Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-8gtf8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-17T01:44:33.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Janus Face of the Liberal International Information Order: When Global Institutions Are Self-Undermining

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 February 2021

Henry Farrell  and
Abraham L. Newman
Get access

Abstract

Scholars and policymakers long believed that norms of global information openness and private-sector governance helped to sustain and promote liberalism. These norms are being increasingly contested within liberal democracies. In this article, we argue that a key source of debate over the Liberal International Information Order (LIIO), a sub-order of the Liberal International Order (LIO), is generated internally by “self-undermining feedback effects,” that is, mechanisms through which institutional arrangements undermine their own political conditions of survival over time. Empirically, we demonstrate how global governance of the Internet, transnational disinformation campaigns, and domestic information governance interact to sow the seeds of this contention. In particular, illiberal states converted norms of openness into a vector of attack, unsettling political bargains in liberal states concerning the LIIO. More generally, we set out a broader research agenda to show how the international relations discipline might better understand institutional change as well as the informational aspects of the current crisis in the LIO.

Keywords

Internetdisinformationinformation technologyglobalizationinternational liberal orderdemocracy
Type
Internal Challenges to the Liberal International Order: Political
Information
International Organization , Volume 75 , Special Issue 2: Challenges to the Liberal International Order: International Organization at 75 , Spring 2021 , pp. 333 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adler, Emanuel, and Drieschova, Alena. 2021. The Epistemological Challenge of Truth-Subversion to the Liberal International Order. International Organization 75 (2). <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000533>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adler-Nissen, Rebecca, and Zarakol, Ayşe. 2020. Struggles for Recognition: The Liberal International Order and the Merger of its Discontents. International Organization 75 (2). <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000454>.Google Scholar
Arif, Ahmer, Stewart, Leo Graiden, and Starbird, Kate. 2018. Acting the Part: Examining Information Operations within #BlackLivesMatter Discourse. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2 (CSCW): <https://doi.org/10.1145/3274289>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bach, David. 2010. Varieties of Cooperation: The Domestic Institutional Roots of Global Governance. Review of International Studies 36 (3):561–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bail, Christopher, Guay, Brian, Maloney, Emily, Combs, Aidan, Sunshine Hillygus, D., Merhout, Friedolin, Freelon, Deen, and Volfovsky, Alexander. 2020. Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency's Impact on the Political Attitudes and Behaviors of American Twitter Users in Late 2017. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 117 (1):243–50.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Benkler, Yochai, Faris, Robert, and Roberts, Hal. 2018. Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blank, Stephen. 2013. Russian Information Warfare as Domestic Counterinsurgency. American Foreign Policy Interests 35 (1):31–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boas, Taylor C. 2006. Weaving the Authoritarian Web: The Control of Internet Use in Nondemocratic Regimes. In How Revolutionary Was the Digital Revolution, edited by Zysman, John and Newman, Abraham, 361–78. Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Börzel, Tanja, and Zürn, Michael. 2021. Contestations of the Liberal International Order: From Liberal Multilateralism to Postnational Liberalism. International Organization 75 (2). <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000570>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brien, Rita Cruise, and Helleiner, Gerald K.. 1980. The Political Economy of Information in a Changing International Economic Order. International Organization 34 (4):445–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Busemeyer, Marius R., Abrassart, Aurélien, Nezi, Spyridoula, and Nezi, Roula. 2019. Beyond Positive and Negative: New Perspectives on Feedback Effects in Public Opinion on the Welfare State. British Journal of Political Science 50 (2):1–26.Google Scholar
Bussell, Jennifer. 2011. Explaining Cross-National Variation in Government Adoption of New Technologies. International Studies Quarterly 55(1):267–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Castells, Manuel. 2015. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. John Wiley.Google Scholar
Clarke, Richard A., and Knake, Robert K.. 2019. The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats. Penguin.Google Scholar
Clinton, Hillary. 2010. Internet Freedom. Foreign Policy, 21 January. Available at <https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/01/21/internet-freedom/>..>Google Scholar
Clinton, William Jefferson. 2000. Address on Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. 8 March. Available at <https://www.c-span.org/video/?155905-1/permanent-normal-trade-relations-china%5Eand%5Estart=1849>..>Google Scholar
Cohen, Jared, and Schmidt, Eric. 2013. The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. Vintage.Google Scholar
Cowhey, Peter. 1990. The International Telecommunications Regime: The Political Roots of Regimes for High Technology. International Organization 44 (2):169–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dann, Gary, and Haddow, Neil. 2008. Just Doing Business or Doing Just Business: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and the Business of Censoring China's Internet. Journal of Business Ethics 79(3):219–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deibert, Ronald, and Rohozinski, Rafal. 2010. Liberation vs. Control: The Future of Cyberspace. Journal of Democracy 21 (4):43–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deibert, Ronald J., Palfrey, John G., Rohozinski, Rafal, and Zittrain, Jonathan. 2008. Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeNardis, Laura. 2014. The Global War for Internet Governance. Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeNardis, Laura, and Hackl, Andrea M.. 2015. Internet Governance by Social Media Platforms. Telecommunications Policy 39 (9):761–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deudney, Daniel, and Ikenberry, John. 1999. The Nature and Sources of International Liberal Order. Review of International Studies 25 (2):179–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, Larry. 2010. Liberation Technology. Journal of Democracy 21 (3):69–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dobriansky, Paula. 2008. New Media vs. New Censorship: The Authoritarian Assault on Information. Remarks of Paula J. Dobriansky to Broadcasting Board of Governors, 10 September. Available at <https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=234390>. Accessed 14 September 2020..+Accessed+14+September+2020.>Google Scholar
Drake, William. 2016. Background Paper for the Workshop on Data Localization and Barriers to Transborder Data Flows 14–15 September, The World Economic Forum Geneva. Available at <http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Background_Paper_Forum_workshop%2009.2016.pdf>. Accessed 14 September 2020..+Accessed+14+September+2020.>Google Scholar
Farrell, Henry. 2006. Regulating Information Flows: States, Private Actors, and E-commerce. Annual Review of Political Science 9:353–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrell, Henry. 2012. The Consequences of the Internet for Politics. Annual Review of Political Science 15:35–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrell, Henry, and Newman, Abraham L.. 2010. Making Global Markets: Historical Institutionalism in International Political Economy. Review of International Political Economy 17 (4):609–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrell, Henry, and Newman, Abraham L.. 2014. Domestic Institutions Beyond the Nation-State: Charting the New Interdependence Approach. World Politics 66 (2):331–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrell, Henry, and Newman, Abraham L.. 2019a. Of Privacy and Power: The Transatlantic Struggle Over Freedom and Security. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Farrell, Henry, and Newman, Abraham L.. 2019b. Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Networks Shape State Coercion. International Security 44(1):42–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Farrell, Henry, and Schneier, Bruce. 2018. Common Knowledge Attacks Against Democracy. Unpublished Manuscript. Berkman-Klein Center, Harvard UniversityCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrara, Emilio. 2017. Disinformation and Social Bot Operations in the Run Up to the 2017 French Presidential Election. Available at <https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.00086>. Accessed 14 September 2020.CrossRef.+Accessed+14+September+2020.>Google Scholar
Fioretos, Orfeo. 2011. Historical Institutionalism in International Relations. International Organization 65 (2):367–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fioretos, Orfeo. 2017. International Politics and Institutions in Time. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles, Keir. 2012. Russia's Public Stance on Cyberspace Issues. In 2012 Fourth International Conference on Cyber Conflict, 1–13. IEEE.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, Jack. 2018. The Failure of Internet Freedom. Knight First Amendment Institute.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Judith, and Gulotty, Robert. 2021. America and the Trade Regime: What Went Wrong? International Organization 75 (2). <https://doi.org/10.1017/S002081832000065X>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Golovchenko, Yevgeniy, Hartmann, Mareike, and Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. 2018. State, Media and Civil Society in the Information Warfare over Ukraine: Citizen Curators of Digital Disinformation. International Affairs 94 (5):975–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greif, Avner, and David, Laitin. 2004. A Theory of Endogenous Institutional Change. American Political Science Review 98 (4):633–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gunitsky, Seva. 2015. Corrupting the Cyber-Commons: Social Media As a Tool of Autocratic Stability. Perspectives on Politics 13 (1):42–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guriev, Sergei, and Treisman, Daniel. 2019. Informational Autocrats. Journal of Economic Perspectives 33 (4):100–127.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob, Pierson, Paul, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2015. Drift and Conversion: Hidden Faces of Institutional Change. In Advances in Comparative-Institutionalist Analysis, edited by Mahoney, James and Thelen, Kathleen, 180–208. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hafner, Katie, and Lyon, Matthew. 1998. Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet. Touchstone.Google Scholar
Hansen, Isabella, and Lim, Darren J.. 2019. Doxing Democracy: Influencing Elections Via Cyber Voter Interference. Contemporary Politics 25 (2):150–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howard, Philip N. 2010. The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hussain, Muzammil, and Howard, Philip. 2013. What Best Explains Successful Protest Cascades? ICTs and the Fuzzy Causes of the Arab Spring. International Studies Review 15(1):48–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ikenberry, John. 1998/1999. Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of American Postwar Order. International Security 23 (3):43–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ikenberry, John. 2017. The Rise, Character, and Evolution of International Order. In International Politics and Institutions in Time, edited by Fioretos, Karl Orfeo, 59–75. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, Alan M., and Weaver, R. Kent. 2015. When Policies Undo Themselves: Self-Undermining Feedback as a Source of Policy Change. Governance 28 (4):441–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jiang, Min. 2010. Authoritarian Informationalism: China's Approach to Internet Sovereignty. SAIS Review of International Affairs 30 (2):71–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kiggins, Ryan David. 2015. Open for Expansion: US Policy and the Purpose for the Internet in the Post-Cold War Era. International Studies Perspectives 16 (1):86–105.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, Gary, Pan, Jennifer, and Roberts, Margaret E.. 2013. How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression. American Political Science Review 107 (2):326–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klein, Hans. 2004. Understanding WSIS: An Institutional Analysis of the UN World Summit on the Information Society. Information Technologies and International Development 1 (3-4):3–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kosseff, Jeff. 2019. The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet. Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. 1991. Global Communications and National Power: Life on the Pareto Frontier. World Politics 43 (3):336–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kurowska, Xymena, and Reshetnikov, Anatoly. 2018. Neutrollization: Industrialized Trolling as a Pro-Kremlin Strategy of Desecuritization. Security Dialogue 49 (5):345–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, David A., Martin, Lisa L., and Risse, Thomas. 2021. Challenges to the Liberal Order: Reflections on International Organization. International Organization 75 (2). <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000636>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazer, David M.J., Baum, Matthew A., Benkler, Yochai, Berinsky, Adam J., Greenhill, Kelly M., Menczer, Filippo, Metzger, Miriam J., Nyhan, Brendan, Pennycook, Gordon, Rothschild, David, Schudson, Michael, Sloman, Steven A., Sunstein, Cass R., Thorson, Emily A., Watts, Duncan J., and Zittrain, Jonathan L.. 2018. The Science of Fake News. Science 359 (6380):1094–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leiner, Barry M., Cerf, Vinton G., Clark, David D., Kahn, Robert E., Kleinrock, Leonard, Lynch, Daniel C., Postel, Jon, Roberts, Larry G., and Wolff, Stephen. 2009. A Brief History of the Internet. Computer Communication Review 39 (5):22–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Marc. 2011. After Egypt: The Limits and Promise of Online Challenges to the Authoritarian Arab State. Perspectives on Politics 9 (2):301–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacKinnon, Rebecca. 2008. Flatter World and Thicker Walls? Blogs, Censorship and Civic Discourse in China. Public Choice 134 (1–2):31–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maclean, Don. 2008. Sovereign Right and the Dynamics of Power in the ITU: Lessons in the Quest for Inclusive Global Governance. In Governing Global Electronic Networks: International Perspectives on Policy and Power, edited by Drake, William J. and Wilson, Ernest J. III, 83–126. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Thelen, Kathleen, 2009. Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCarthy, Daniel R. 2010. Open Networks and the Open Door: American Foreign Policy and the Narration of the Internet. Foreign Policy Analysis 7 (1):89–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moe, Terry M. 2005–2006. Power and Political Institutions. Perspectives on Politics 3 (2):215–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molter, Vanessa, and Webster, Graham. 2020. Virality Project (China): Coronavirus Conspiracy Claims. Stanford Cyber Policy Center, 31 March. Available at <https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/news/china-covid19-origin-narrative>. Accessed 14 September 2020..+Accessed+14+September+2020.>Google Scholar
Mueller, Milton. 2010. Networks and States: The Global Politics of Internet Governance. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, Abraham L. 2008. Building Transnational Civil Liberties: Transgovernmental Entrepreneurs and the European Data Privacy Directive. International Organization 62 (1):103–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, Abraham L., 2010. What You Want Depends on What You Know: Firm Preferences in an Information Age. Comparative Political Studies 43 (10):1286–312.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, Abraham L. 2017. Sequencing, Layering and Feedbacks in Global Regulation. In International Politics and Institutions in Time, edited by Fioretos, Orfeo, 3–36. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Newman, Abraham L., and Bach, David. 2004. Self-Regulatory Trajectories in the Shadow of Public Power: Resolving Digital Dilemmas in Europe and the United States. Governance 17 (3):387–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nocetti, Julien. 2015. Contest and Conquest: Russia and Global Internet Governance. International Affairs 91 (1):111–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orren, Karen, and Skowronek, Stephen. 1996. Institutions and Intercurrence: Theory Building in the Fullness of Time. Nomos 38:111–46.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2000. Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and the Study of Politics. American Political Science Review 94 (2):251–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pomerantsev, Peter, and Weiss, Michael. 2014. The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money. Vol. 14. Institute of Modern Russia.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam. 1991. Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Qun, Wang. 2011. Work to Build a Peaceful, Secure and Equitable Information and Cyber Space. Paper presented at the First Committee of the 66th Session of the General Assembly on Information and Cyberspace Security, 20 October, New York.Google Scholar
Rixen, Thomas, Viola, Lora Anne, and Zürn, Michael. 2016. Historical Institutionalism and International Relations: Explaining Institutional Development in World Politics. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Margaret E. 2018. Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China's Great Firewall. Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sanovich, Sergey. 2018. The Origins of Digital Misinformation. In Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media, edited by Woolley, Samuel and Howard, Philip, 21–40, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sanovich, Sergey, Stukal, Denis, and Tucker, Joshua A.. 2018. Turning the Virtual Tables: Government Strategies for Addressing Online Opposition with an Application to Russia. Comparative Politics 50 (3):435–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shao, Chengcheng, Hui, Pik-Mai, Wang, Lei, Jiang, Xinwen, Flammini, Alessandro, Menczer, Filippo, and Ciampaglia, Giovanni Luca. 2018. Anatomy of an Online Misinformation Network. PloS One 13 (4):e0196087.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shen, Hong. 2016. China and Global Internet Governance: Toward an Alternative Analytical Framework. Chinese Journal of Communication 9 (3):304–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shirky, Clay. 2008. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Penguin.Google Scholar
Shirky, Clay. 2011. The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change. Foreign Affairs 90 (1):28–41.Google Scholar
Simmons, Beth. 2011. International Studies in the Global Information Age. International Studies Quarterly 55 (3):589–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skogstad, Grace. 2017. Policy Feedback and Self-Reinforcing and Self-Undermining Processes in EU Biofuels Policy. Journal of European Public Policy 24 (1):21–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sobolev, Anton. 2019. Dictators in the Spotlight: What They Do When They Cannot Do Business as Usual. PhD diss., UCLA.Google Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen. 2003. How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative Historical Analysis. In Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, edited by Mahoney, James and Rueschemeter, Dietrich, 208–40. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tourinho, Marcos. 2021. The Co-Constitution of Order. International Organization 75 (2). <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000466>.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tucker, Joshua A., Theocharis, Yannis, Roberts, Margaret E., and Barberá, Pablo. 2017. From Liberation to Turmoil: Social Media and Democracy. Journal of Democracy 28 (4):46–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tufekci, Zeynep. 2018. The Road from Tahrir to Trump. MIT Technology Review 121 (5):10–17.Google Scholar
Wallace, Jeremy L. 2016. Juking the Stats? Authoritarian Information Problems in China. British Journal of Political Science 46 (1):11–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warren, T. Camber. 2015. Explosive Connections? Mass Media, Social Media, and the Geography of Collective Violence in African States. Journal of Peace Research 52 (3):297–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, Valentin. 2019. The Worldwide Web of Chinese and Russian Information Controls. Open Technology Fund working paper series. Available at <https://www.ctga.ox.ac.uk/files/theworldwidewebofchineseandrussianinformationcontrolspdf>.Google Scholar
Wu, Tim. 2017. The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads. Vintage.Google Scholar
Zuboff, Shoshana. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. Profile Books.Google Scholar
Zuckerman, Ethan. 2015. Cute Cats to the Rescue? Participatory Media and Political Expression. In Youth, New Media and Political Participation, edited by Allen, Danielle and Light, Jennifer, 131–54. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar