Organizational Structure and Functions of The Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)

Author(s):  
Torsten Bettinger ◽  
Volker Greimann

Although the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is responsible for the management and the creation of rules with respect to a key global issue of the twenty-first century, it sets up its organizational structure and legitimating basis in a way that differs significantly from the political and organizational schemes that were used to solve similar global phenomena in the past. In terms of its organizational form, ICANN is neither an intergovernmental organization (IGO), nor a classic non-governmental organization (NGO) with individual or institutional members, but a new, unprecedented type of a private transnational organization which represents various types of stakeholders from around the world, and is made up of elected and appointed representatives of institutions, numerous ‘advisory committees’, ‘constituencies’, and ‘supporting organizations’ (SOs).

Author(s):  
Robert B. Perks

For decades, oral historians and their tape recorders have been inseparable, but it has also been an uneasy marriage of convenience. The recorder is both our “tool of trade” and also that part of the interview with which historians are least comfortable. Oral historians' relationship with archivists has been an uneasy one. From the very beginnings of the modern oral history movement in the 1940s, archivists have played an important role. The arrival of “artifact-free” digital audio recorders and mass access via the Internet has transformed the relationship between the historian and the source. Accomplished twenty-first-century oral history practitioners are now expected to acquire advanced technological skills to capture, preserve, analyze, edit, and present their data to ever larger audiences. The development of oral history in many parts of the world was influenced by the involvement of sound archivists and librarians. Digital revolution in the present century continues to influence oral history.


Author(s):  
David A. Hamburg ◽  
Beatrix A. Hamburg

The growing destructive capacities of humanity make this the prime problem of the twenty-first century. How we cope with this problem will have a profound bearing on the world of our grandchildren. The twentieth century was the bloodiest ever. World War II caused at least 50 million deaths. Six million died in the Holocaust. At Hiroshima, one bomb caused 100,000 deaths. Now thousands of such bombs (smaller and more conveniently transportable tactical bombs) are housed in Russia. Many are poorly guarded, susceptible to theft and bribery. Others may be made elsewhere. Danger increases with the number of such weapons existing in the world.Why? There is a greater chance of error, theft, and bribery—and ultimately their use in war or terrorism. Therefore, we should diminish the numbers as much as we can and secure responsible stewardship for those that remain. Moreover, there are still thousands of nuclear weapons that are far more powerful than the smaller tactical weapons. Biological and chemical weapons are easier to make than nuclear warheads and therefore have special appeal to terrorists. Small arms and light weapons now cover the world wall-to-wall. They include highly lethal machine guns, mortars, automatic rifles, and rocket launchers. Altogether, the destructive capacity of humanity is almost beyond imagination. Moreover, there is an exciting effect of today’s vast weapons on political demagogues, religious fanatics, and ethnic haters—and plenty of them exist in the world. Incitement to hatred and violence can occur with radio, TV, the Internet, and many other media. Thus, we can more powerfully incite violence, utilize more lethal weapons, and do much more damage than ever imaginable before. No group is so small or so far away as to prevent it from doing immense damage anywhere. The time has come to move beyond complacency, fatalism, denial, and avoidance. We must urgently seek to understand and strengthen an array of institutions and organizations that have the capacity to use tools and strategies to prevent deadly conflict. The first author (D.A.H.) considered many such possibilities in his recent book, No More Killing Fields: Preventing Deadly Conflict. Overall, this gives humanity a greater range of possibilities than ever before for building a system for preventing war and genocide. It will not be easy.


Author(s):  
Rabi S. Bhagat ◽  
Annette S. McDevitt ◽  
B. Ram Baliga

Organizations that function across dissimilar nations and cultures are known as global organizations. Their origins may be in any of the globalized countries of the World Trade Organization as well as other supernational systems that coordinate activities of the United Nations and similar organizations. Global organizations are everywhere, and their growth has been phenomenal since World War II. Managing them effectively requires in-depth knowledge of the political and economic geography in which they operate. Along with such knowledge, managers must also discern the underpinnings of cultural and technological developments in their strategic planning and implementation. A few decades ago, an interdisciplinary perspective was not regarded as crucial in understanding the functioning of global organizations. However, in the complex and dynamic era of globalization, an interdisciplinary perspective is crucial. This book adopts this perspective and integrates the often conflicting and dynamic perspectives in a fashion that sheds light for understanding the nature of global organizations in the twenty-first century.


2015 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoff Mann

Thomas Piketty has offered, and many have desperately snatched at, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money of our epoch. Piketty’s affinity with John Maynard Keynes and his groundbreaking 1936 landmark is largely unreflexive. But the ties that bind him to Keynes are powerful, and manifest themselves at many levels in Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The epistemology, the political stance, the methodological commitments, and the politics resonate in imperfect but remarkable harmony. This is no accident, because the world in which Piketty’s book appeared is saturated with the specifically capitalist form of anxiety that Keynes sought to diagnose, and fix, the last time it made the richest economies in the world tremble.


Author(s):  
Eduardo Araya Moreno ◽  
Diego Barría ◽  
Gustavo Campos

Due to the importance that the Internet has gained as a means of communication, literature on political communication has incorporated it as one of its preferred topics of focus. Literature stems almost entirely from Europe and the United States. Very little is known about the political use of new information and communication technologies (NICTs) in other parts of the world. The present chapter aims to provide evidence in that line, starting from the study of the incorporation of the Chilean political parties to the Internet. In specific, the following questions are answered: In what extent do factors such as the organizational characteristics of the political parties explain their greater or lesser adoption of NICTs? What do parties use NICTs for? Furthermore, although briefly, the authors will try to answer the question whether the parties have experienced change in their interaction with the citizenry and their bases because of the usage of NICTs.


2019 ◽  
pp. 171-195
Author(s):  
Ahmed Youssry ◽  
Brett Winklehake ◽  
Jaime A. Lobera

Developing countries around the world strive to implement one of the several current models of microfinance. This study focuses on two models: Grameen Bank, which is considered the change factor for the microfinance field, and Kiva.org, an organization that understood the importance of the Internet and crowdfunding to create a different model of microfinance. The purpose of the study is to analyze these two models and determine which would be more suitable for application in Egypt. This study provides a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis), a financial analysis, and a structural analysis, as well as historical background for both organizations along with a scan for the political, economic, social, and technological infrastructure in Egypt to determine the most suitable microfinance model.


Author(s):  
Bruce Rocheleau

Many information management and generalist managers ignore the political aspects of managing information systems. But this chapter shows that political factors are often the most crucial in determining how successful information technology is. The purpose of the chapter is to provide awareness of the political context of information systems decisions. The political aspects of computing are discussed with respect to two major categories: (1) Internal, organizational politics concerning issues involving organizational members; (2) External politics concerning how the governmental organization relates to its councils or boards, external groups, and general citizenry. Several examples of internal politics are given including the structuringof the information function, the purchasing of information systems, interdepartmental sharing of information, and communication flows. External examples of politics are given concerning relationships with legislatures and citizenry such as disputes over funding, computer disasters, privatization, the Internet and telecommunications planning. <BR>


Author(s):  
Adriane Figueirola Buarque de Holanda ◽  
Cynthia H. W. Corrêa

Initially, studies on policy and the internet considered websites as spaces for the propagation of political and electoral marketing. However, this proposal presents a different perspective regarding the internet as a space for building the identity of political parties with their diverse audiences: cross-party and intra-party. The chapter is divided into three parts: the first deals with politics and the internet focusing on the theory of equalization and normalization to match the political game between major and minor parties. Thus, to understand the organizational structure of the parties, the theory of the parties of cadres and masses is offered. Also, to deepen this discussion, the selective and collective incentives that are part of the genetics of political parties are treated. As the results, the website serves as an instrument of communication of the party, divulging the objectives, the internal disputes between the different factions, and the way the party works.


2004 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 15-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Hart

What might an anthropology of the internet look like? It require a combination of introspection, personal judgment and world history to explore the universe of cyberspace. This world is not sufficient to itself, nor is it 'the world'. People bring their offline circumstances to behaviour online. The virtual and the real constitute a dialectic in which neither can be reduced to the other and 'virtual reality' is their temporary synthesis. Heidegger's metaphysics are drawn on to illuminate this dialectic. Before this, the internet is examines in the light of the history of communications, from speech and writing to books and the radio. The digital revolution of our time is marked by the convergence of telephones, television and computing. It is the third stage in a machine revolution lasting just 200 years. The paper analyses the political economy of the internet in terms of the original three classes controlling respectively increase in the environment (land), money (capital) and human creativity (labour). It ends with a consideration of Kant's great example for a future anthropology capable of placing human subjectivity in world history.


2002 ◽  
Vol 170 ◽  
pp. 477-502
Author(s):  
Christopher R. Hughes

Any source that provides insights into the view of the world from the Ministry of Information Industries (MII) is particularly valuable at a time when debate is raging over the political impact of the Internet in the PRC. This is even more so as China joins the WTO, after which domestic Internet firms will have to gain approval from the MII before they can receive foreign capital, co-operate with foreign businesses or list domestic or overseas stocks.


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