Abstract
AbstractIs the internet at risk of fragmentation? Whereas the literature has examined this question with a focus on domestic policies, communication standards, and internet governance institutions, we analyze fragmentation and alternative outcomes in transnational engineering networks. These networks constitute the social foundations of the unified or ‘global’ internet. Our contributions include: (1) broadening the debate beyond fragmentation‐related network outcomes to include political structuring and organizational concentration; and (2) new evidence from an important engineering network around the Internet Engineering Task Force comprising thousands of participants and over four decades. Our analyses reveal fast and continuous network growth as well as clear signs of growing concentration of the network around a few major companies. A key implication is that, at the level of engineering networks, concerns about internet fragmentation might be unfounded and might distract from more salient developments such as organizational concentration.
Highlights
Is the internet at risk of fragmentation? Whereas the literature has examined this question with a focus on domestic policies, communication standards, and internet governance institutions, we analyze fragmentation and alternative outcomes in transnational engineering networks
The literature has engaged with these concerns by studying the key dimensions of the unified or global internet: domestic policies, communication standards, and internet governance institutions
We contribute an analysis of transnational engineering networks, which provide essential social foundations for communication standard-setting and internet governance institutions as well as a counterweight to heterogeneity in domestic policies
Summary
Concerns about the unity of the internet or ‘internet fragmentation’ have become widespread in policy circles. In the 2013 Montevideo Statement on the Future of Internet Cooperation, the leaders of ten major internet governance organizations warned against internet fragmentation and stressed ‘the importance of globally coherent Internet operations’ (Akplogan et al, 2013). Among others, organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations (Patrick, 2014; Zylberberg, 2016), The Global Commission on Internet Governance (de Nardis, 2016), the World Economic Forum (Drake et al, 2016) as well as general and specialized media (Financial Times, 2014, 2020; Wired, 2019) have featured the issue. We examine fragmentation as well the alternative outcomes of political structuring and organizational concentration in transnational internet engineering networks
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