Multistakeholder Internet Governance Research Articles

Hegemonic practices in multistakeholder Internet governance: Participatory evangelism, quiet politics, and glorification of status quo at ICANN meetings

In this exploratory study we examine a less scrutinized aspect of multistakeholder arrangements: the presence and directionality of hegemonic power in the language used in the stakeholder deliberations. Specifically, we examine the deliberations of ten stakeholder groups of ICANN’s policy development body. Using meeting transcripts from 2011 to 2020, we operationalized hegemony as a latent, dependent variable (HEIN) by linking stakeholder participation to the policymaking agenda. We employed a mixed-methods approach comprising textual linguistic analysis (using DICTION 7.1), principal components analysis, and an autoregressive moving average model to identify the statistical significance of key variables that emerged from textual linguistic and principal components analyses. We found that three primary rhetorical devices – participatory evangelism, quiet politics, and glorification of the status quo – were present, which reinforce the entrenched power structure that favors some stakeholders and interfere with other stakeholders’ efforts to influence Internet governance decisions. In addition, four Diction variables, Commonality, Leveling Terms, Satisfaction, and Commonality at the GNSO (Generic Names Supporting Organization) level, yielded a positive impact on the production of hegemony, and Insistence was negatively associated with HEIN.

Legitimacy, Power, and Inequalities in the Multistakeholder Internet Governance: Analyzing IANA Transition

Legitimacy, Power, and Inequalities in the Multistakeholder Internet Governance: Analyzing IANA Transition

The geopolitics of digital rights activism: Evaluating civil society's role in the promises of multistakeholder internet governance

Multistakeholderism is thought to play an important role in democratizing internet governance institutions and processes by including civil society. Therefore, scholars have studied the participation of civil society organizations, from the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society through to the most recent Internet Governance Forum, to understand how they engage in and shape internet governance. However, this category is not well defined; therefore, it is not always clear whose interests are being advanced by civil society organizations. This study evaluates representation in civil society by examining the annual RightsCon conference as an ideal site of civil society engagement in internet governance in order to evaluate the potential of multistakeholderism to achieve the goals of democratization, representation, and inclusion. Through a meso-level analysis of discursive production at RightsCon that operationalizes a critical geopolitical rubric, this study finds that organizations that represent interests from the Global North and West are highly over-represented in three ways: in leading overall discourse, in claiming authority over global issues, and in driving specific topics such as misinformation, privacy, and internet shutdowns. These findings offer an empirical evaluation of global representation in internet governance, raising the stakes for further study about why and how the category of civil society meets expectations. Finally, conceptual implications are discussed, including evaluating earlier critiques of multistakeholderism as less democratizing in reality than in theory, affirming the analytic value of civil society discourse to policy research, and opening up questions about how a more precise understanding of civil society can contribute to multistakeholderism in internet governance.

The ‘China’ Question in Mobile Internet Standard-Making: Insights From Expert Interviews

This article explores the actions of Chinese stakeholders as norm entrepreneurs in mobile Internet standard-making within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Through semi-structured interviews with key experts from the Internet stakeholder communities, this article contextualises a rapidly transforming and increasingly politicised issue in the broader context of China’s engagement with the global multistakeholder Internet governance architecture, as well as the debate on China’s rise in the Liberal International Order. Furthermore, it incorporates the views and experiences of technologists working first-hand in standard-making, as they are often disregarded in political-scientific literature. Through the analytical lens of cognitivist regime theory, this article argues that the stronger China and Chinese stakeholders grow economically and politically, the more they become involved in the existing Internet governance regime complex, increasing their influence in the existing institutional arrangements without necessarily acting for changing their norms, rules, and principles. Through these theoretical and methodological approaches, new light is shed on the role of private and public Chinese stakeholders and on the relation between them.

The ‘China’ question in mobile Internet standard-making: Insights from expert interviews

This article explores the actions of Chinese stakeholders as norm entrepreneurs in mobile Internet standard-making within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Through semi-structured interviews with key experts from the Internet stakeholder communities, this article contextualises a rapidly transforming and increasingly politicised issue in the broader context of China's engagement with the global multistakeholder Internet governance architecture, as well as the debate on China's rise in the Liberal International Order. Furthermore, it incorporates the views and experiences of technologists working first-hand in standard-making, as they are often disregarded in political-scientific literature. Through the analytical lens of cognitivist regime theory, this article argues that the stronger China and Chinese stakeholders grow economically and politically, the more they become involved in the existing Internet governance regime complex, increasing their influence in the existing institutional arrangements without necessarily acting for changing their norms, rules, and principles. Through these theoretical and methodological approaches, new light is shed on the role of private and public Chinese stakeholders and on the relation between them.

Privacy by Infrastructure: The Unresolved Case of the Domain Name System

Digital privacy concerns are primarily viewed through the lens of personal data and content. But beneath the layer of content, less visible issues of infrastructure design and administration raise significant privacy concerns. The Internet's Domain Name System (DNS) is one such terrain. There is already a great deal of attention around how the DNS intersects with freedom of speech, trademark disputes, cybersecurity challenges, and geopolitical power struggles in the aftermath of transitioning the historic U.S. oversight role to the global multistakeholder Internet governance community. However, the privacy implications embedded in the technical architecture of the DNS have received less attention, perhaps because these issues are concealed within complex technical arrangements outside of public view. This article explores privacy issues in the DNS by examining two contemporary, and still unresolved, case studies: the WHOIS system as a de facto Internet identity system revealing website registrants; and privacy in domain name queries, which have historically been unencrypted and therefore reveal personal information about what sites individuals visit. DNS privacy challenges not only demonstrate the important connection between infrastructure and rights, but also exemplify how cross‐border, universal technologies come into conflict with the bounded laws of nation states. It is a critical moment of opportunity to examine these cases because their resolution will help determine the future of basic privacy rights online.

Perspectives on Internet Governance: The Case for the Human Element

Multistakeholder Internet governance institutions are not being properly studied. Research focuses primarily on structure, which has its own set of concerns and limitations, but it overlooks the human element, which may play a vital role in shaping these institutions. The human element, which encompasses the human actors and their networks, is potentially important because of both the way the institutions themselves function internally to promote and highlight individuals, and the effect these institutions have on the participants. While this may sound interesting, a straightforward question emerges as to why this has not yet been studied. Two explanations of why this has not been the case so far cover both the substantive environment and its inherent complexities, and the theoretical biases inherent in the most prevalent lens used to study these institutions, borrowed from a related but entirely different area of research, democratic decision-making. Based on these points, before value is added to this role, it is paramount to try and uncover whether the human element has any substantial impact in the shaping and ongoing functioning of multistakeholder institutions on par with structure, and my upcoming dissertation tackles this issue.

Deliberative polling for multistakeholder internet governance: considered judgments on access for the next billion

ABSTRACTMultistakeholder Internet governance aspires to fulfill democratic values in a process of dialogue producing results that can be considered for possible action. How can these goals be accomplished when the participants in these processes come from entities as varied as corporations, governments, civil society and academia drawn from countries all over the world? How can such a multistakeholder process embody democratic values? How can it be based on dialogue? What kinds of results can it produce? This article applies Deliberative Polling as a possible solution to this problem by using a stratified random sample of netizens, citizens of the Internet, drawn from all the relevant stakeholders of the Internet Governance Forum, engaged together in dialogue and with opinions collected in confidential questionnaires before and after deliberation. This pilot application focused on the topic of Internet access ‒ policy proposals to increase access for the next billion users. We believe it demonstrates the possibility that deliberators drawn from all these sectors can participate in substantive dialogue weighing the merits of issues and coming to specific conclusions. The pilot was limited in its duration and scale but produced, nevertheless, results that strongly support the conclusion that this approach to multistakeholder Internet governance is promising.

Thinking Clearly About Multistakeholder Internet Governance

Efforts to study and practice Internet governance start, virtually without exception, from the premise that the Internet is governed by an innovative, unusual (perhaps unique) ‘multistakeholder’ model. Preserving that model is a primary goal for the broader Internet community as well as for many governments, though not for all. Viewing multistakeholderism as a teleological goal for Internet governance creates several problems. First, multistakeholderism is often elevated as a value in itself rather than as a possible approach to meeting more salient public interest objectives such as preserving Internet interoperability, stability, security, and openness. Second, multistakeholder governance may not be appropriate in every functional area of Internet governance. Internet coordination is not a monolithic practice but rather a multilayered series of tasks of which some are appropriately relegated to the private sector, some the purview of traditional nation-state governance or international treaty negotiations, and some more appropriately multistakeholder. It is a misnomer to speak not only of multistakeholder governance but also of Internet governance as a single thing. The concept of multistakeholderism can also serve as a proxy for broader political struggles or be deployed as an impediment to the types of Internet coordination necessary to promote conditions of responsible governance. For example, governments with repressive information policies can advocate for top-down and formalized multistakeholderism to gain additional power in areas in which they have traditionally not had jurisdiction. These types of efforts can result in multilateral rather than multistakeholder approaches with non-governmental actors limited from participating in formal deliberations and lacking any meaningful voting power. Alternatively, companies and other actors with vested interests in current governance arrangements can deploy multistakeholderism in a manner either meant to exclude new entrants (whether public or private) with incommensurate interests and values or to preserve incumbent market advantage.This paper suggests that multistakeholderism should not be viewed as a value in itself applied homogenously to all Internet governance functions. Rather, the appropriate approach to responsible Internet governance requires determining what types of administration are optimal for promoting a balance of interoperability, innovation, free expression and operational stability in any particular functional and political context. Doing so requires conceptual and theoretical tools that have not yet been developed. Accordingly, the paper proceeds in three parts. First, it presents a more granular taxonomy and understanding of Internet governance functions – differentiating between, for example, cybersecurity governance, Internet standards setting, and the policymaking function of private information intermediaries. Second, it performs the same task of disaggregation with respect to multistakeholderism. It presents distinct varieties of multistakeholder Internet governance (which differ according to the varieties of actors involved and the nature of authority relations between them) and sets these arrangements in a broader context of modalities for accomplishing global governance in other issue areas. Such an approach contributes both to the study and practice of Internet governance, and to scholarship in International Relations and global governance.

Multistakeholder Internet Governance?

Global debate over alternative approaches to governing the internet has been wide ranging, but increasingly has pivoted around the wisdom of multistakeholder governance. This paper takes controversy around a multistakeholder versus an alternative multilateral approach as a focus for clarifying the changing context and significance of internet governance. A critical perspective on this debate challenges some of the conventional wisdom marshaled around positions on the history and future of internet governance. By providing an understanding of the dynamics of internet governance, this paper seeks to illuminate and engage with issues that are of rising importance to the vitality of a global infrastructure that is becoming more central to economic and social development around the world. Based on the perspective developed in this paper, a multistakeholder process appears best suited for helping a widening array of actors, including multilateral organizations, to connect a worldwide ecology of choices that are governing the internet.

Internet Governance and the Internet Governance Forum Redux

There are many interests and incentives driving further evolution, development, and use of the Internet. It becomes apparent that a distributed, multistakeholder Internet governance model serves the needs of the Internet community best. It is important to preserve and support the institutions that comprise this current distributed governance model.

Power Plays in Global Internet Governance

The multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance has emerged as the dominant approach to navigating the complex set of interests, agendas and implications of our increasing dependence on this technology. Protecting this model of global governance in this context has been referred to by the US and EU as ‘essential’ to the future of the Internet. Bringing together actors from the private sector, the public sector and also civil society, multi-stakeholder Internet governance is not only regarded by many as the best way to organise around this particular issue, it is also held up as a potential template for the management of other ‘post-state’ issues. However, as a consequence of its normative aspirations to representation and power sharing, the multi-stakeholder approach to global Internet governance has received little critical attention. This paper examines the issues of legitimacy and accountability with regard to the ‘rule-makers’ and ‘rule-takers’ in this model and finds that it can also function as a mechanism for the reinforcement of existing power dynamics.

Power Plays in Global Internet Governance

The multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance has emerged as the dominant approach to navigating the complex set of interests, agendas and implications of our increasing dependence on this technology. Protecting this model of global governance in this context has been referred to by the US and EU as ‘essential’ to the future of the Internet. Bringing together actors from the private sector, the public sector and also civil society, multi-stakeholder Internet governance is not only regarded by many as the best way to organise around this particular issue, it is also held up as a potential template for the management of other ‘post-state’ issues. However, as a consequence of its normative aspirations to representation and power sharing, the multi-stakeholder approach to global Internet governance has received little critical attention. This paper examines the issues of legitimacy and accountability with regard to the ‘rule-makers’ and ‘rule-takers’ in this model and finds that it can also function as a mechanism for the reinforcement of existing power dynamics.

Open for Expansion: US Policy and the Purpose for the Internet in the Post-Cold War Era

US Internet governance policy, it has been argued, is a threat to the Internet. Calls persist for the development of a multilateral Internet governance organization where states, especially the United States, play a lessened Internet governance role. Yet, US policymakers continue to resist greater multilateralism in global Internet governance favoring instead multistakeholder governance. Why do US policymakers continue to resist greater multilateralism in global governance of the Internet? Employing the Open Door interpretation of US diplomatic history, I show that, in the post–Cold War era, US policymakers purposed the Internet as a platform for the expansion of American products and political ideals and view greater multilateralism in global Internet governance as a threat to this purpose for the Internet. US policymakers will continue to support the present multistakeholder Internet governance structure that reflects US Internet governance policy preferences. Efforts at greater multilateralism in global governance of the Internet will continue to encounter US resistance unless such efforts incorporate US Internet governance policy preferences.

Rights protection in new gTLDs: The multi-stakeholder Internet governance model at work

In June 2008, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) embarked upon an ambitious program of expansion at the top-level of the DNS. The policy underpinning expansion is notable for its adoption of new mechanisms that target the unauthorised use in new gTLDs of names the subject of legal – in particular trademark – rights. These mechanisms are the product of several years of policy development and implementation; they are proof of the functioning of ICANN’s unique multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance. Yet even as new top-level domains near the launch phase, questions remain as to the scope and mechanics of rights protection offered by agreed-upon mechanisms. A ‘strawman solution’ emerged at the end of 2012 to address these questions. This article examines the ‘strawman solution’, the rights protection mechanisms it seeks to clarify, and the ICANN organisational structure and operational processes into which it does not perfectly fit.

Thinking Clearly About Multistakeholder Internet Governance

Thinking Clearly About Multistakeholder Internet Governance

ICANN's core principles and the expansion of generic top-level domain names

ICANN is a self-regulatory body that oversees the registration of domain names and coordinates Internet protocol addresses. As a multi-stakeholder body with significant influence over the root of the Internet, ICANN’s role is crucial in order to maintain its stability and interoperability. From January 2012, a call for Expressions of Interest in the registration and running of generic top-level (g-TLD) domain names was opened. This process allows an applicant to self-select a g-TLD and then be responsible for registering second-level domain names. The initiative represents a significant expansion of available g-TLDs, which could potentially lead to an increase in cybersquatting. It also hands the power to register second-level domain names to a wider pool of registries. This is a pivotal point in ICANN’s development and how it manages the expansion will either highlight the strengths or expose the flaws in the nature of multi-stakeholder Internet governance. This article seeks to analyse the initiative to expand g-TLDs in relation to a number of ICANN’s initial core aims: stability, competition and private, bottom-up coordination.

The Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG) and Its Role in Internet Governance

Multi-stakeholder (MSH) organizations have played a critical role in the success of the Internet. These organizations, formed largely without official government action, have helped guide the Internet in its growth to date and set the guidelines and protocols for its operation. Today, though, there are some that would like to see governance of the Internet put under more structured sovereign control and the calls for such have become louder in anticipation of the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12). As the Internet becomes more central to nearly every civic and sovereign activity, there are fears that the network of networks that is the Internet is just “too important” to leave alone or to let largely govern itself. Arguably though, greater governmental involvement in Internet governance would be a step in the wrong direction and threatens to change the “recipe” that has brought the Internet so far and so fast. As a counterpoint to calls for more sovereign control, the Obama Administration has put forth proposals that would increase and make more explicit the reliance on MSH groups in the important areas of Internet privacy and cybersecurity. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has stated that: ….the United States supports the public-private collaboration that now exists to manage the technical evolution of the internet in real time. We support the principles of multi-stakeholder internet governance developed by more than 30 nations in the OECD earlier this year. A multi-stakeholder system brings together the best of governments, the private sector, and civil society. And most importantly, it works. It has kept the internet up and running for years all over the world. Given the intensifying focus on MSH organizations, the motivation behind this paper is to provide the telecommunications policy research community with more information on a relatively new MSH group, the Broadband Internet Technical Advisory Group (BITAG). It was formed in response to proposals for Internet regulation in the U.S. that arose around the issue of “Net Neutrality.” Its formation and ensuing evolution was also influenced by a related court case (Comcast Corp. v. FCC) that brought into question the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) authority in the area and by the FCC’s subsequent Open Internet Report and Order. The hope is that the information provided on BITAG herein will be useful to other researchers in studying and assessing the continued role of MSH organizations in the future governance of the Internet. Accordingly, this paper proceeds in three parts. Part I provides a brief overview of three principal multi-stakeholder (MSH) organizations that are currently involved in Internet governance. The three organizations, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), are described in terms of their history and mission, structure, operations/processes and relationship to governmental entities. Part II then describes in somewhat greater detail the same aspects of the BITAG while focusing attention on some of the more important governance issues that arose during its formation and in its initial operations. Finally, Part III describes in brief the first three technical issues relating to network management that BITAG has addressed through its Technical Working Group (TWG). It closes with a preliminary assessment of the group’s progress to date.

The Early Ground Offensives in Internet Governance

The second stage of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunisia in November 2005 saw the long-standing debate over who should govern the Internet reach an apparent culmination. The vast majority of parties involved (over 10,000 people from over 170 countries) announced their acquiescence to the final agreement, which allowed ICANN to maintain responsibility for domain name allocation, while introducing a non-binding multi-stakeholder Internet Governance Forum (IGF) to be set up alongside.1 However, this current paper will show that the agreement provides limited assistance to the ongoing discussion and resolution on Internet Governance, and furthermore that unless the key players—particularly the USA—alter their stance, the Internet is in danger of fragmentation and gridlock, which is a genuine possibility unless the governance of the Internet moves to an International level away from exclusive US control. The conclusions made in Tunisia are not fully representative and the perception of US control has not been removed. Until this is revisited and altered, the Internet remains in considerable threat of break-up and potential gridlock.

Characterization of the glutamic acid decarboxylase gene promoter using transgenic mice

This article explores the actions of Chinese stakeholders as norm entrepreneurs in mobile Internet standard-making within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP). Through semi-structured interviews with key experts from the Internet stakeholder communities, this article contextualises a rapidly transforming and increasingly politicised issue in the broader context of China's engagement with the global multistakeholder Internet governance architecture, as well as the debate on China's rise in the Liberal International Order. Furthermore, it incorporates the views and experiences of technologists working first-hand in standard-making, as they are often disregarded in political-scientific literature. Through the analytical lens of cognitivist regime theory, this article argues that the stronger China and Chinese stakeholders grow economically and politically, the more they become involved in the existing Internet governance regime complex, increasing their influence in the existing institutional arrangements without necessarily acting for changing their norms, rules, and principles. Through these theoretical and methodological approaches, new light is shed on the role of private and public Chinese stakeholders and on the relation between them.