Andrew Russell (Johns Hopkins University)
Technology and Hierarchy in Europe and the United States: Standardization in Digital Networks
In the last quarter of the twentieth century, regulators in the United States and Western Europe dismantled monopoly control of telecommunications, opting instead to privatize (or "liberalize") the telecom industry. During this same period, engineers in government and private industry created and deployed technologies for cellular telephone networks. To adapt to these changes in politics and technology, Americans and Europeans experimented with new institutions to coordinate the new networks.
This paper illuminates these political, technological, and organizational transitions by focusing on the creation of digital cellular networks in Europe and the U. S. In both places, engineers defined the technical parameters of digital cellular networks by cooperating within standards-setting committees. These committees were the principal mediators of innovation: they became choke points for industry growth, focal points of regulatory activity, and fora where industry participants could come together to try to establish consensus while also exploring ways to gain competitive advantages.
The actions of European and American regulators reflected predominant trends in ideologies of "order" during the late twentieth century. In Europe, regulators conceived of digital cellular networks as part of a movement toward regional integration, and took an active role in directing the standardization process. In the U. S., an overarching "deregulatory" political philosophy led American regulators to leave the standardization process to industry groups and individual private firms. In both cases, private firms and international organizations such as standards-setting committees assumed a more prominent ordering role.
Many analysts celebrate the "success" of the coordinated European approach, and dismiss the market-driven American approach as "non-cooperative" or a "failure." While I agree that the European approach was an admirable bureaucratic achievement, I dispute the notion that the American approach was lacking in cooperation or institutional competence. Instead, I argue that the American approach was an example of a new type of industry coordination, a new order that became increasingly prevalent with the rise of the Internet and the convergence between telecommunications and information technologies.
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