Who Will Design the Internet

• In Event: Global Governance

Abstract

This paper examines the current contention over Chinese proposals for a “New IP” (Internet Protocol) for lessons about recasting international regimes as the balance of power among first rank states changes and the balance between democratic and authoritarian states shifts in favor of the latter. Such an effort, based on different visions for the internet and whether it should be managed through a multistakeholder process or an intergovernmental one have been underway since China launched its New Internet Protocol (New IP) proposal in 2019. The Internet Protocol is the set of computer routines enabling the various user devices, internet servers, signal repeaters, and wired or wireless connections among them that carry digitized files between users. The relevant technical protocols are currently developed in a multistakeholder process managed by the Internet Society’s Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The government of China, with Chinese firm Huawei as developer of a rival protocol, leads the effort to replace current process with an explicitly intergovernmental process to be managed through the International Telecommunications Union. Adopting the proposal would convert a multistakeholder mode of regime governance into an intergovernmental one, and an internet based on a vision of "one internet" connecting everyone with a fragmented internet allowing considerably more government control over how users connect and interact.

Author

• MJ Peterson, University of Massachusetts Amherst