Where is the governance in Internet governance?

The governance of the Internet provides one of the most important arenas in which new ideas regarding Internet studies can be applied and tested. This paper critiques the prevailing conceptualization of Internet governance. The label is routinely applied to the study of a few formal global institutions with limited or no impact on governance, but not to studies of the many activities that actually shape and regulate the use and evolution of the Internet, such as Internet service provider interconnection, security incident response or content filtering. Consequently, current conceptualizations of Internet governance inflate the presence and influence of state actors. Furthermore, they undermine efforts to understand how large-scale distributed systems in the global economy can be governed in the absence of formalized international regimes. We conclude by discussing how concepts of networked governance can be applied and extended to illuminate the study of Internet governance.