The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
The Internet and International Politics
The Internet has not undermined states
 But it has made life more complex for them
 What have its effects been on the
international system of politics?
 Some argue that it has resulted in major
changes, some in minor changes.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Political scientists and international relations
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State Sovereignty and Westphalian system
 Sharp division between international and
domestic politics.
 States the main actors in international
politics
 Autonomous within their own realms.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Internet and International Politics
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How does the Internet affect this?
Some argue that its effects are marginal
 International politics are still as they were
 Big states dominate, while small states and nonstate actors lose out
Others argue that there are major changes
 States relate to each other in different ways
 Non-state actors suddenly have new options.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Debates over the Internet and IR
In this class, we will examine the debate
 Not as easy to arrive at simple conclusions
as in the debate between cyberlibertarians
and others
 Arguments to be made on both sides
 Prof. Farrell’s view – a mixture (and
extension) of both viewpoints.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
International Relations: Refresher
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International relations has traditionally focused on
politics between states rather than politics within
states.
The realm of international politics is seen as being
fundamentally different from domestic politics
 No overarching government in the international
system – there is no world government. Instead,
there is “anarchy.”
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
The Westphalian System
International Relations Scholars usually
assume that states are sovereign.
 This is the keystone of the Westphalian
system of international politics – what IR
scholars have traditionally claimed prevails.
 Westphalian system a product of the
religious wars of the early modern period
(16th century) in Western Europe.
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Cuius regio, eius religio
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Principles of Westphalia
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Non-intervention – states don’t intervene in each
other’s internal affairs. The key attribute of
sovereignty
Lack of hierarchy in international affairs – no
over-arching authority whom states have to obey.
Territoriality – i.e. political system defined by
clear borders between territories.
Each population only has one ruler (very different
from mediaeval Europe).
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
States and the International System
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Under the Westphalian system, states seen as the
only legitimate or genuinely powerful actors in
international politics.
International politics is mostly about force or the
threat of force.
Only states have armies.
Other actors seen as mostly irrelevant because
they don’t have access to military power.
Cannons were seen as the ultima ratio regem (the
final argument of kings).
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Dividing national and international politics
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Westphalian system has a clear division between
domestic politics and international system.
International politics is what states do among each
other.
Domestic politics is what takes place within
national borders.
Not much interaction between the two
(international system isn’t driven by domestic
events).
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
The Internet and International Politics
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What does the Internet have to do with all of this?
Some (Kobrin) argue that the Internet has
fundamental implications for the international
(Westphalian) system.
Others (Goldsmith and Yu) argue that politics in
the international realm is still going on as before;
i.e. states dominate.
Others still (Farrell) focus on new emerging stateprivate actor relations of authority, or on strange
new forms of governance (Mueller).
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Back to the future?
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Kobrin’s argument – we are getting back to
something a little like the system that existed in
Europe before Westphalia.
i.e. to something like the old Holy Roman Empire.
No empire as such
 But more complicated political relationships
and allegiances
 New role for non-state actors in international
politics.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Subverting Westphalia
Internet, in Kobrin’s view is key to this – it
subverts the basic principles of Westphalia.
 (1) The Internet breaks down the distinction
between international and national politics.
 (2) The Internet subverts the principle of
territoriality.
 (3) The Internet creates new possibilities for
non-state actors in international politics.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
The Internet and the International Realm
The Internet breaks down the relationship
between domestic and international politics.
 What is domestic and what is international
in the Internet? No real way to say.
 Internet means that domestic and
international policy get confused.
 Domestic policy choices have
international implications and vice-versa
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Territoriality and the Internet
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Territoriality gets subverted by Internet.
Political choices made by one state may have
serious implications outside its borders.
If one state permits gambling operations, or
pornography vendors to set up websites on its
territory, then citizens of other countries will be
able to access these websites even if they are
illegal in those other countries.
As discussed last week, some limits to this – but it
still poses new problems.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Organizing private actors
Internet allows new possibilities to nonstate actors.
 Can use the Internet to organize more easily
and thus affect international politics.
 Internet allows them to communicate more
easily, and to re-organize rapidly, without
any hierarchical command structure.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Implications for Westphalia
Kobrin (and others) thus argue that the
Internet is making international politics
much more complicated.
 May lead to major changes.
 Political allegiances of individuals may shift
as power shifts.
 New concepts of citizenship may be needed.
 (Or, alternatively, we might see a return to
the Dark Ages).
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
The Empire Strikes Back?
Might be a return to old imperial system
where individuals had multiple and complex
loyalties.
 New political spaces created that would
transcend national boundaries.
 Need for something to replace old system –
which isn’t tackling global problems
anyway.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Or business as usual?
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However, some arguments that the Internet’s
effects on state power are modest at best
(Goldsmith and Wu).
No evidence of a major shift in the international
system.
States are still the dominant actors in international
politics.
And according to Goldsmith and Wu, this is a
good thing ...
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
G&W’s claims: Sovereignty not under threat
State power not being undermined by
Internet (last week’s lecture).
 States are making the key choices over how
the Internet should be governed, just as in
other policy areas.
 Are firmly in control of their fates – not
about to be squashed by a technological
juggernaut.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
G&W’s claims: States and private actors
Argument that private actors can use the
Internet to elude states doesn’t hold up.
 States (as discussed already and to be
discussed in more detail in the Chinese
case) have many options if they want to
stop people from using Internet illicitly.
 The Internet isn’t one vast, undifferentiated
space.
 Instead, it has cultural and legal and
technological barriers that divide it.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
G&W – Cultural Barriers
Cultural barriers – people don’t necessarily
want to cross borders.
 Internet users in Tokyo will typically want
local news in Japanese, in Seattle, local
news in English, in Paris, local news in
French etc.
 So they may not want to venture too far
beyond their national boundaries on a
regular basis.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
G&W – Legal Barriers
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Legal Barriers - Different countries have different laws.
They also tend often to respect each others’ laws
(principle of comity, rules governing choice of law etc).
They also tend to press private actors to obey their law
(rather than the law of another country) if it’s in a matter
that directly affects their citizens.
This might be irrelevant if countries or individuals
couldn’t detect where Internet users were located.
But it’s possible to figure this out, with a bit of technical
wizardry.
Result: Different national laws can co-exist, as they do
in the regular legal system.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture 4
G&W: Technical Barriers
To be discussed in later class.
 Various means that states can use to block
people from accessing outside content,
including IP-blocking, content filtering etc.
 Usually possible for sophisticated users to
bypass these restrictions.
 But everyday users may find this more
difficult.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Implications of Goldsmith and Wu’s argument
The international system is more or less as
it always was.
 States dominate.
 Non-state actors have a minor role, if any
 A major change in the basis of international
politics (of the sort that Kobrin proposes) is
extremely unlikely.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Evaluating arguments – Farrell’s Take
Both arguments have some plausible
elements.
 Internet has only just arrived – it will be a
long time before we can really arrive at firm
judgements about what it means.
 But there are weaknesses to both arguments
– and a possible third alternative.
 Examine 4 brief case studies.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Example 1
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WTO protestors
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
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“Battle for Seattle” and subsequent rounds of
protest in Genoa saw new use of Internet by
protestors.
On the one hand, little to no central organization
(lots of different groups and people who just
showed up).
On the other hand, highly effective coordination.
Succeeded in getting some politicians to listen to
their opinions.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
But…
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WTO protestors never presented a serious challenge to the
power of states.
Indeed, without state actors to address their demands to,
they would have been completely powerless to effect
change.
In a certain sense, they affirmed the power of states as
much as they challenged them.
States can block them from assembling.
Result: unclear whether states or private actors are
prevailing in this area.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Example 2: Blogs in Iran
Blogs present another interesting example.
 Iranian blogs played an important role in
hosting democratic debate.
 Hundreds of thousands of Iranians blog –
unlike many countries in its region, it didn’t
impose strong Internet censorship until very
recently.
 However, it did censor the press heavily,
with the result that many journalists became
bloggers.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Blogs in Iran Today
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However, blogs and web pages have seen much
heavier censorship in the last two years.
The figure responsible in the Iranian government
boasted that 10 million websites were being
censored.
Possible to circumvent these barriers – but it’s not
clear that many people bother.
Suggests that in this area states are winning.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Example 3: Online Terrorism
Terrorist organizations have made extensive
use of the WWW.
 Original fears of attacks on US servers
etc have proved unfounded up until now.
 But the Internet is a potent recruiting tool.
 Terrorist organizations use websites, videos,
podcasts to get their message across and
avoid censorship.
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The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Combatting Online Terrorism
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Hard for states to stamp out terrorist websites
without massive censorship effort.
Often are only available through private access
and encrypted.
Use security vulnerabilities to host themselves on
other people’s servers.
 Including Arkansas State Highway Dept
computers.
Or use newsgroups at Yahoo, Google etc.
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Example 4: The Yahoo! case
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The Yahoo! case (described in Goldsmith and Wu
reading).
Yahoo! auctions allowed people to buy and sell
Nazi paraphernalia.
This is illegal in France – so activists took Yahoo!
to court in France.
The French court ruled that Yahoo! had to ensure
that French people didn’t have access to Nazi
materials.
Yahoo! protested – but effectively complied.
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Yahoo! and international politics
This shows how Internet regulation
increasingly involves not only negotiation
between states – but bargaining between
states and private actors.
 Yahoo! was worried that France would
impose fines.
 Effectively ended up imposing France’s
preferences – even on customers who didn’t
live in France.
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The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
States v. private actors in international system
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These cases provide mixed results – no universal
support either for claim that states are able to do
whatever they want (Goldsmith and Wu) or that
new forms of governance are appearing (Kobrin).
Instead, each approach does well in explaining
some cases, and not so well in explaining others.
Is there a way of reconciling these arguments?
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Reconciling the two
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Farrell’s take – these problems can partly be resolved
through a careful examination of what is happening.
States often continue to drive international politics.
But as the border between international and national
politics becomes more blurred, they find their policies
clashing more often.
In these circumstances, states’ effective ability to carry out
policy will often depend on their ability to influence
private actors.
Where states have appropriate levers, they can control
private actors’ choices.
Where not, they can’t.
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
States and private actors
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Reidenberg (an optional reading) points to how
states are increasingly using private actors to
achieve their policy goals.
They can use private actors as intermediates or
proxies to achieve goals that they cannot achieve
directly.
Leads to a new – and interesting – form of
international politics as states struggle for
influence over private actors.
Easier for states to influence big actors with assets
under their control than small actors whose assets
they can’t easily touch.
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
New politics
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What does this mean? Some important
implications flow from this.
(1) That states’ ability to get what they want in
Internet regulation will often depend on their
ability to influence private actors.
(2) That where states disagree, those states with
more influence over the relevant private actors
will tend to win.
(3) That some actors will be more vulnerable than
others to states’ influence.
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Implications for the US
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This has some interesting implications for the US.
On the face of it, the US should be the most powerful
player – it has the biggest markets.
But very often it has deliberately given up the sticks
that it could use to force private actors to do its
bidding.
Why?
 Influence of e-commerce firms and of libertarians
on early debates over Internet and law.
 Both pushed strongly for self-regulation rather than
traditional law.
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Results
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In areas where US has introduced strong laws that
provide real sticks to use against private actors, it
has usually been pretty successful in influencing
international debates.
 Security questions (passenger traffic data)
In areas where it has gone for self regulation
instead, it has been a lot weaker.
 Freedom of speech on the Internet
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Passenger Data
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US had a big fight with Europe (which is perhaps
about to erupt again, over privacy and airline
passenger data
US wanted access to data on passengers flying
from Europe for security reasons.
 Passed a law post September 11 requiring
airlines to provide this data
European privacy law forbade this.
Question – would the airlines obey US or
European law?
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Strength of US
In this case, US managed to prevail over
Europeans.
 Airlines made it clear to the Europeans that
they would comply with US law, not
European law.
 Faced much more serious penalties
 Europeans had little choice but to negotiate
an agreement on terms highly favourable to
the US
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Freedom of Speech
But in freedom of speech, US has opted
primarily for a self-regulatory approach.
 Because of attraction to self-regulation.
 Also difficulties of regulating speech
thanks to First Amendment.
 This has meant that the US has had
difficulties in encouraging spread of its
values worldwide.
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The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Weakness of US
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US government has made it clear that it believes
freedom of speech is in its broad commercial,
political and security interests.
 (albeit with a little bit of hypocrisy as is typical
of states acting in their own interests)
But has few positive incentives to offer to Yahoo!,
Google etc, nor much in the way of negative ones
either.
Result – these firms tend to defer to authoritarian
regimes as best fits their commercial self-interest.
The Politics of the Internet – Week Four
Political Choices
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Finally, as Mueller suggests (assigned reading), this means
that the future governance of the Internet isn’t necessarily
the inevitable result of state power, as Goldsmith and Wu
seem to suggest.
Instead, it’s at least in part the result of political choices.
Goldsmith and Wu’s ideal world has some problems, even
if it allows diverse choices across states.
Would we be better off having an uniform regime in at
least some areas of policy?
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
What we have learned
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International politics – traditional views.
 Westphalian system of state sovereignty
 Sharp distinction between domestic and international
levels of politics.
Two different view of how the Internet affects this.
 (1) All will change – Internet has profound
consequences for international system.
 (2) All stays the same – States are in control of the
process – no change to international politics.
 (3) Farrell’s approach –states are still in control, but
they often need to work through private actors.
The Politics of the Internet – Lecture Four
Next week’s readings.
What are the forces that people say are
changing electoral politics (Wired reading)
 What are the limits to these forces (Johnson,
Schmitt)
 What is the role of blogs both in politics and
the media (Drezner and Farrell)
 Nb – you only need to skim the statistics
section in the Drezner and Farrell article.
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