Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation

by Peter F. Cowhey, Jonathan D. Aronson, Donald E. Abelson (Contributor)

Innovation in information and communication technology (ICT) fuels the growth of the global economy. How ICT markets evolve depends on politics and policy, and since the 1950s periodic overhauls of ICT policy have transformed competition and innovation. For example, in the 1980s and the 1990s a revolution in communication policy (the introduction of sweeping competition) also transformed the information market. Today, the diffusion of Internet, wireless, and broadband technology, growing modularity in the design of technologies, distributed computing infrastructures, and rapidly changing business models signal another shift.

This pathbreaking examination of ICT from a political economy perspective argues that continued rapid innovation and economic growth require new approaches in global governance that will reconcile diverse interests and enable competition to flourish. The authors (two of whom were architects of international ICT policy reforms in the 1990s) discuss this crucial turning point in both theoretical and practical terms.

341 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 2009

About the author

Peter F. Cowhey, a former senior FCC official, is Dean of the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies and Qualcomm Endowed Chair in Communications and Technology Policy at the University of California, San Diego.

Reviews

[Christopher]

(Full Disclosure: One of the authors of this book was a professor of mine recently. Nevertheless, I have endeavored to keep this review as fair and balanced as possible.)

As the internet, social media, and smart phones continue to rapidly change the way we do business with and interact with the rest of the world, it can be difficult for governments, academics, and tech experts to set up rules of governance to make the playing field as level as possible or predict where the next political issue from the Web will arise. This book endeavors to apply some general norms to the understanding how governments both nationally and internationally can create rules for internet governance that promote innovation while being fair to all constituents. I wish I could say that this book would be of use to anyone interested in this complicated topic, but frankly it is not. While there are key insights in this book about how changes in the global market for internet and software services have shaped the choices available to policy makers, they are so buried underneath the technical jargon of the industry that not even a good dictionary would help you out. Admittedly, this book would only appeal to a key audience, that is tech experts and policy wonks steeped in this topic, but it holds no value for the layman who may be interested understanding the topic. Furthermore, this book was first published in 2009 and, so far as I can tell, has not been updated. Thus, some of the questions it raises and topics it discusses can be a little dated. For example, a big portion of the last couple of chapters dealt with assignment of data spectrum for 3G networks. Considering that nearly all smartphones are now firmly in the 4G camp or beyond, the discussion is clearly superfluous. In short, if you are not a tech expert or tech policy wonk, don't waste your time with this book.