The Geopolitical Economy of the Global Internet Infrastructure

According to many observers, economic globalization and the liberalization of telecoms/internet policy have remade the world in the image of the United States. The dominant roles of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have also led to charges of US internet imperialism. This article, however, argues...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of information policy (University Park, Pa.) Pa.), 2017-02, Vol.7, p.228-267
Main Author: Winseck, Dwayne
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
geopolitics
global internet infrastructure
global political economy of communication
Government
Law
Public Policy
role of the state
submarine internet cables
telecoms and internet policy
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Summary:According to many observers, economic globalization and the liberalization of telecoms/internet policy have remade the world in the image of the United States. The dominant roles of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have also led to charges of US internet imperialism. This article, however, argues that while these internet giants dominate some of the most popular internet services, the ownership and control of core elements of the internet infrastructure—submarine cables, internet exchange points, autonomous system numbers, datacenters, and so on—are tilting increasingly toward the EU and BRICS (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and the rest of the world, complicating views of hegemonic US control of the internet and what Susan Strange calls the knowledge structure.
ISSN:2381-5892
2158-3897
DOI:10.5325/jinfopoli.7.2017.0228