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Contesting and Legitimating the Norm of Internet Freedom on the Global Stage: The Freedom Online Coalition as a Norm Entrepreneur

Cyber Politics
Human Rights
International Relations
Freedom
Global
Internet
Mariëlle Wijermars
Maastricht University
Tetyana Lokot
Dublin City University
Mariëlle Wijermars
Maastricht University

Abstract

As the internet evolved, the practices and institutions that enable its functioning grew increasingly complex. This complexity necessitated greater involvement of various stakeholders, such as the private sector and civil society, alongside state institutions, in key debates and decision making around preserving a free and open internet. While multistakeholderism became a core feature of modern internet governance, multifaceted threats to the global, open internet have occasioned the “return of the state”. National powers are reasserting control over the normative meaning of a “free internet”, but also over the limits to this freedom. While, over the past three decades, the global norm of internet freedom became widely accepted, the various subnorms that cohere to constitute internet freedom have been continually contested by various actors across a variety of regional and global arenas. These ongoing contestations are complicated by the evolving infrastructures underpinning the internet itself, and the changing degrees of power and influence held by the broad range of stakeholders involved in the global debate. Our project examines how and why the norm of internet freedom has changed over time and the global politics of its promotion and contestation. It studies four types of actors – civil society, states and international organizations, the private sector, and technological and academic communities – which act as “norm entrepreneurs” (Finnemore & Sikkink 1998). As Radu et al. (2021) note, internet governance is a complicated domain where norm entrepreneurs play a key role in norm development and contribute to ongoing “normfare”. The paper presents a case study of one previously unstudied norm entrepreneur, the Freedom Online Coalition. Founded in the Netherlands in 2011 “to advance internet freedom” globally, this growing coalition of states defines its mission as being “proactive” in shaping “global norms to promote a rules-based, democratic, and inclusive world where human rights and fundamental freedoms are upheld in online and digital contexts.” Having grown to 41 member states since its creation, the FOC is regularly represented at various global governance fora. We ask: What role has the FOC played in norm contestation around internet freedom? We analyse the establishment of the FOC, its aims, and how it has developed over time. Combining qualitative content analysis of FOC documents (programmes of action, meeting minutes, statements) with interviews, we analyse how the coalition functions as a platform for norm contestation, consolidation and legitimation, and how the cluster of norms it captures under the notion of internet freedom has evolved. As states grow increasingly assertive in promoting more sovereigntist understandings of how the internet should be governed, we pay particular attention to the (changing) notion of multistakeholderism promoted by the FOC. In structuring our study, we draw upon the constructivist international relations theory of norm contestation (Wiener 2014; Niemann and Schillinger 2017; Sandholtz 2019) and scholarship on internet governance and cyber norms (DeNardis 2012; Flensburg and Lai 2021; Radu et al., 2021).