Sovereignty in the Information Age

Cyrus Farivar, Milton Mueller, Samuel S. Visner | World Politics Review | 2009-09-03

By undermining traditional notions of sovereignty, the revolution in information and communication technologies has radically transformed the nature of relations between states, states and non-state actors, and states and their citizens. WPR examines Sovereignty in the Information Age.

Information Technology's Challenges to Global Governance 
By Samuel S. Visner
Is modern information technology changing what we can expect of actors in the international political system? Is it creating new actors, and presenting new issues of policy and security? Specific answers have yet to fully emerge. But we have a responsibility to define national and international security interests in cyberspace and to develop the tools to pursue them.

Internet Content Regulation and the Limits of Sovereignty
By Milton Mueller
Questions over Internet content regulation confront free societies with an unpalatable dilemma: to either systematically re-border Internet communications; or to develop a global system of content regulation. The problem remains intractable until one questions the inevitability of state sovereignty over Internet-based expression.

Iran's Long History of Online Opposition
By Cyrus Farivar
In the weeks following the Iranian election, Internet users around the world found themselves glued to their computers, while Iranians inside Iran suddenly found themselves transformed into accidental citizen journalists, passing on information through Twitter, Facebook and other social networking Web sites. This explosion of online activity could not have happened were it not for Iranians' long experience with government constraints on technology.

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