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Digital Nationalisms: Identity, Strategic Communication, and Global Internet Governance

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Digital Nationalisms: Identity, Strategic Communication, and Global Internet Governance Digital Nationalisms: Identity, Strategic Communication, and Global Internet Governance by Stanislav Budnitskiy A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Communication Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2018, Stanislav Budnitskiy Abstract A growing number of states in the twenty-first century have reimagined and rearticulated the role of digital technologies as indispensable to the nation’s economic, cultural, and political success—and sometimes survival—under the conditions of digital globalization. Digital nationalism refers to this shift in the national state’s imagination of digital technologies vis-à-vis their national Selves, as well as attendant discursive and material efforts at constructing and strategically communicating their national digital identities. On the one hand, this is a global trend, which is rooted in the rationalist imaginary and posits digital technological development as critical to economic growth and overall national well-being. On the other hand, and this is the crux of the argument underlying this dissertation, national cultural identities shape the specific logics and language of respective national digital rhetoric and policies. To illuminate the workings of digital nationalism, the dissertation examines how Estonia’s and Russia’s conduct in the domain of global internet governance—the design and administration of legal and technological architectures of the global internet and surrounding geopolitical debates—reflect their national identity visions. The dissertation argues that Estonia’s championing of the “internet freedom” narrative is meant to bolster its central identity aspiration of symbolically and institutionally “returning to Europe” after half a century of the Soviet rule, while Russia’s championing of “internet sovereignty” contributes to its identity narrative of a resurgent great power following its geopolitical decline in the first post-Cold War decade. The dissertation offers a critical cultural approach to the study of digital technological politics and aims to contribute to our understanding of the logics of digital ii globalization and global internet governance, contemporary nationalism, and socio- political trajectories in post-socialist Europe. iii Acknowledgements No other undertaking in my life has been at once as isolating and collaborative as this dissertation. For helping me not only endure but also enjoy this arduous and rewarding journey I am thankful to many individuals and institutions. I owe my greatest intellectual debt to my academic advisor, Melissa Aronczyk, whose scholarship was critical in first sparking the idea to one day pursue doctoral studies and whose encouraging reply to my introductory email convinced me definitively to embark upon something as reckless. Between our initial correspondence seven years ago and the panicky emails in the last days of dissertation writing, I received nothing but the kind of intellectual and personal support that a graduate student can only hope for. Every faculty and staff member I have met in the Communication program at Carleton University has been incredibly generous with their time and expertise. In particular, thank you to Ira Wagman and Dwayne Winseck for helping me mold this project from its embryonic stage through its completion and for valuable insights into subjects beyond my dissertation work. I am also thankful to Chris Russill for his teaching and advising over the years. I am indebted to the always kind and patient Graduate Administrator Coleen Kornelsen for helping me navigate university bureaucracy, and to Melanie Leblanc who so aptly succeeded her. I would not have been able to pursue my doctorate at Carleton without the leadership of the Communication program securing the Ontario Trillium Scholarship on my behalf. I thank the program and the Ontario Trillium Foundation for their generosity. I am also grateful for the dissertation funding provided by the Center on Public iv Diplomacy at the University of Southern California and the Trajectories of Change Scholarship from the Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius Zeit-Stiftung Foundation. Academic and research institutions across several countries were critical to the intellectual trajectory of this dissertation. Graduate research in strategic communication at the Department of Business and Political Journalism at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and in the Nationalism Studies program at the Central European University in Budapest equipped me with the analytical lenses to approach the study of digital technologies from the perspective that this dissertation advances. My work benefited from the intellectually enriching visiting fellowships I held in 2015-2016 at the Journalism and Media Studies Department at the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, the Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. I am grateful to everyone who made those research stays possible and immensely fulfilling. I am also thankful to Rafal Rohozinski, Deirdre Collings, and all my former colleagues at the SecDev Foundation in Ottawa for my time with the Foundation as a Doctoral Fellow in the OpenNet Eurasia program in 2014-2016. I thank my academic peers, many of whom have become dear friends, across Russia, Hungary, Canada, the Unites States, and other places I have had the fortune of visiting while working on this dissertation. Thank you all for the laughs, drinks, advice, support, living room couches—and commiserating about imposture syndrome insecurities. Ottawa friends Masoud Nematollahi, Sasha Zemskova, and Jill Sexton in various ways kindly helped with this project. My sincere thanks to Matvey Lomonosov, v an attentive friend and an inspiring scholar who could have written another dissertation of his own in the time we spent discussing mine. I am especially grateful to Britt Tevis for her incisive critique and loving encouragement in working on this dissertation and beyond. This monograph would not have seen light without the emotional and material support of my family who made sure I was able focus on the studies first and foremost throughout these years. A heartfelt thank you to grandma Maya, Mama, Papa, my brother Zhenya, my sister-in-law Yulia, and my niece Alexandra, who was not yet born when this project began but who has been a source of indescribable joy for all of us ever since – СПАСИБО! I dedicate this dissertation to them. vi Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iv List of Tables ..................................................................................................................... ix List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... x Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 From Identity Narrative to Digital Policy ....................................................................... 4 Methodological Nationalism ........................................................................................... 8 Digital Nationalism as an Analytic Borderland: ............................................................. 9 Between the National and the Digital/Global ................................................................. 9 Global Internet Governance as Digital Nationalism ..................................................... 13 Case Studies: Russia and Estonia ................................................................................. 15 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 22 Organization of the Dissertation ................................................................................... 29 PART I – DIGITAL NATIONALISM Chapter 1: Digital Nationalism: A Framework ................................................................. 33 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 33 1.2 From Technological Nationalism to Digital Nationalism ....................................... 34 1.3 Digital Nationalism as an Analytical Orientation ................................................... 51 1.4 Digital Nationalism as Discourse, Project, and Evaluation .................................... 53 1.5 Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 67 Chapter 2: Global Internet Governance ............................................................................ 69 2.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 69 2.2 Internet Governance from ARPANET to WCIT-2012 ........................................... 73 2.3 Strategic Narratives of Internet Freedom and Sovereignty..................................... 85 2.4 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................
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