438 CHAPTER ElEvEn ■ TransnaTional issues
collaboration and even virtual communal interaction on the Internet. These changes
imply an increasing role for the regulatory capacity of norms. Global governance
implies that through vari ous structures and pro cesses, actors can coordinate interests
and needs in the absence of a unifying po liti cal authority.
As noted throughout this book, the core nature of international relations has changed
over time. Perhaps the most impor tant component of that change has been variation
in the demand for governance and, in addition, a widening variety in the forms that
global governance can take. Perhaps the key example of the prob lem and potential
of global governance is the Internet.
As noted earlier, the Internet had its origins in U.S. state security as a way to increase
the resilience of communications after a nuclear attack. Yet by the late 1980s, it had
evolved into a way for researchers to share information across national and disciplin
ary bound aries. As the capacity of the Internet to carry information expanded, the types
of information that could be exchanged— images, and in par tic u lar video— expanded
as well. Yet the Internet remained almost entirely ungoverned. For many, this charac
teristic was its chief virtue. But the economic and po liti cal implications of the un regu
la ted exchange of information proved too much to remain in de pen dent of governance
or the depredations of commerce. States and private corporations began to weigh in,
particularly states whose governments depended for their very survival on control of
public access to information (for example, China, Saudi Arabia, Rus sia, Iran, North
Korea), and corporations whose technology had facilitated the Internet’s growth and
capacity (Google, Apple, Cisco). The Internet proved a double edged sword. On the
one hand, it had the potential to bring its users closer together and to dramatically
facilitate international collaboration in solving tough prob lems. On the other hand,
that same openness created vulnerabilities, which prompted states to attempt to cap
ture and regulate that openness.
What makes the Internet so impor tant as an example of a transnational issue is that
it incorporates both a horizontal component (geographic space) and vertical compo
nents (local to global and interest heterogeneity). In a way, the complexity of the Inter
net stands as a perfect meta phor for the complexity, and positive potential, of global
governance. The Eu ro pean Commission, for example, defines “Internet governance”
as “the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society,
in their respective roles, of shared princi ples, norms, rules, decision making procedures,
and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet.”^23
The implications of the Internet example for global governance are crucial. Global
governance, in its idealized form, presupposes a global civil society. The po liti cal sci
entist Ronnie Lipschutz describes the essential component of global civil society:
While global civil society must interact with states, the code of global civil
society denies the primacy of states or their sovereign rights. This civil soci