The project will argue that policy-makers as well as academics so far have focused too narrowly on the economic efficiency (or problem-solving capacity) of specific institutional arrangements when dealing with problems of Internet Governance. Since these arrangements represent the link between the demand and the supply of global governance, they must primarily be politically efficient , however, assuring that all parties involved see their interests addressed in a balanced manner.

With respect to ICANN, it can be shown that the US-government – through its rhetoric of private sector-self regulation –, and ICANN itself – by making use of the concept of a global public-private partnership – systematically advance the centralization of regulatory power in their own hands. Because the US-government has to gain the continued agreement of at least another actor of adequate political weight in order to claim legitimacy for its ICANN-model, it entered into a series of institutional compromises with the European Union.

In the face of the ever increasing number of actors with an interest in the field of Internet Governance, though, this strategy of negative coordination precludes any sustainable political equilibrium from emerging, be it on an intergovernmental or a transnational level.

As can be seen from recent events at WSIS, dramatic regulatory failures tend to produce calls for more regulation, with little assessment of the underlying reasons for failure. To find a way out of the current impasse, it is necessary for ICANN to move beyond the shadow of the US-government and to embrace a more multilateral framework. Due to its decentralized architecture, to govern the Internet it is only possible with the consent of the governed. This opens the road to a well-balanced public-private partnership where technical matters can be left to the market and political matters be discussed within the applicable international fora.

The Reform of the Domain Name System and the Role of Civil Society, Presentation given at the 3rd Workshop of the Transatlantic Information Exchange Service (TIES)Paris, 6-7 April 2000.

Marc Holitscher, 1999: The Internet as a Tool for Global Communication, in: Swiss Political Science Review 5 (1): 115-120.