Deconstructing An Experiment In Global Internet Governance: The ICANN Case
Posted by David Goldstein , Sunday, 21 September 2008
by Slavka Antonova [International Journal of Communications Law and Policy]
Abstract:
The model of a global multistakeholder collaboration in Internet
domain-name system management, as developed by U.S. government in 1998
and embedded in the ICANN, held all the promises of a paradigm shift in
global governance. Seven years later, the UN World Summit on the
Information Society in Tunisia (November 2005) adopted some of the
vocabulary of the ICANN experiment and recognized the multistakeholder
collaboration as a key organizational principle in global Internet
governance. Yet, it reestablished the leading role of national
governments and intergovernmental organizations, such as the ITU, in
the regulation of the global Internet.
This paper examines what was lost during the four years of
experimenting with "multistakeholderism" in ICANN and what the stakes
of the parties that influenced the policymaking process the most were.
Building on Governmentality Studies' understanding of the neo-liberal
project of self-governance and Organization Studies' collaboration
theory, the document and discourse analysis of ICANN's practices
deconstructs the original model of a collaborative policymaking process
conducted by a private multistakeholder corporation and formulates the
expectations, stakes and strategies of the participating parties. Thus,
it is suggested in the paper that, because the Internet technical elite
was granted the managerial role in ICANN, the experts were able to
influence the agenda of the policymaking process and its pace, and
ultimately to take over the policy-proposal accumulation task and
eliminate the working groups, which were open to all participants.
It is concluded in the paper that, with the globalization of Internet,
a cluster of new players entered the field, such as the developing
countries governments, and, in the UN WSIS setting, the concerns of
"protecting the public interest" reconnected with the familiar
international arrangements.
To read this paper in full, see ijclp.net/files/ijclp_web-doc_1-12-2008.pdf.
