understanding the restructuring of national and global telecommunications
Journal of Socio-Economics, Vol. 27, No. 6, 1998, pp. 665-685.
Abstract
The old etatist order of government-administrated monopoly provision of telecommunications is presently experiencing radical changes, which seem to be deeper and broader than in any other sector. The paper examines the implications of these changes on the economic role of the state. It identifies regulation as an increasingly important mode of government intervention in the economy. The regulatory arsenal that states use to restructure global telecommunications includes new regulation, deregulation, and reregulation. The paper distinguishes two types of regulation aimed at the introduction of competition and the creation of markets: regulation-of-competition and regulation-for-competition. While the first type is a liberal form of intervention which aims to correct ‘market failure’, the second is of a mercantilist nature and aims at ‘market creation’ by the state. The critical place of reregulation-for-competition in the governance of the new telecommunications regime underlines the rise of a ‘competition state’, interpreted here as a refined and updated version of the neomercantilist state.
Keywords: political economy, telecommunications policy, information economy, liberalization, competition.