Special issue on 'Doing internet governance: practices, controversies, infrastructures, and institutions'

Monday, 25. January 2016 - 23:30

Call for papers of the Internet Policy Review

TOPIC & RELEVANCE

Internet governance is gaining attention in the post-Snowden era, which increased distrust of formal government institutions and their ‘dangerous liaisons’ with the private sector. User-driven, technology-embedded, decentralised approaches keep on seeing the light: in contracts, currency, privacy protection, just to name a few. Politics and traditional purveyors of authority negotiate ways of readjusting to the changing environment. Thus, investigating the “ordering” (Flyverbom, 2011) and governing processes as they relate to the network of networks is both timely and important.

Traditionally, when talking about Internet Governance researchers and practitioners refer to the new organisations and institutions that have been explicitly established to regulate, discuss, and negotiate issues of internet governance (e.g. ICANN, WSIS, IGF). Recently, authors have criticised this institutional focus, arguing the need for a more comprehensive conceptualisation of internet governance (DeNardis, 2012; Eeten/Mueller, 2013; Musiani, 2014; Hofmann et al., 2014). Among these recent developments, a small set of publications has drawn on perspectives from Science and Technology Studies (STS) to rethink and substantiate questions of ordering and governing the net. These contributions highlight the day-to-day, mundane practices that constitute internet governance, take into account the plurality and ‘‘networkedness’’ of devices and arrangements involved, and investigate the invisibility, pervasiveness, and apparent agency of the digital infrastructure itself (Musiani, 2014). Internet governance, in this view, is not only negotiated in dedicated institutions; the doing of internet governance more broadly consists in practices and controversies of the design, regulation, and use of material infrastructures. In this way, STS-informed perspectives are increasingly instrumental for challenging and expanding our understanding and for informing our examination of ordering and governing processes in the digital realm.

SCOPE OF THE SPECIAL ISSUE

This special issue seeks to nurture this nascent interest by pioneering a conversation on the governance of digitally networked environments from an STS-informed perspective and, more broadly, from perspectives that highlight the role of design, infrastructures, and informal communities of practice in governance.

First, this issue will touch upon how the norms shaping the provision, design and usage of the internet are negotiated, de- and re-stabilised, and subject to controversies. Second, it will open up new, STS-informed perspectives on digital uses and practices, delving into the variety of ways in which they may be an integral part of today’s internet governance -- not only because such practices reflect belonging and commitment to a community, but because they allow issues of sovereignty, autonomy and liberty to come into play. Finally, expanding the notion of governance in internet governance through the conceptual tool-set of STS may open this field to meaningful contributions from scholars studying constitutional aspects of technology design and use, which are typically excluded from traditional internet governance literature.

FOCUS OF THE PAPERS

We invite papers that share a strong conceptual interest in understanding processes of ordering and governing the internet as a core infrastructure of our daily lives. More focused paper topics may include, but in no way are limited to, the following:

• Internet governance theory: how can STS inform theoretical perspectives on internet governance?

• Controversies: how do socio-technical internet-related controversies reveal tensions and critical junctures of internet politics?

• Privatisation: what are the practices of internet governance privatisation? What does it mean for the internet as a socio-technical phenomenon?

• Unintended consequences: what are the examples of unintended consequences of technology regulation and design that affect the openness, security, and stability of the internet?

• Re-intermediation and delegation: what are the forms of re-intermediation of the “decentralised” system that is the internet? How can we study them?

• Participatory governance: how can STS help unpack the practices of “multistakeholderism” and their potential effects (or lack thereof)?

• Infrastructures and architectures as governance arrangements: how can STS-informed approaches help us unveil the power and control structures embedded in internet architecture?

Submissions must be in clearly-written English. The Internet Policy Review is an open access, short-form journal. Full papers are requested to be around 30,000 characters (5,000 words) in length, to encourage concise and parsimonious discussion of core issues.

SPECIAL ISSUE EDITORS

• Dmitry Epstein, Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago (dmitry@uic.edu)
• Christian Katzenbach, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (katzenbach@hiig.de)
• Francesca Musiani, Institute for Communication Sciences, CNRS/Paris-Sorbonne/UPMC; Internet Policy Review academic editor (francesca.musiani@cnrs.fr)

IMPORTANT DATES

12 November 2015: Release of the Call for papers

25 January 2016: Deadline for expression of interest and abstract submissions (500 word abstracts) via the form below (see under SUBMIT)

15 February: Feedback / Invitation to submit full text submissions

25 April: Full text submissions deadline. All details on text submissions can be found under: http://policyreview.info/authors

13 June: Comprehensive peer review and feedback

11 July: Re-submission deadline

5 September: Publication of the special issue

SUBMIT

About

The Internet Policy Review was established in 2013 as the first online peer-reviewed journal on internet regulation in Europe. It aims to be a resource on internet policy for academics, civil society advocates, entrepreneurs, the media and policymakers alike. It is published on a rolling quarterly basis by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin. The managing board consists of Dr Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay (ISCC/CNRS, Paris), Professor Natali Helberger (IViR, Amsterdam), Professor Jeanette Hofmann (Berlin Social Science Center WZB), Professor Martin Kretschmer (CREATe, Glasgow) and Professor Wolfgang Schulz (Hans Bredow Institute, Hamburg).