The Emergent Global Information Policy Regime

Citation

Limb, P. (2006), "The Emergent Global Information Policy Regime", Library Review, Vol. 55 No. 3, pp. 224-226. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530610656037

This is an important book. Librarians and information specialists are skilled in using and applying the new information technologies, but do they know how global (and hence national) information policy is decided and by whom? Who owns the Internet? How is it regulated? How do we find out about these matters, and how can people forge a new governance regime for Internet users? The focus of this engaging volume is the rapid emergence of a new regime of information management and policy that controls the legal, technical and socio‐economic aspects of the Internet and how we should understand and conceptualise these vital developments. As the editor argues, struggles over governance of global information networks among governments and international organizations, corporations and NGOs, elites and civil society “will determine how we communicate, the extent of our civil liberties and human rights, the profitability of e‐commerce, and the richness of cultural expression”.

Ten concise chapters cover key issues of global telecommunications regimes: how the Internet has massively expanded codification of knowledge and infrastructure but clouded information policy (Kahin); a study of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and INTELSAT (the world’s largest commercial satellite communications service provider) (Mueller and Thompson); exclusion and territoriality – scholars are confusing the form of networks with their “social strategies and goals” (J.P. Singh); the EU Data Protection Directive as a global standard (Heisenberg and Fandel); networks and evolution of property rights in the global, knowledge‐based economy (Garcia); implications of elite decision making for policy (Cogburn); private governance, contracts and the Internet (Klein), and; Internet “points of control”, exploring how a “second generation” of Internet filtering by governments (including those in the West) seeks to constrict Internet service providers (Zittrain). Editor Braman (Professor of Communication, University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee) contributes the introduction and a succinct overview of the information policy regime. There is a detailed bibliography, separate author and subject indexes and a list of acronyms much appreciated by this reviewer.

Braman cogently summarises the theory and practice of the “emergent global information policy regime”. A close reading of this theoretical section helps the reader to understand the recent development of regime theory. International policies governing global flows of information – both infrastructure and content – and how these policies are cohering with communication and culture into a single “regime” involving state and other actors are analysed, as is the political role of information and concepts such as regime, regime change, and regime theory. Using regime theory enables one to better see patterns and emphasises the “emergent” highlights, signifying that the regime is still evolving. Braman analyses weaknesses in conceptualisations of this policy, such as over reliance on the concept of the nation state and inadequate attention to the role of knowledge and epistemic communities. She notes how the emergence of the regime reproduces at the international‐level information features of states. There is a growing consensus on some features of this regime: transparency as a policy goal, networks as structures needing regulation, and acceptance of shared responsibility for governance between private and public sectors. Other features are more contested: is information a commodity or a constitutive force, a final or secondary good, an agent or the subject of agency, private or public?

Corporate powers dominate publishing and the emergent global information policy regime. In his chapter Cogburn warns of the growing power of global economic commerce and its declining interest in bridging “digital divides”, whether between rich and poor nations or classes. Whilst African stakeholders such as South Africa and Egypt promote a vision of a global information infrastructure to maximise social development, OECD countries advocate a narrower model based on private profit. South Africa, argues Cogburn, has a capacity to moderate the global information policy regime in favour of the South, but important changes are underway to limit the autonomy of developing countries in the field.

The struggle for control over telecommunications will be a vital one in coming years, and so the themes of this book are important to understand. Globalisation and technological change are daily driving new developments in electronic publishing and ownership of information, and increasingly dominating global educational and scientific trends. Whilst control of, and profits from, these trends largely bypass the ordinary person, the authors show that the response to these changes from both state and non‐state actors are far from passive, or uniform. As Zittrain observes, “the Internet’s brilliant methodology of data routing … offers multiple opportunities for control that are only now coming into focus for regulators”, but only the “most exacting of processes” can avoid the abuse inherent in this move to regulation. One wonders, however, whether the basic contradiction between escalating private/dominant state ownership of information and the needs of users can actually be realised in the consensual solution envisaged by most of the authors. Nevertheless, this book lays a solid foundation for understanding the processes underpinning the emergence of the global information policy regime. Further work, as the editor notes, should analyse features of the regime in areas such as defence, trade, and agriculture, manifestations in decision‐making arenas and impact on information and IT.

This stimulating collection of cutting‐edge papers on globalisation and the information game will be of great interest to practitioners of information studies, law, politics, international relations and communications, as well as librarians and the general public – both of whom often do not fully realise the serious nature of ownership and governance patterns pervading the Internet. Indeed, features likely to determine the nature of globalisation in the next decades and which will soon pose great challenges to the very basis of librarianship is the free and open access to information. This is highly recommended for all information professionals.