Brazil, China and Internet Governance (original) (raw)
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Converging on the Future of Global Internet Governance: The United States and Brazil
center for 21st century security and intelligence latin america initiative iii Acknowledgements We would like to thank those who supported the research and production of this report. In particular, we benefited from the advice and insights of experts on internet governance from around the globe, but we are particularly grateful for the candid conversations we had with our colleagues during field research in Brazil. We also appreciate the thorough and substantive comments made by peer reviewers on
Internet Governance in a Post-Snowden Brazil
CANABARRO, D. R. ; BORNE, T. Internet Governance in a Post-Snowden Brazil. In: ISA Annual Convention, 2015, New Orleans, Estados Unidos. ISA Conference Archive, 2015, on line. Despite of the central role the Internet plays in cyberspace-related matters, it was only when Edward Snowden brought light to American-led digital espionage programs that Internet governance and cybersecurity agendas definitely converged. The Snowden Affairs increased the entropy within the broader Internet ecosystem and reignited political tensions that revolve around the US prominence within the narrower arena of critical Internet resources. In this context, many countries have shown great concern regarding the governance of the Internet, and Brazil has gained a prominent role in the debate. This paper (a) summarizes the concerns arisen from Snowden's leaks and their general impacts over the Internet governance ecosystem; (b) details the Brazilian domestic and international approaches to Internet governance focusing on landmark documents and events; and (c) connects the Brazilian efforts to the institutional development of global Internet governance. In the end, the paper reflects upon the implications of alternative thinking for Internet governance pointing towards possible shifts within it.
Stakes are High: Essays on Brazil and the Future of the Global Internet
2014
This workbook seeks to provide some background to the Global Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance (NETmundial) scheduled for April 23rd and 24th 2014 in São Paulo, Brazil. It is designed to help outline the internet policy issues that are at stake and will be discussed at NETmundial, as well as background on internet policy in Brazil. The workbook includes essays on the history of the NETmundial meeting and the Marco Civil process in Brazil; some background on the environment in Germany—with particular attention to the link between the meeting and the Snowden case; questions of legitimacy surrounding open processes for lawmaking; and comments on the material presented to the organizing committee by official and unofficial commenters. This workbook was produced as a part of the Internet Policy Observatory, a program at the Center for Global Communication Studies, the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. It was edited and curated by a steering ...
Despite of the central role the Internet plays in cyberspace-related matters, it was only when Edward Snowden brought light to American-led digital espionage programs that Internet governance and cybersecurity agendas definitely converged. The Snowden Affairs increased the entropy within the broader Internet ecosystem and reignited political tensions that revolve around the US prominence within the narrower arena of critical Internet resources management. In this context, many countries have shown great concern regarding the governance of the Internet, and Brazil has gained a prominent role in the debate. This paper (a) summarizes the concerns arisen from Snowden's leaks and their general impacts over the Internet governance ecosystem; (b) tracks the policy actions undertaken by Brazil in the issue-area of Internet governance both before and after Snowden; and (c) details how Brazil seized the Snowden Affair as an opportunity to promote its broader political agenda internationally, fostering a more democratic and pluralistic Internet governance worldwide. In the end, the paper reflects upon the prospects for change in global Internet governance after the US government announced its intention to relinquish its privileged position vis-a-vis critical Internet resources. BORNE, Thiago; CANABARRO, Diego. The Brazilian Reactions to the Snowden Affairs: Implications for the Study of International Relations in an Interconnected World. Conjuntura Austral, v. 6, n. 30, 2015, p. 34-49.
Internet Governance from a Global South Perspective
The research intends to contribute to the academic debate regarding Internet governance from a Global South perspective. Of particular interest for the research are the organizational arrangements the Internet governance has on the global level and how the legitimate oversight of some central Internet resources have contemporaneously posited challenges to the way governance is imagined and constructed on a transnational scale. Basic questions in this regard are how and who should rule the Internet? This implies different conceptions on which agents —national States, civil society, intergovernmental organizations, technical organizations and so on— have or should have the legitimate power to regulate the Internet and under which organizational regulatory schemes or bodies. In this aim, the research pays attention, in Chapter II, to the origins of the Internet as a transformative information and communications technology. Later on, the definition and evolution of Internet Governance are addressed in Chapter III. For this aim, an introductory approach is set by an overview of the paradigms of Global Media and Communications Policy (GMPC). Further, the definition and evolution of the term ‘Internet governance’ is advanced on a theoretical level; in its technological aspects with an emphasis on the political and regulatory issues the term brings about; and finally, analyzing the role of Nation-states, intergovernmental organizations, technical organizations and civil society around the topic. For the chapter regarding Internet governance, it is crucial to outline a description of one of the central and most controversial technical regulatory organizations of the Internet, that is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The corporation is of special interest due to the political struggles it had brought about in the past 15 years; mainly regarding its linkages to the US government and its organizational structure. Being a global Internet regulatory organization, it has been the locus for many debates around legitimacy and representation. ICANN has an organizational structure referred to as a Multi-stakeholder model (MSM). The understanding of the MSM is fundamental for the contemporary debate about Internet governance because as an organizational arrangement, it can take different shapes and forms depending on which actor advances it. Hence, Chapter IV tackles the rise of the MSM at the inter-governmental level, specifically, at the World Summit on Information Society (2003-2005) and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF); subsequently, the MSM is addressed in its conceptual framework with its respective problématiques and criticism. Chapter V depicts three main stances taken by nation-states —and other agents— regarding the shape and organizational arrangements the Internet governance should have. Categorized in 'Cyber-sovereignists', 'Status quo advocates' and 'Moderate approach advocates', the chapter presents the different proposals of particular states or group of states since 2011, mainly at intergovernmental fora. The second section of Chapter V portrays the role of Brazil regarding internet governance, chiefly by its involvement as a leading organizer and host of NETmundial, a Global Multistakeholder meeting on the Future of the Internet, held in São Paulo on April 2014. NETmundial had as chief objectives the elaboration of a set of international principles for the Internet governance and to outline a road-map for the future developments of the internet governance ecosystem. The outcomes of the meeting are addressed in its successes but also in its shortcomings. The latter, taking particular consideration to a comparison between the Brazilian national experience on regulating the Internet; the outcome document of NETmundial, the São Paulo statement; and the international context provided by Edward Snowden's leaks. Finally, in Chapter VI the conclusions depart from a critical perspective regarding the overall current situation of the Internet governance regulatory arrangements and proposals. Deriving out of a Global South perspective, understood as a paradigm that can broad the Internet governance debate regarding which model should be implemented, we suggest a more comprehensive, inclusive and participatory Multistakeholder Model for the global Internet Governance.
Internet Governance in the Global South
Internet Governance in the Global South, 2018
Extract from the Preface: The publication is divided into two parts. The first part concentrates on a number of historical and theoretical or conceptual approaches to Internet Governance. The second part has a strong focus on contemporary debates concerning selected issues of the field. The historical and theoretical contributions are initiated by a discussion regarding the Global South as a region, its historical formation in the context of decolonization, the debates on the New International Economic Order (NIEO), the New International Information and Communication Order (NIICO), and the political turn to a neoliberal agenda in which Internet Governance was developed (Oppermann). The challenges of Southern countries to participate politically and economically in this environment are then addressed and contextualized through different theoretical frameworks including International Political Economy and global International Relations, combined with a discussion on strategies and ambitions of countries in the Global South to advance their own insertion in Internet Governance (Chenou, Rojas Fuerte). Internet Governance itself as a concept from a historical perspective, including processes of institutionalization, is then addressed by Canabarro, together with a discussion of the NetMundial meeting in Brazil as a consequence of the Snowden revelations and the NSA affair. The extensive global surveillance of Internet users including governments and other organizations by the USA and some of their allies in other parts of the world increased the debates on online privacy and also on topics including power, influence and global constellations that brought questions about new forms of colonialism on the agenda. Colonization in the digital age is a topic of growing importance, especially but not only in the South, and so is the discussion on decolonization. Emanating from the debate on decolonial computing, Ali is addressing Internet Governance and the need for its decolonization. He does so by critically analyzing the North-centric discourse of Internet Governance, thus bringing a new perspective to the debates. He is then followed by Gonzales, who develops a theoretical debate on ideology, the information revolution and its impacts on and correlations with a number of manifestations that occurred in several countries in the year 2011, including Egypt, Tunisia, and others. The debates on historical and theoretical approaches are then followed by contributions on contemporary Internet Governance issues in the Global South. This part is initiated by two chapters discussing economic and political challenges related to the Domain Name System in Southern countries. While White is discussing generic top level domains and ICANN’s new gTLD program in the Global South, Aguerre is focussing on the ccTLD environment in the South, in particular in Latin America. They are followed by a chapter on South Africa’s policy framework on ICT and Internet Governance, mostly represented by the 2016 ICT White Paper, which in combination with the 2015 draft cybersecurity bill forms the current foundation for many Internet Governance debates in the country. In this context, the three authors (Darch, Adams, and Yu) also reflect on the questions of governmental control, multilateralism, and multistakeholderism as forms of governance and participation. The following chapter picks up the topic of participation in Internet Governance processes, albeit from a different perspective. Lobato addresses the problem of regional inequality within countries, pointing out the situation of less connected rural areas in Amazonia, in the North of Brazil. She discusses central aspects like infrastructure, access costs, and digital illiteracy and also presents possible solutions for regional integration like access programs and major national events in the regions like the Brazilian Internet Forum which took place in the North of the country in 2013. How lower national access rates are no obstacle for putting the Internet on the national political and security agenda is then clarified by Workneh and the case of Ethiopia. With a national Internet access rate of about 15% and confronted with infrastructural challenges to increase this number, the country is currently following an Internet securitization debate in the context of a dispute over political opposition that often falls under the label of “terrorism”. In this chapter, Workneh discusses how the Northern discourse on a so-called “global war on terrorism” impacts the right to freedom of speech online in Ethiopia and how it increases concerns over online participation and privacy rights. Privacy and participation are also addressed in the concluding chapter of this publication developed by Kemer. She discusses privacy rights in the context of International Law and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, followed by an analysis of the standpoints of the Brazilian government under Dilma Rousseff on privacy and online participation after the NSA surveillance activities were revealed.
Objectives: To study on the Internet governance and effect factors of the order of cyberspace, "multi-stakeholder" governance concept and legal rules in global Internet governance. Method: Based on the literature of Internet governance theory and open source data, this study makes a critical analysis of global gov-ernance strategies in the United States and China. Findings:Since the definition of Internet governance was explicitly determined during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in 2004, the United States have proposed the "multi-stakeholder" governance concept, whereas the global Internet gov-ernance system advocated by China believes that the mode of "multilateral and democratic intergovernmental cooperation" should be promoted under the leadership of the United Nations. The paper puts forward for the first time the three most important focal points of China and the United States in the global Internet governance system, including of formulation of legal rules, the allocation of key resources, and the management of multinational institutions. This study found that the global Internet governance should carry out the transformation from IPv4 to IPv6, DNS management and other work, to prevent the root server only in the hands of individual countries. Improvement:International organizations should promote the internationalization of the Internet corporation for assigned names and Numbers (ICANN) and the Internet corporation for assigned Numbers (IANA), avoid completely excluding government agencies, and strive to promote the common cooperation of multiple global stakehold-ers.
International Organisations Research Journal, 2021
From the perspective of power transition theory, international relations system is gradually entering the phase of "power transition" where the United States, as a global hegemon, seeks to maintain the existing world order, and China establishes alternative international formats to reorganize the system of international relations and strengthen its structural power. Cyberspace and technological sphere are becoming the field of non-violent competition between states, which makes the study of global governance of cyberspace critical for the understanding of the outlines of the "new bipolarity". The analysis in the paper is focused on U.S. & China approaches to global governance of cyberspace through the prism of Manuel Castells' theory of "network society". The authors aimed to determine the directions of the U.S. and China policy in the course of four types of "power" in cyberspace: networking power, network power, networked power and netwo...
The Contest Of Rules: US, China, Russia Rival In Setting The Norms Of Behavior In Cyberspace
The shift of cyberspace governance discussions towards a normative framework demonstrates states’ efforts to formulate ‘rules of the game.’ Recent multinational and bilateral agreements on cyberspace governance fall under the domain of non-binding soft law, in which norms agreed upon are not set in stone. As fundamental differences exist amongst individual states’ visions of cyber governance (for example views on state sovereignty in cyberspace), and with the uncertainties a rapidly developing cyberspace brings, hard laws often imply commitments that are difficult to honor. Non-binding agreements and norms leave room to maneuver as seen in the recent UN Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security report and talks between the US and China.