Related publication
Power and Authority in Internet Governance: Return of the State?
Current affiliation
Brock University, Political Science
Vita
since 07/2016 | Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada Department of Political Science Associate Professor |
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07/2016-06/2018 | Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada Department of Political Science Graduate Admissions Coordinator |
01/2015-06/2015 | Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada Canadian and American Studies Program Acting Graduate Program Director |
01/2015-06/2016 | Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada Centre for Canadian Studies Acting Director |
07/2012-06/2016 | Brock University, St. Catharines, Canada Department of Political Science Assistant Professor |
06/2013-08/2013 | Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) Visiting Scholar |
07/2011-02/2012 | Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Regulatory Institutions Network (RegNet) Visiting Scholar |
09/2009-04/2010 | National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Mexico-City, Mexico Centre for the Study of North America Visiting Researcher |
Research Project at the Centre
Mapping the Knowledge Structure: The Global Political Economy of Knowledge in the Digital Age
The spread of the internet and its related digital technologies into all facets of social, economic and political life, has made control over knowledge a key driver of economic and political power in the global political economy. Most of the 20th century was the era of production – “what’s good for General Motors is good for America,” as the saying went – and the current era is dominated by finance. Knowledge – rather, the control of knowledge and information – stands to become as important as production was previously and finance is now. Given that internet firms like Google, which were not even around 20 years ago, are now some of the world’s most valuable corporations, it is likely that knowledge brokers like Google and firms that control key patents, trademarks and copyrights stand to play a decisive role in global politics, economics and society. In a digital economy and society, in which the distinction between “online” and “offline” is increasingly meaningless, understanding the nature of internet governance is an essential task.
This project, undertaken with Dr. Natasha Tusikov, who will be joining the Centre from May-July 2019, explores the nature, limits and possibilities of global governance of what Susan Strange called the “knowledge structure” – that part of the political economy involving control over “the production, possession, control, communication, and ... legitimization of knowledge” (Tooze 2000). It focuses on two key and related aspects of the knowledge structure: internet governance; and intellectual property (IP) and data governance. In other words, our research focuses on the means by which information (in the colloquial sense) is communicated, and the means by which information is turned into economically and socially valuable commodities. While these issues are usually examined in isolation, in practice they are intimately related, with IP governing the content flowing over the network and internet governance setting the terms of access and use of the network itself. They need to be considered together to understand fully the contours and effects of knowledge regulation.
This project has three main research questions:
- In terms of governance, which actors are shaping the rules that govern how knowledge is created, disseminated and used in a digital world?
- What are the social (economic, political, and creative) effects of these rules?
- What representational and distributional issues are posed by the specific forms of knowledge governance currently in place, and how can these challenges best be addressed?
Our in-progress manuscript, Information Wars: Internet Governance, Intellectual Property and the Exercise of Power in the 21st Century, which addresses these issues, will serve as the focal point of our activities at the Centre.
Selected Publications
Haggart, Blayne (2018). 'New economic models, new forms of state: The rise of the 'info-imperium state', in Hanns Ullrich, Peter Drahos and Gustavo Ghidini (eds.), Kritika: Essays on Intellectual Property, Volume 3, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. |
Haggart, Blayne and Jablonski, Michael (2017). 'Contradictory Hypocrisy or Complementary Policies?: The Internet Freedom Initiative, US copyright maximalism and the exercise of US structural power in the digital age', The Information Society 33 (3), 1–16. |
Haggart, Blayne (2017): 'What is Intellectual Property?', in Mathew Callahan and Jim Rogers (eds.) Critical Guide to Intellectual Property. Chicago: Zed Books. |
Haggart, Blayne (2017): 'Introduction to the Special Issue: Rise of the "Knowledge Structure": Implications for the Exercise of Power in the Global Political Economy', Journal of Information Policy 7 164–175. |
Haggart, Blayne (2017): 'Incorporating the study of knowledge into the IPE mainstream, or, when does a trade agreement stop being a trade agreement?' Journal of Information Policy 7, 176–203. |
Haggart, Blayne (2016): 'Copyfight: Global Redistribution in the Digital Age', in Jan Aart Scholte and Lorenzo Fioramonti (eds.), Structural Redistribution for Global Democracy. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. |
Bannerman, Sara and Haggart, Blayne (2015). 'Historical Institutionalism in Communication Studies', Communication Theory 25 (1), 1–22. |
Haggart, Blayne (2014): Copyfight: The global politics of digital copyright reform. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. |
Haggart, Blayne, Henne, Kathryn and Tusikov, Natasha (eds.) (2014): Strange Bedfellows: Information, Power, and Control in a Changing World. Under contract from Palgrave-Macmillan. |
Haggart, Blayne (2014). 'Taking knowledge seriously: Toward an International Political Economy theory of knowledge governance?', in Blayne Haggart, Kathryn Henne and Natasha Tusikov (eds.), Strange Bedfellows: Information, Power, and Control in a Changing World, Under contract from Palgrave-Macmillan. |
Haggart, Blayne (2014). 'Birth of a movement: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and the politicization of Mexican copyright', Policy & Internet 6, (1), 69–88. |
Seminars and Conferences
Workshop co-organizer, 'Knowledge and power in the global political economy: A multidisciplinary perspective', University of Waterloo, May 17-18, 2018. |
'Power in Knowledge Structures: Theorizing the Rise of the "Information-Imperium State",' paper presented to the International Studies Association-FLACSO meeting, Quito, Ecuador, July 27, 2018. |
Invited panelist, 'Whose Data Is It Anyway and Why Cleantech Entrepreneurs Should Care', Third Annual Cleantech Leadership Summit: Harnessing the power of data and intellectual property, Ottawa, ON, May 31, 2018. |
Invited roundtable participant, 'Innovation Strategy for Canada', Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, ON, April 6, 2016. |
Invited conference participant, 'The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Options for Canada and the World', Munk Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, January 15, 2016. |
Invited roundtable participant, Roundtable and Lecture on 'Trans-Pacific Partnership and Intellectual Property Rights', Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo, ON, November 12, 2015. |
Roundtable participant, 'Epistemic Infrastructure: Revisiting Knowledge Systems and Practice', International Studies Association annual meeting, San Francisco, March 2018 (appeared via Skype). |
'New economic models, new forms of state: The rise of the US "Surveillance State",' Canadian Political Science Association annual meeting, Toronto, ON, May 2017." |
'Knowledge structures and the construction of power in the 21st century global political economy'. International Studies Association annual meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2016. (also panel chair and co-organizer) |
'Copyfight: Global redistribution in the digital age.' International Studies Association annual meeting, Atlanta, Georgia, March 2016. |
Discussant and panel co-organizer, 'Examining the Governance of the Globalizing Internet and Information Infrastructure', International Studies Association annual meeting, New Orleans, LA, February 20, 2015. |
Panel chair and organizer, 'Canadian copyright in an era of public involvement: Less restriction, more openness?' Canadian Political Science Association annual meeting, St. Catharines, ON, May 27, 2014. |
S. Bannerman, and B. Haggart. 'Historical institutionalism in communication studies'. Canadian Communication Association Annual Conference, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, June 5, 2013. |