From Cyber-Libertarianism to Neoliberalism: Internet Exceptionalism, Multi-stakeholderism, and the Institutionalisation of Internet Governance in the 1990s

Although it is often taken for granted that Internet governance should employ the principle of multi-stakeholderism and that existing governance structures are not suitable for the regulation of the Internet, this article places the emergence of such principles in the context of the 1990s. Drawing on international political sociology and neo-Gramscian scholarship, it explores how different elites were able to coalesce around basic principles of Internet governance to create the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). These principles were the common elements of distinct discourses and were instrumental in the unification of a power elite. They also helped to create a hegemonic discourse that was acceptable to a broader public. Based on the study of policy documents produced during the debates that led to the creation of the ICANN, this article outlines five different discourses on Internet governance and focuses on the principles of multi-stakeholderism and Internet exceptionalism as basic elements of a hegemonic discourse. The study of the origins of these principles in the 1990s can shed light on their status in current debates.