The Net and the Nation State
Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Internet Governance

Can the nation state survive the internet? Or will the internet be territorially fragmented along state boundaries? This book investigates these questions.

Uta Kohl (Edited by)

9781316507612, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 December 2018

320 pages, 12 b/w illus. 6 maps 1 table
23 x 15.3 x 1.6 cm, 0.47 kg

This collection investigates the sharpening conflict between the nation state and the internet through a multidisciplinary lens. It challenges the idea of an inherently global internet by examining its increasing territorial fragmentation and, conversely, the notion that for states online law and order is business as usual. Cyberborders based on national law are not just erected around China's online community. Cultural, political and economic forces, as reflected in national or regional norms, have also incentivised virtual borders in the West. The nation state is asserting itself. Yet, there are also signs of the receding role of the state in favour of corporations wielding influence through de-facto control over content and technology. This volume contributes to the online governance debate by joining ideas from law, politics and human geography to explore internet jurisdiction and its overlap with topics such as freedom of expression, free trade, democracy, identity and cartographic maps.

1. Introduction. Internet governance and the resilience of the nation state Uta Kohl and Carrie Fox
Part I. Competing Narratives: 2. The universal norm of freedom of expression - towards an unfragmented internet: interview with Guy Berger
3. Which limits on freedom of expression are legitimate? Divergence of free speech values in Europe and the US Jan Oster
4. Nation branding and internet governance: framing debates over freedom and sovereignty Melissa Aronczyk and Stanislav Budnitsky
Part II. Solid and Porous Cyberborders: 5. Gatekeeping practices in the Chinese social media and the legitimacy challenge Lulu Wei
6. Protecting gamblers or protecting gambling? The economic dimension of borderless online 'speech' Christine Hurt
7. Where East meets West: censorship and cyberborders through EU data protection law Uta Kohl and Diane Rowland
8. Cyberborders through 'code': an all or nothing affair? Dan Jerker B. Svantesson
9. Cyberborders and the right to travel in cyberspace Graham Smith
Part III. Unpacking Internet Jurisdiction: 10. Alternative geographies of cyberspace Barney Warf
11. Polycentrism and democracy in internet governance Jan Aart Scholte
12. The end of territory? The re-emergence of community as a principle of jurisdictional order in the internet era Cedric Ryngaert and Mark Zoetekouw
13. A space (partially) apart? Religious asylum and its lessons for online governance Philippe Ségur
14. Geoinformation, cartographic (re)presentation and the nation state: a co-constitutive relation and its transformation in the digital age Georg Glasze.

Subject Areas: IT & Communications law [LNQ], Entertainment & media law [LNJ], Constitutional & administrative law [LND], Laws of Specific jurisdictions [LN], Law & society [LAQ], Jurisprudence & general issues [LA], Law [L], Political control & freedoms [JPV], Central government [JPQ], Ethical issues: censorship [JFMD]