Panel at the 6th ECPR General Conference, 25-27 August 2011 in Reykjavik, Iceland

Information Governance: Transformations and its Drivers?

 

Knowledge and information have become key assets in contemporary societies. Their growing political and economic importance goes hand in hand with various attempts, both on the national and the international level, to regulate the production, distribution, and exploitation of information and knowledge. From an analytical perspective information governance takes place at two Layers: infrastructure and access. The management of domain names, certificates, and national, international or transnational data links is located at the infrastructure layer. Intellectual property rights, data protection and freedom of information are access issues.

On both layers governance structures are in flux and numerous conflicts have developed around issues of internet governance institutions, broadband infrastructure, propertization of information and access to knowledge. The current debates about net neutrality or the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) are only two examples of political conflicts about the direction in which information governance should evolve.

The intention of the panel is to bring together scholars doing research on specific aspects of internet governance, telecommunication policies, privacy and intellectual property rights to discuss their findings within the broader framework of information governance. The objective is to explore conceptual links between these various areas and to contribute to a political science approach to information governance.

 

We invite papers that focus on actors, actor coalitions or regulatory practices, driving the transformation processes and present case studies of current or historical transformations, connect or compare transformation processes, or develop theoretical frameworks for analyzing governance in the knowledge society.

 

Abstracts with a maximum of 500 words should be sent by 1 February 2011 to Sebastian Haunss and Jeanette Hofmann .

 

Further information on the conference is available at: http://www.ecprnet.eu/conferences/general_conference/reykjavik/panel_details.asp?panelid=265