The Globalisation of Regulation and its Impact on the Domain Name System: Domain Names and a New Regulatory Economy
Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 2003
My doctoral dissertation is titled The Globalisation of Regulation and its Impact on the Domain Name System: Domain Names and the New Regulatory Economy. It is an examination of the orderly development of globally applicable standards and norms for managing the critical technical infrastructure of the Internet. It is a technical work which demonstrates an understanding of the domain name system; the politics and policies surrounding the management of the technical resources that enable the Internet to function and the broader influences of the development of a hybrid regulatory agency.
The key findings of my research are that the Internet Domain Name System and its governance present a new perspective on the discussion of the globalisation of business regulation. I have found that national governments have, despite ongoing control within their national jurisdiction, little effective influence over the management and governance of the Domain Name System at an international level. I have found that corporations have significant power to determine the way in which policies for the management of the technical resources of the Internet are discussed, developed to consensus positions, implemented and reviewed.
The research focuses on the development and construction of mechanisms for national governments to participate in ICANN. It addresses the broad constitution of ICANN and the apparent consensus that governments don't or shouldn't or can't have a substantive role in Internet governance in a global, multi-jurisdictional environment. At the same time, national governments around the world have been actively reconsidering their role in the domestic governance of their portion of Internet architecture, namely geographic country code identifiers which, for many developing economies, are viewed as a national asset.
Global governance by the private sector of public resources that are now commercially mission-critical is a highly volatile and still evolving area of inquiry. The research is an extension of a comprehensive understanding of the international telecommunications sector where a clear grasp of the national and international policy priorities to enable market liberalisation and the introduction of competition are critical.
The importance of technical standards and the role of technology in determining effective regulatory frameworks in the realm of electronic commerce have led to discussions of legislation and regulation; sovereignty and stewardship; ownership and trusteeship; national and international jurisdiction; and commercial and non-commercial treatment of Internet. In addition, I have an undergraduate background in international politics and policy (Australian National University) and a Masters in Communication (University of Canberra) on regulating the Internet and privacy.
The Abstract of the dissertation appears below.
Individual chapters are now available on this site, along with a PDF version of the full document. The detailed bibliography and glossary from the dissertation are also available in the Resources component of this site.
• Abstract
This is a multidisciplinary work that encompasses considerations of politics, regulation and technology. It considers the impact of technology on the way in which, politically, we are able to regulate technology and how we devise policy to guide that regulation. The added complication is that Internet technology knows no jurisdiction. The rulemaking established in recent years is globally applicable and is carried out without the direct involvement of national governments in the key decision making processes, particularly in the environment under examination here which focuses on the management of the technical resources of the Internet.
In formulating the hypothesis that grounds this work, I have focused on two things. Firstly, that technical regulation has political, and therefore, policy implications. Secondly, that where there are policy implications with direct commercial impact, we can expect to see the vigorous involvement of corporations as they manage the environment in which they do business. These two critical conditions have driven the formulation of policies and procedures for making decisions about Internet governance. They have also driven the actual decisions which have been implemented, to a greater or lesser degree of success.
This research contributes to the scholarship in four significant ways. The first is that the Internet Domain Name System and its governance present a new perspective on the discussion of the globalisation of business regulation. The data used to support the analysis has not been previously collated or examined and is presented here to illustrate the extension of the literature and to frame the hypothesis.
The second is that I have found that national governments have, despite ongoing control within their national jurisdiction, little effective influence over the management and governance of the Domain Name System at an international level. Thirdly, I have found that corporations have significant power to determine the way in which policies for the management of the technical resources of the Internet are discussed, developed to consensus positions, implemented and reviewed.
Finally, the research has opened up new lines of inquiry into the rise of a new class of bureaucrats, the cosmocrats and their cosmocracy, on which further research continues.
• Dissertation
Structure
The Dissertation Table of Contents is here.
• Individual
Chapters
Individual chapters from the dissertation are now available as separate PDF documents.
• Full
Text
The full dissertation is also available as a single PDF document (45MB) here. |
