Political Implications of the Digital Transformation – The Role of the Democratic State in Multi-Stakeholder Internet Governance

Abstract

The evolution of digital technologies, with the decentral Internet at the forefront, has brought significant transformations to the authority of national states. Regarding Internet regulation, numerous stakeholders with differing interests and competencies are engaged,which ultimately leads to a setting of increasing interrelations and dependencies. As this paper argues, this presents challenges for democratic governmental institutions as their legitimacy is in danger of being undermined by non-state actors. This is demonstrated by applying the competence-control-tradeoff-model to Internet Governance, synthesizing perspectives of democracy theory and governance.