The new politics of the internet: Multi-stakeholder policy-making and the internet technocracy

The internet is often viewed as a primarily technical project, centered on information and communication technologies (ICTs).1 However, from its initiation in the 1970s as the U.S. Department of Defense’s Arpanet project (e.g., see Leiner et al., 2003) a “politics of the internet” has shaped its development. In its early phases, this was governed primarily by an internet technocracy: technical experts and constituencies, with financial support. Oversight was provided from the U.S. government, which generally took a hands-off approach to its operation and technical evolution albeit with the potential to intervene.