ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee: Hybrid Institutions & Global Governance

• In Event: Transnational Private Governance Under Stress: The Case of Standardization

Abstract

Stock-taking efforts examining the global governance literature identify hybridity and complexity as central features of contemporary global governance. However, existing scholarship is divided on how they affect the effectiveness and legitimacy of global governance. The literature also conflates hybridity with complexity. We develop a notion of institutional hybridity. A case study of the effort to create and implement a replacement for U.S. government oversight of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions finds that the hybrid nature of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and its Governmental Advisory Committee have had negative effects on the legitimacy and effectiveness of these bodies, and thus also of Internet governance more broadly. The paper concludes that, at least in some cases, complexity and hybridity in institutional forms can inhibit effectiveness and legitimacy. It then discusses some implications of this conclusion. The paper concludes by examining how these implications can be applied to studies of transnational Internet standardization processes. Like other Internet governance bodies, Internet standard-setting organizations face increased desire for participation by latecomers. These latecomers in technical standardization bodies largely overlap with ICANN latecomers, and thus the dynamics with regard to variance in understandings of procedural legitimacy may be similar as well. Chinese efforts to propose a new version of the Internet Protocol in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) are one important example. Chinese deficits in social competence in Internet standard-setting bodies, though rapidly diminishing, may inhibit the effectiveness of China’s efforts to shape the next generation of Internet and telecommunications standards despite its increasing market share in these industrial sectors.

Author

• Mark Raymond, University of Oklahoma