What Is Bottom-Up About Global Internet Governance?

This article maintains that the price for inclusion in the World Summit on the Information Society – which finally has been achieved through the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) – has been the erosion of an oppositional civil society within the summit itself. Specifically, it evaluates the development of the WGIG as a manifestation of global neo-corporatism. In doing so, the article addresses recurrent patterns within neo-corporatist policy concertation that is oriented toward satisfying neoliberal economic imperatives. The objective of this article is to provide an analysis of processes by which the diversity of interest representation that was characteristic of the first phase of the WSIS has become condensed into one agenda item focused on internet governance.