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 "I have never read a more astute analysis of how information technology and governments together have globalized every economy, producing winners and losers aplenty. Insights--like the importance of modularity and the power of ideas--abound. This is a must-read for technology business leaders who deal with government and for government officials who want their nations to succeed in world competition. A tour de force!" --Reed Hundt, former Chairman, FCC
Innovation in information and communication technology (ICT) fuels the growth of the global economy. How ICT markets evolve depends on politics and policy, and since the 1950s periodic overhauls of ICT policy have transformed competition and innovation. For example, in the 1980s and the 1990s a revolution in communication policy (the introduction of sweeping competition) also transformed the information market.
Today, the diffusion of Internet, wireless, and broadband technology, growing modularity in the design of technologies, distributed computing infrastructures, and rapidly changing business models signal another shift. This pathbreaking examination of ICT from a political economy perspective argues that continued rapid innovation and economic growth require new approaches in global governance that will reconcile diverse interests and enable competition to flourish.
The authors (two of whom were architects of international ICT policy reforms in the 1990s) discuss this crucial turning point in both theoretical and practical terms, analyzing changes in ICT markets, examining three case studies, and considering principles and norms for future global policies.
About the Authors
Peter F. Cowhey, a former senior FCC official, is Dean of the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Communications and Technology Policy at the University of California, San Diego.
Jonathan D. Aronson is Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication and the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California.
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Hardcover: 368 pages
Authors: Peter F. Cowhey and Jonathan D. Aronson, With Donald Abelson
Publisher: The MIT Press (February 15, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0262012855
ISBN-13: 978-0262012850
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
I The Infl ection Point
1 The Next Revolution in Global Information and Communication Markets 7
2 The First Two ICT Eras 19
3 Modularity at the Infl ection Point 43
4 Modularity and Innovation 65
5 The Political Economy of the Infl ection Point 95
II A Theoretical Interlude
6 Theory before Policy 129
III Three Dimensions of Global Market Governance
7 Trade and the Global Network Revolution 149
8 Wireless Infrastructure 175
9 Internet Governance 207
Summary and Conclusions (with Donald Abelson) 233
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INTRODUCTION
As 2009 nears, the world is in a time of gloom and panic. Will global governance and the global economic order survive? In retrospect, some saw the collapse of the dot com bubble as a portent of the fi nancial meltdown and the collapse of confi dence in the future. In the United States there is a dour bipartisan consensus that escalating special interest politics, budget defi cits, economic insecurity in the midst of more consumption, environmental and energy policy gridlock, and deep uncertainties about nationalsecurity strategy point to intractable problems in the design and conduct of public policy. In other countries the specifi c bill of complaints may differ, but a similar uneasiness is widespread.
Although we can gripe as well as anyone about the world’s follies, this book is more upbeat. Since World War II, a planet-straddling information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure has created a global information economy at an ever-accelerating pace. A radically different model for competition and public policy for this infrastructure was introduced that is far sounder than its predecessor. More remarkably, countries agreed to rewrite the basic international agreements governing commerce for the communications and information infrastructure in a way that makes more sense than the consensus that was forged immediately after 1945. ...
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