CMDS Fellow Roxana Radu Co-Edits Special Issue of Telecommunications Policy

CMDS Fellow Roxana Radu was the lead editor of the special issue of the journal Telecommunications Policy, a collection of nine research papers on the role of norm entrepreneurship in internet governance.

This special issue is the first to systematically address “normfare, the assiduous development of norms of very different character ... by different actors ... as an answer to the wide range of challenges facing internet governance." The issue features contributions from anthropologists, technologists, political scientists, legal and communication scholars exploring how norms underpin the new ordering of the internet.

Through various theoretical lenses, contributions analyze the impact of platforms, states, civil society, expert groups and key individuals on restructuring the normative order of the internet, and present empirical evidence for instances of norm creation, legitimation, contestation and opposition. Valuable new insights for norm development processes come from case studies, ethnographies, legal and discourse analysis and interdisciplinary approaches locating agency and power plays.

The issue also features an editorial by Radu, Matthias C. Kettemann, Trisha Meyer and Jamal Shahin on the new research agenda around "normfare."