Icann Governance

Developing hand in hand with e-Business in its use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), e-Government emerged in the 1990s with the promise of a more accessible, efficient and transparent form for public institutions to perform and interact with citizens. The successes-and some critics say, general failures-of e-Government initiatives around the world have led to the development of e-Governance-a broader, more encompassing concept that involves not only public institutions but private ones as well. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this book explores e-Governance in theory and practice with an analytical narrative from heterodox perspectives. Covering such essential issues as global governance of the Internet, the European Knowledge Economy, the transformative promise of mobile telephony, the rise of e-Universities, Internet accessibility for the disabled and e-Governance in transition economies, this book draws on contributions from experienced academics and practitioners with an expertise in an emerging field. In addition, each chapter includes such features as discussion of key issues that draw on case studies in order to facilitate significant discussion questions.

A welcome addition to Palgrave's Global Media Policy and Business series, Internet Governance and the Global South documents the role of the global south in Internet policymaking and challenges the globalization theories that declared the death of the state in global decision-making. Abu Bhuiyan argues that the global Internet politics is primarily a conflict between the states - the United States of America and the states of the global south - because the former controls Internet policymaking. The states of the global south have been both oppositional and acquiescing to the sponsored policies of the United States on Internet issues such as digital divide, multilingualism, intellectual property rights and cyber security. They do not oppose the neoliberal underpinnings of the policies promoted by the United States, but ask for an international framework to govern the Internet so that they can work as equal partners in setting norms for the global Internet.

This book aims to develop a critical understanding of multistakeholder governance in Internet Governance through an in-depth analysis of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) transition, the process through which the U.S. Government transferred its traditional oversight role over the Domain Name System to the global Internet community. In the last few decades, multistakeholderism has become the dominant discourse in the Internet Governance field, mainly because of its promise to provide democratic legitimacy for transnational policymaking, although empirical research has highlighted disappointing performances of multistakeholder arrangements. This book contributes to the debate on multistakeholder governance by analyzing the IANA Transition process's normative legitimacy, broken down in the dimensions of input legitimacy (inclusiveness, balanced representation, and representativeness), throughput legitimacy (procedural and discursive quality), and output legitimacy (outcome and institutional effectiveness). Findings warn about the risk that multistakeholderism could result in a misleading rhetoric legitimizing existing power asymmetries.