Emergent Global Information Infrastructure/Global Information Society: Regime Formation and the Impact on Africa

This paper combines a theoretical perspective on globalization and the information society with a critical usage of international regime theory in order to contribute to a better understanding of the current historical period of transition from an international telecommunications regime to a new and complex regime aimed at providing governance for the global information infrastructure and global information society. The paper employs a case-study approach to explore some of the specific national responses (i.e. South Africa) to this regime transition, with an analysis of potential best practices and lessons learned for other emerging economies.public finance, macroeconomic policy, policy design, international economic order, economic integration

Prospects for the Digital Economy in South Africa: Technology, Policy, People, and Strategies

E-commerce, South Africa, Information policy, Digital economy, Information infrastructure

A culturally-attuned distributed decision making model of global virtual teams in world summit on the information society

The purpose of this paper is to provide a rich description of people from diverse cultural backgrounds participating in distributed decision making process using email.The qualitative model was driven based on Adler’s (1997) culturally bound decision making model and Kingdon’s (1994) public policy making process.Our research question is ‘how does the globally distributed decision making process different compared to Adler and Kingdon’s proposed theoretical frameworks? This study analyzed the archival email messages (n= 1760 emails) from Civil Society team members in the World Summit of Information Society (WSIS) over the period of six months.The findings help to explain the way people from diverse cultural backgrounds participate in a virtual environment that’s consistent with the sequential of Adler and King don.In addition, our study also further exemplifies the dynamic and iterative process of distributed decision making among members of Civil Society

Building Accessible Cyberinfrastructure in the Global Disability Community: Evaluating Collaboration Readiness and Use of the DID Policy Collaboratory

This study is focused on better understanding the socio-technical infrastructure required to enhance participation of the global disability community in key global governance processes. It explores the impact of a virtual organizational platform, called the Disability Inclusive Development (DID) Policy Collaboratory on the participation of the UN Disability Inclusive and Accessible Urban Development (DIAUD) Network in the preparatory processes for the UN Habitat III Conference. This paper asks four broad questions about the DIAUD network: (1) what is its origin, composition, and structure; (2) to what degree does it represent a transnational advocacy network; (3); what is its baseline “collaboration readiness”; and (4) how effectively does it use the Collaboratory? Data are drawn from surveys and participant observation at virtual and face-to-face network meetings. Key findings include: (1) DIAUD is organized as a TAN; (2) has important linkages with epistemic communities; and (3) has made substantive and sustained policy contributions

Diversity Matters, Even at a Distance: Evaluating the Impact of Computer-Mediated Communication on Civil Society Participation in the World Summit on the Information Society

This study explores the computer-mediated communication (CMC) practices of the transnational civil society organizations involved in the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Informed by international regime theory, this study asks four specific research questions. (1) To what degree did civil society use CMC to organize its work and participate in WSIS? (2) How did the civil society use CMC? What barriers did it face, and how did it overcome those barriers? (3) To what extent do these CMC practices reveal the existence of policy networks and their linkages with epistemic communities? (4) What was the effect of civil society's use of CMC? Using both quantitative and qualitative data from an international survey and archival research, the study finds that e-mail lists are the primary CMC tools used within the sector, although attempts have been made to introduce more sophisticated applications to aid collaboration. Within the civil society sector we find strong evidence of a readiness to collaborate along several dimensions, including high levels of cognitive and affective trust. The study finds significant civil society participation in global policy networks, with numerous explicit linkages to epistemic communities. Finally, we find that civil society has been active in nearly all of the WSIS policy processes, and developed a coherent, socially-oriented policy contribution, but has had limited overall in�uence on the final conference outcomes. The paper concludes by discussing the implications of these findings for the global governance of cyberinfrastructure and the Information Society, and provides recommendations for the second phase of the WSIS scheduled for November 2005 in Tunisia. (c) 2005 Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Internationl Development.