[Maarten Van Horenbeeck] [International Relations and Political Science]
The Internet and its influence on state sovereignty
Maarten Van Horenbeeck
maarten@daemon.be
Abstract
This paper argues that there is some truth to the commonly coined decline of state
sovereignty hastened by the Internet, but for a reason not often covered by other
analysts. The paper reviews, by taking a broad review of literature in the field, the
basic tenets of the concept of state sovereignty, and evaluate existing claims of its
erosion and/or strengthening due to globalization. The paper will then briefly
review the impact the Internet, and in particular the way it is governed, has had on
state sovereignty. It will show, using a number of examples, that there is a clear
control gap between national governments and the Internet. As on-line public space
grows, this is bound to result in the nation state surrendering some of its traditional
principles, unless states take excessive measures such as the blocking of Internet
sites. The paper reviews an example of a state taking action on this to recover some
of the lost terrain, and of how international law contributes to increasing the
acceleration the reduction in national sovereignty.
Keywords: Sovereignty, internet, internet governance
Sovereignty of the state
Hirst and Thompson narrate Max Weber when they state that "the distinctive
feature of the modern state is the possession of the monopoly of the means of
violence within a given territory". While this may have been the origin of state
sovereignty, they quickly explore other roles for the modern state: providing public
health services or national education in exchange for taxation, or managing the
national economy. Nonetheless, they argue that without the threat of war, the state
becomes less significant to the citizen. They also show that as we move into a
complex and pluralistic system, where transnational companies and organizations
have more power, the rule of law will become more important. They state that "in
the sphere of administrative regulation, 'gaps' between jurisdictions are fatal to the
certainty and security necessary for actors in a commercial society, for they allow
the unscrupulous to evade their own obligations and to violate others' rights" (Hirst
and Thompson, 1995).
Perritt finds that while globalization, and the Internet in particular, is often
considered a threat to sovereignty, it can also serve to strengthen national and
global governance. He argues that information technology, such as radio and
television is often used by authoritarian leaders to control and influence the
behavior of their population. Acknowledging that the Internet poses specific risks,
due to its global availability, low barrier to entry, and difficulties in blocking it at a
national level, he notes three particular potential forces the Internet can contribute:
"strengthening international law", "strengthening economic interdependence",
"empowering non-state actors" and "improving international security mechanisms"
(Perritt, 1998). By creating a more integrated, international market in which
international players can operate, the network of states can become safer and more
stable, thus guaranteeing the freedom and sovereignty of states, with only minimal
casualties in domestic power.
Globalization can also have more mundane, "low politics", consequences on the
strength of the state. Kriesi, Grande et al. denote that globalization will result in
likely winners to be entrepreneurs in traditionally open industries, and losers to be
entrepreneurs in traditionally closed industries. Both types of participants in the
domestic economy are represented by particular political parties. For instance,
social democrats tend to be focused on economic demarcation (opposition to EU
integration) with high cultural integration, whereas the right tends to be focused on
economic integration and cultural demarcation. They show that unbundling of
boundaries will paradoxically strengthen the "losers" by giving them more political
power to protect their constituency. Hence globalization does not only directly
affect sovereignty, for instance by transferring historically national services (e.g.
mail & shipping) to international corporations, but also by transforming the
domestic political environment, which will then influence the speed with which
these changes affect the state.
The rise of the Internet
In 1999, Sassen published a comprehensive review of the influence the Internet was
having on sovereignty. She identified a discrepancy between considering the impact
only of the "public digital space", noting that in fact, private digital networks were
quickly having the greatest influence on sovereignty, through accommodating
globalization of financial markets. She also noted that the growth of commerce
online was not just democratizing, but could also create new forms of inequality-
hinting that individuals may once again look for the protection of minorities the
state can offer, online (Sassen, 1999).
This is interesting, as protecting minority space online moves beyond the original
role of the state, transforming the principle of "monopoly on violence" to a
"monopoly of enforcement of law"- especially in cases of freedom of speech, or
protection of minority opinion.
Evans states that Nettl in 1968 argued that "stateness" -the institutional centrality
of the state- varies between nations. Evans argues that while in the days of Nettl,
alternatives to the state were elements which today would be considered to be part
of it, such as the legal system or political parties. Today, Evans indicates, alternatives
to the state are private sector organizations who commit to international trade. And
in this, he argues that international trade tends to be associated with an "increased
role for the state rather than a diminished one", mainly by compensating for the loss
of direct control by growing the public sector in charge of managing it. Freund and
Weinhold (2004) showed that the "internet stimulates trade" by identifying a
positive correlation between the number of web servers and growth in exports.
Combining both arguments, the internet clearly opens up a country's economy,
resulting in greater opportunity but also greater risk, which in turn promotes a
larger public sector to manage this risk.
On the other hand, there are also voices stating that some level of control is in fact
lost by states due to the Internet. Smith and Smythe evaluated the impact of the
Internet on a failed attempt to negotiate the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
(MAI) within the OECD countries in 1995-1998. They performed an evaluation of
the presence of organizations communicating on the MAI online, and found that "the
campaign against the MAI poses a serious challenge to international trade
negotiators and politicans" (Smith and Smythe, 1999). While they found the Net "not
to be a panacea for all that ails citizenship", they did find trade negotiators would
have issues proceeding behind closed doors with an agreement, as had been the
case before the internet's explosive growth.
The Internet also opens up opportunities towards so-called "transnational
democracy". Delbruck describes this as the process of denationalization, and "of a
resulting public authority which is no longer exercised within clearly defined
territorial entities" (Delbruck, 2003). In other words, part of the former national
authority is now managed by a number of supranational organizations. Bohman
(2004) performed a critical analysis of the concept, and found that in particular
applied to the Internet, while it is logically expected that electronic democracy
reduces intermediaries, it actually may add some, giving, or taking control from the
parties in a communication. Bohman uses the example of a forum, but any
organization offering Internet services, such as Facebook, Google or Hotmail today,
would meet his definition. Bohman argues that it is not a given that the particular
democratic intermediaries today (such as the national government) lose their
representative power- though he acknowledges it as one possible outcome. As a
counterexample he notes the possibility for "directly deliberative institutions" to
arise, noting a number of examples in the European Union decision-making
processes. In this world view, sovereignty of the national government could both be
reduced or strengthened, depending on its approach.
Internet Governance
But some hints towards a loss of control can be found in the way the Internet itself,
as a tool of globalization, is organized.
The governance of the Internet is implicitly international: the national government
is generally not involved in deciding what services are available within the
boundaries of a state. In fact, any decision to render a service unavailable requires
specific blocking by the national government. Blocking is technically difficult, and
requires participation of a number of service providers.
In 1998, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was
formed to manage the IP addresses and domain names used to access Internet
content. While a private organization, ICANN was originally authorized under an
agreement with the United States Department of Commerce (Weinberg, 2000).
ICANN then sub-delegates to national organizations using the so-called country code
top level domain system, in which for instance .fr is delegated to France. A national
government can, in many but not all cases, decide to intervene in contact in the .fr
name space, but has no control over the more popular .com namespace. The United
States government, on the other hand, could technically impact both .fr and .com
name spaces through law enforcement pressure on ICANN.
Historically, issues have arisen with regards to this dominant US control over the
Internet. Given technical operations for the Internet are run by a US-based
corporation, domestic law allows the United States to intervene in the operation of a
web site, whereas a national government does not have similar ability to intervene
in sites hosted in the United States.
As a result, in 2002 ICANN created a "Government Advisory Committee" or GAC,
which contains representation of all national governments. While the GAC only has
an advisory role, ICANN must respond to each concern raised by the organization
(Kumar and Mowshowitz, 2006).
Realizing the importance of the "information society", the United Nations organized
the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Unique about this event is
that it took a multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance- inviting civil
society and nongovernmental organizations to participate in the debate on how
governance of the information society is to take place (Zehle, 2012). Van Eeten notes
that this process addressed few of the issues which had led to its inception. The
United Nations subsequently developed the Internet Governance Forum, which in
his words are a "non-threatening, non-binding venue for multi-stakeholder
dialogue" (Van Eeten, 2012).
Technical control over much of Internet infrastructure is today still in the hands of
the ICANN, the engineers in the IETF and to a lesser degree telecom regulation in the
International Telecommunications Union and its World Conference on International
Telecommunications (WCIT) conference. The ITU and WCIT, previously a venue to
discuss technical arrangements with regards to phone and telefax communications,
was in 2012 seen as a forum to discuss Internet decision making- yet changes
proposed by numerous countries which would enable it to become one were
dissented by a number of countries including Australia and the United States
(Ackerman, 2012).
IGF, on the other hand, enables everyone to convene and raise important issues in
the way the Internet is developed. While direct influence and action is not an
outcome of the IGF conferences, they allow multi-stakeholder debate to take place,
and ideas to be exchanged. Ideas expressed at the IGF are publicly made available,
and now have the ability to influence the debate in very real ways. A small look at
mainstream topics for the next IGF conference in Istanbul indicate strong civil
society interest in "locally created content", "child online protection", "affordable
Internet access" and "communications surveillance and its impact on human rights"
(IGF, 2014).
These developments indicate that intrinsically, hard, realist "power" on the Internet
is not evenly distributed. Most decision-making is in the hands of the United States
Government, through its indirect control over the ICANN organization. Some
decisionmaking is in the hands of the International Telecommunications Union,
which is governed by all states. While inroads have been made to enable
governments to become involved in the decision-making process, most of these
consist of meritocracies which involve multiple stakeholders, and not just states.
The Internet: a special place with unique laws?
Internet governance raises the question whether the Internet is a "special" place,
subject to "unique" rules developed by a multi-stakeholder group, in which civil
society can play a large role. Or, whether, on the other hand, it is a place in which
domestic laws uniformly apply in a way similar to physical life.
If truly a "special place", it enables it to be a prime place of open discussion,
unfettered by government access controls, and less subject to national law, which
fits in well with organizations attempting to change the status quo, such as the
Global Justice Movement.
The Global Justice Movement, "a diverse collection of groups that focus on a wide
range of social issues, from poverty, the environment, sexual politics, and corporate
greed to human rights, the AIDS epidemic, labor rights, and the perils of capitalism"
criticizes modern supranational institutions such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank,
and often proposes alternatives to neoliberal capitalism (Boykoff, 2006). The goals
of the Global Justice Movement are often not in line with the views of the state in
which parts of it operates. Having a "special" public commons unregulated by
national law would significantly help it in propagating its message.
An early example of such networked dissent was the Chiapas uprising in Mexico,
which took place in 1994. At that time, an undisputable local movement, the Ejercito
Zapatista de la Liberacion Nacional (the "Zapatistas", or EZLN) occupied several
towns in the state of Chiapas. While the initial response of the government was
violent, this behavior quickly altered as international NGO's were mobilized using
the Internet and network technology (Froehling, 1997). Given the limited impact the
government had on the Internet, news on the events could quickly and easily spread
abroad. Froehling notes that "Social space is continually produced, reproduced and
contested"- in the case of the Internet he particularly finds that "Territories (states)
are no longer the building blocks of international relations; they are questioned and
constantly restructured. States and nations are produced by a variety of converging
flows of capital, of goods, of migrants, and of information". When the state no longer
controls information flows, it inherently loses some control.
A logical question to ask are what steps governments have taken to remain in
control of their own destiny, and whether they have attempted to limit information
flows to enable them to maintain full control over their decisions.
One example of a strong government response is China, which employs "central
government control of access to foreign web pages" (Harwit and Clark, 2001).
Harwit and Clark note that while the government aims to limit access to certain
foreign content, especially of a political nature, and require local providers to police
their own sites for such banned material, certain controversial topics apparently are
allowed to be discussed in an unfettered manner. They specifically list out political
debate related to the 1999 Chinese embassy bombing in Yugoslavia. They also note
that some of this discussion does have influence on Chinese policy. Hence China
appears to maintain some control, while permitting dialogue in other situations
where it is convenient or otherwise deemed acceptable.
Another, more international example of government interest in banning material
was the "Innocence of Muslims" video which was released onto Google's Youtube in
September of 2012. Given the provider of the video was an American company, and
it did not immediately take action, there were a number of international requests to
both Google and the United States government to remove the content, which was
considered blasphemous in many countries. On September 17 th , the Pakistani
government even went as far as to block access to Youtube altogether (Ghosh,
2012).
As Hirst and Thompson noted earlier, a universal law system is important where
"gaps arise between jurisdictions". Aswad evaluated the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, a treaty signed to which 167 states are a party, and found
that international law did not require the United States to take down "blasphemous
content". While certain discussion, such as inciting war, is directly prohibited by the
treaty, there were no provisions which applied to the Innocence of Muslims video.
Aswad refers to a 2011 resolution adopted by consensus in the UN General
Assembly, with support of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which
"encourages states to speak out against intolerance, train government officials in
effective outreach strategies, enforce anti-discrimination laws, engage in education
and awareness building, promote inter-faith dialogue, and counter illicit religious
profiling" (Aswad, 2013). According to Aswad, this implies that states recognized
sufficient tools were available in the international toolbox to deal with defamation
of religions. Pakistan's response to the incident seems to imply that these tools may
still be considered insufficient.
Counter argument: the tension between internet access and control
The variety of examples, points and counterpoints clearly indicates that there is no
clear and logical outcome on whether state sovereignty is strongly affected by the
growth of globalization, and the Internet in particular. However, this variety of
views indicates that much of the outcome truly is the result of conscious policy
making.
A country, such as the example of China, may decide to maintain a strong level of
control by blocking parts of the internet. However, unless the country has a very
strong economic draw, this is likely to affect the economy. Countries with extreme
policies in this respect, such as North Korea, where as late as 2002, internet access
was still illegal (Hachigian, 2002), will maintain vast amounts of control, but will
miss out on significant economic opportunities.
On the other side, a country which reduces its level of control, will not be able to
effectively respond to citizen outreach, and will need to resort to universally
accepted countermeasures such as those listed in the 2011 UN Human Rights
Council resolution A/HRC/RES/16/18, which encourages governments to speak
out. While these are likely to have some effect, the effect will be less than in the case
of more authoritarian levels of control which removes or avoids exposing the
content altogether.
Given the complexity, many policy changes are untested, and additional work is
recommended to take place to evaluate specific policy solutions, and their outcome
on strengthening, or weakening, national sovereignty. Given unequal growth
numbers in internet access across the world, there may be an opportunity here to
identify different policy decisions, and evaluate their outcomes. This could be the
work of a further study.
Conclusion
This paper first identified the Internet as a conduit of globalization. It then showed
how the Internet is only partially governed at a national level- while national
governments have some control over content in their jurisdiction, they have little
control over content published outside of their country and broadcast towards a
domestic audience. On the other hand, US domestic law can have a significantly
wider impact on Internet content simply through its control over key infrastructure.
While the Internet may be seen as a "special place" which is not subject to domestic
legislation, this view is dependent on location, applicable law, and the government
which aims to intervene.
Finally, the paper illustrates how the Internet, while having a clear impact on a
domestic audience, is beyond the control of most governments. This lack of control
supports the ideal of many in the Global Justice Movement of the Internet as a
"special place" which can be used to influence domestic policy abroad. As
governments often lack the tools to effectively react, this creates a "gap in
jurisdiction" which enables activists to leverage the network to limit the actions a
state may take in response to activist activity.
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