Regulating Information Flows: States, Private Actors and E-Commerce

Growing interdependence between jurisdictions means that states are increasingly using private actors as proxies in order to achieve desired regulatory outcomes. International relations theory has had difficulty in understanding the exact circumstances under which they might wish to do this. Drawing on literatures in both international relations and legal scholarship, this article proposes a framework for understanding when states will or will not use private actors as proxy regulators. This framework highlights the relationship between state preferences and the presence or absence of a “point of control,” a special kind of private actor. The article then conducts an initial plausibility probe of the framework, assessing how well it explains outcomes in the regulation of gambling, privacy, and the taxation of e-commerce.

Henry Farrell (2006), “Regulating Information Flows: States, Private Actors and E-Commerce” Annual Review of Political Science 6:353-374.

Access the full article here

Other Writing:

Essay

Weaponized Globalization: Huawei and the Emerging Battle over 5G Networks – with Abraham Newman

The US and China are engaged in a bitter fight over Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications giant. The US has blocked Huawei from its markets and is restricting its access to US technologies and suppliers that have helped it become one of the great world companies. China has responded by threatening to introduce measures against US ...
Read Article
Essay

Chained to Globalization – with Abraham Newman

Why It’s Too Late to Decouple In 1999, the columnist Thomas Friedman pronounced the Cold War geopolitical system dead. The world, he wrote, had “gone from a system built around walls to a system increasingly built around networks.” As businesses chased efficiency and profits, maneuvering among great powers was falling away. An era of harmony was at ...
Read Article