How Revolutionary is the Revolution?

Politics, Markets, and Technology in the Evolution of the E-conomy™

Wed 2-5

How revolutionary is the Internet revolution? Is a new E-conomy™ emerging that poses distinct political and policy issues? Is the explosion of information networks, and the Internet in particular, changing the political economy of the advanced countries. A range of faculty from Berkeley and elsewhere will be joining the dialogue and beginning collaborative work on these questions.

This course will explore the literature on the political economy of the Internet to determine what matters, what may be researchable, what the policy choices -- and hence political debates -- will be. In part the course is intended to review and evaluate the quality of our knowledge about concepts like "the information society" and "the knowledge economy." Are these phenomena significant– are they likely to alter the character of the advanced countries? What do we really know, how do we know it, what important questions remain unanswered, and how might they be researched.

The course will ask:

What is the nature and scope of the Internet Economy?

What are the uses and who are the users? Partly this is a matter of which uses are driving the deployment of the new information infrastructure. It is also a matter of asking, how are information technologies changing the organization and culture of familiar institutions, both in the private sector (corporations) and the public sector (libraries, universities, governments)?

What are the political issues for the US, including competition policy, international policy, and intellectual property policies?

How do information policies differ among nations, how do they compete, and how are differences resolved?

Are these changes so fundamental that our basic concepts and methods of policy, politics, planning, and theory have to change?

These questions will be explored in four blocs of weekly topics.

Bloc I. What is meant by a "Digital Economy," by "E-Commerce," by "Information Society"? Do the changes brought about by information technologies require distinctly new concepts and methods of analysis or raise new kinds of political questions requiring new institutions? We will approach these questions by placing the "The Internet Economy" within the comparative historical perspective of the emergence of other communications technologies in the last century, and the policy and planning strategies that evolved to regulate them: the telegraph, the telephone, and broadcast media.

Bloc II. What forces have driven the evolution of Internet technologies? What has been the role of government? What uses and users now constitute the Internet economy? How is this mutual relationship reinforcing itself, as new technologies attract new users, and new users influence the trajectory of technological innovation? We will approach these questions by current case study research.

Bloc III. Policy and Politics. What policy issues are driving political debate as policy begins to frame the E-conomy™? The policy questions include national and international legal regulations such as intellectual property, competition policy, and issues of information rights and ethics?

Bloc IV. Do information technologies create the need for new political and social theories or even new answers to old questions. What issues would engage a modern Marx or Weber? When do nation states matter in a (supposedly) borderless economy? Can one plan or direct radical technological change?

Students will be expected to undertake one substantial research project.

Enrollment will be limited and will require consent of the instructor. Preliminary syllabus available after November 28. If possible arrange a discussion with the instructor before the first class.