| Die Regulierung des Internets zwischen technischer Koordination und politischer Steuerung: Eine explorative Einzelfallstudie am Beispiel der Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers zur Rolle privater Akteure in den internationalen Beziehungen.
Marc Holitscher
How can the transfer of the global authority over the core technical resources of the Internet to a private international organization under Californian law be explained? In the history of transnational communication technologies, intergovernmental solutions under the umbrella of established international fora are the rule. This dissertation on the emergence and evolution of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) seeks to solve this puzzle by bringing together the recent literature on Global Governance and positive theories of regulation. Compared to the predominant optimism for private sector self-regulation, the framework developed also draws upon power-based approaches and integrates them in the explanation. In its results, the analysis shows that the US largely succeeded in securing its own institutional preferences concerning the administration of the domain name system on a global scale. Because the US-government had the ability to build upon its soft power-resources, US-politicians were in the position to define the political agenda along their own ideas and interests, and hence, to control the outcome of the process. On an abstract level, the analysis contradicts the conventional thesis on the demise of the nation-state under the condition of globalization. On the contrary, state-driven strategies like the willing delegation of regulatory authorities to non-state actors or the so called forum shopping are getting more important.
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