Global South and Supranational Internet Policymaking

Abstract

Internet policymaking, which refers to making regulations for the management of the domain name system, IP address allocation, management of the root, and ensuring access to the Internet and Internet security, has been the most controversial issue in supranational communication in recent years. A US-based private nonprofit organization called Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) manages technical aspects of the Internet under the guidance of the US Department of Commerce. Since the Internet was invented as a project of the US Defense Department during the Cold War era, the US is the ultimate controller of the medium. The global south now claims its stakes in controlling the Internet. Transnational corporations and civil society organizations are also quite active in global Internet politics. Scholarly literature on this issue has been dominated by three themes: Internet governance, analyses of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), and the role of civil society in the WSIS processes. Internet governance literature covers three subthemes: some have discussed ICANN as a model of non-state governance;1 some have pondered whether a network could lead to a new form of governance beyond the interference of the nation-states;2 and some have argued that it is illusive to write off the state role in Internet governance.3KeywordsEuropean UnionCivil SocietyUnited NationsWorld Trade OrganizationDigital DivideThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.