This article argues that the United States (US) has been able to exploit the international market dominance of US-based internet companies in order to internationalise state power through surveillance programmes conducted by national security and law enforcement agencies. The article also examines the emerging threat to the US from China, which is attempting to establish 'geo-economic space' for its own internet and technology companies. As Chinese companies become more competitive, they threaten both the commercial dominance of US companies as well as the geopolitical power of the US state. Furthermore, the US has concerns that the entrance of Chinese companies into its own market, specifically Huawei, could make it susceptible to the 'internationalised' power of China -such as Chinese state surveillance. In response, the US has sought to shrink the 'geo-economic space' available to Huawei by using its firms, such as Google, to disrupt Huawei's supply chains.
In recent years, jurisdictions have struggled to address the emergence of “sharing” businesses, such as Uber. These businesses have used technology to avoid the regulations that usually apply to industries, such as taxis. By applying a historical institutionalist analysis, this article explains how authorities have responded to these companies. Through a detailed case study of Uber's presence in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States, the article makes an empirical contribution by illustrating how regulatory regimes have responded to “disruptive” technology. Furthermore, by applying an exogenously induced and endogenously mitigated model of change the article addresses the bifurcation in historical institutionalist literature between exogenous and endogenous accounts of change. This helps develop historical institutionalism theoretically, responds to criticisms of agent-based approaches and advances a model that can be applied to the study of technological change more generally.
The internet industry has emerged as an important economic and political actor, both within the United States and internationally. Internet companies depend on exceptions from copyright law in order to operate. As a result, internet companies have considerable incentive to try and influence international copyright law. However, the current literature has neglected the role of the internet industry, instead focusing on the influence of copyright owning media companies. This has largely homogenized the concerns of business interests, neglecting the interests of business actors which do not favor stricter copyright protection. By examining business conflict over recent copyright initiatives by the United States, this article criticizes the literature. It illustrates that the internet industry has been able to alter the negotiating preferences of the United States against the wishes of copyright owners. This argues against the homogenization of business interests regarding copyright while illustrating the importance of material over discursive factors in determining political outcomes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.