herculaneum in 79 CE offer a unique opportunity to examine lifeways across an ancient community who lived and died together. Historical sources often allude to differential access to foodstuffs across Roman society but provide no direct or quantitative information. By determining the stable isotope values of amino acids from bone collagen and deploying Bayesian models that incorporate knowledge of protein synthesis, we were able to reconstruct the diets of 17 adults from Herculaneum with unprecedented resolution. Significant differences in the proportions of marine and terrestrial foods consumed were observed between males and females, implying that access to food was differentiated according to gender. The approach also provided dietary data of sufficient precision for comparison with assessments of food supply to modern populations, opening up the possibility of benchmarking ancient diets against contemporary settings where the consequences for health are better understood