Internet Governance Institutionalization: Tensions and Trajectories

Résumé En

This paper discusses initial results of our joint project that examines the complex interactions among intergovernmental organizations and other transnational institutions and non state actors in the global Internet governance ecosystem. We highlight, as a central institutional innovation, the creation in 2006 of the Internet Governance Forum as one of the follow-ups of the UN World Summit on the Information Society, and its eight years trajectory thus far. Attention is paid to old and new categories of actors that emerged in this context, and how they have been recognized as stakeholders in the process. We particularly analyze their changing trajectories and the tensions among them, as well as those experienced internally, with regard to certain issues at the core of Internet governance, through the study of knowledge flows and power differentials over time among the different stakeholders.We focus on the specific dyad composed of IOs and the technical community; and how they have been consolidating their respective roles in Internet governance and at the same time consolidating the Internet Governance Forum itself as an institutional innovation. This paper particularly focuses on the ITU, the UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the OECD as IOs, and on the ICANN and the ISOC as technical organizations.