A groundbreaking study of one of the most crucial yet least understood issues of the twenty-first century: the governance of the Internet and its content

A compelling argument that the Internet of things threatens human rights and security "Sobering and important."--Financial Times, "Best Books of 2020: Technology" The Internet has leapt from human-facing display screens into the material objects all around us. In this so-called Internet of things--connecting everything from cars to cardiac monitors to home appliances--there is no longer a meaningful distinction between physical and virtual worlds. Everything is connected. The social and economic benefits are tremendous, but there is a downside: an outage in cyberspace can result not only in loss of communication but also potentially in loss of life. Control of this infrastructure has become a proxy for political power, since countries can easily reach across borders to disrupt real-world systems. Laura DeNardis argues that the diffusion of the Internet into the physical world radically escalates governance concerns around privacy, discrimination, human safety, democracy, and national security, and she offers new cyber-policy solutions. In her discussion, she makes visible the sinews of power already embedded in our technology and explores how hidden technical governance arrangements will become the constitution of our future.

The Internet has transformed the manner in which information is exchanged and business is conducted, arguably more than any other communication development in the past century. Despite its wide reach and powerful global influence, it is a medium uncontrolled by any one centralized system, organization, or governing body, a reality that has given rise to all manner of free-speech issues and cybersecurity concerns. The conflicts surrounding Internet governance are the new spaces where political and economic power is unfolding in the twenty-first century. This all-important study by Laura DeNardis reveals the inner power structure already in place within the architectures and institutions of Internet governance. It provides a theoretical framework for Internet governance that takes into account the privatization of global power as well as the role of sovereign nations and international treaties. In addition, DeNardis explores what is at stake in open global controversies and stresses the responsibility of the public to actively engage in these debates, because Internet governance will ultimately determine Internet freedom.

How institutions for Internet governance are emerging from the tension between the territorially bound nation-state and a transnational network society. When the prevailing system of governing divides the planet into mutually exclusive territorial monopolies of force, what institutions can govern the Internet, with its transnational scope, boundless scale, and distributed control? Given filtering/censorship by states and concerns over national cybersecurity, it is often assumed that the Internet will inevitably be subordinated to the traditional system of nation-states. In Networks and States, Milton Mueller counters this, showing how Internet governance poses novel and fascinating governance issues that give rise to a global politics and new transnational institutions. Drawing on theories of networked governance, Mueller provides a broad overview of Internet governance from the formation of ICANN to the clash at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the formation of the Internet Governance Forum, the global assault on peer-to-peer file sharing, and the rise of national-level Internet control and security concerns. Internet governance has become a source of conflict in international relations. Networks and States explores the important role that emerging transnational institutions could play in fostering global governance of communication-information policy.

The editor of this new Routledge title argues that our economic and social lives are now utterly dependent upon the successful coordination of the Internet. Moreover, as the Internet expands from its current form to an 'Internet of things', she suggests that its stability and security will soon be recognized as important as other global concerns, like battling terrorism and fighting climate change. Who controls the Internet? The question has profound implications for our access to knowledge, the pace of economic growth, and the protection of human rights, not least freedom of expression and the right to privacy. And the question's importance has been underscored in recent times by landmark events, including revelations about the actual and potential power of social-media companies, and the breathtaking extent of surveillance by intelligence and security organizations, such as the NSA in the United States and Britain's GCHQ. It is perhaps only in the last several years that issues about and around the governance of the Internet have entered the public consciousness, but serious academic and policy work dates back decades. And now there is a critical mass of scholarship that can usefully be collected under the rubric of 'Internet Governance'. Like the Internet itself, leading theorists and researchers in the field are distributed globally, and work in disciplines across the social sciences and humanities. Indeed, much of the relevant literature remains inaccessible or is highly specialized and compartmentalized, so that it is difficult for many of those who are interested in the subject to obtain an informed, balanced, and comprehensive overview. This new four-volume collection, published as part of Routledge's acclaimed series, Critical Concepts in Sociology, meets the need for a reference work to make sense of the subject's vast and dispersed literature and the continuing explosion in research output.

"In this Council Special Report, Robert K. Knake briefly examines the technological decisions that have enabled both the Internet's spectacular success and its troubling vulnerability to attack. Arguing that the United States can no longer cede the initiative on cyber issues to countries that do not share its interests, he outlines an agenda that the United States can pursue in concert with its allies on the international stage. This agenda, addressing cyber warfare, cyber crime, and state-sponsored espionage, should, he writes, be pursued through both technological and legal means. He urges first that the United States empower experts to confront the fundamental security issues at the heart of the Internet's design. Then he sketches the legal tools necessary to address both cyber crime and state-sponsored activities, including national prohibitions of cyber crime, multilateral mechanisms to prevent and prosecute cyberattacks, and peacetime norms protecting critical civilian systems, before describing the bureaucratic reforms the United States should make to implement effectively these changes." --From publisher description.

This edited volume brings together experts from around the world to provide coverage and analysis of infrastructure's role in Internet governance, both now and in the future. Never in history have conflicts over Internet governance attracted such widespread attention. High-profile controversies include the disclosures about NSA surveillance by intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, controversy over a decision by the US government to relinquish its historic oversight of Internet names and numbers, and countless cybersecurity breaches involving unauthorized access to Internet users' personal data. Much of the Internet governance ecosystem—both technical architecture and coordinating institutions—is behind the scenes but increasingly carries significant public interest implications. An area once concealed in institutional and technological complexity is now rightly bracketed among other shared global issues—such as environmental protection and human rights—that have considerable global implications but are simply incongruous with national borders. This transformation into an era of global governance by Internet infrastructure presents a moment of opportunity for scholars to bring these politicized infrastructures to the foreground.