Conceptualising Regulatory Change - Explaining Shifts in Telecommunications Governance

Drawing on perspectives from telecommunications policy and neo-Gramscian understandings of international political economy this paper offers an explanation and analysis of the shifting patterns of regulation which have been evident in the telecommunications sector in recent years. It aims to illustrate, explain and explore the implications of the movement of regulatory sovereignty away from the nation-state, through regional conduits, to global organisations in the crystallisation of a world system of telecommunications governance. Our central argument is that telecommunications governance has evolved from a regulatory arena characterised, in large part, by national diversity, to one wherein a more convergent global multilayered system is emerging. We suggest that the epicentre of this regulatory system is the relatively new World Trade Organisation (WTO). Working in concert with the WTO are existing well-established nodes regulation. In further complement, we see regional regulatory projects, notably the European Union (EU), as important conduits and nodes of regulation in the consolidation of a global regulatory regime. By way of procedure, we first explore the utility of a neo-Gramscian approach for understanding the development of global regulatory frameworks. Second, we survey something of the recent history – and, in extension, conventional wisdom – of telecommunications regulation at national and regional levels. Third, we demonstrate how a multilayered system of global telecommunications regulation has emerged centred around the regulatory authority of the WTO. Finally, we offer our concluding comments.