Appendix : Discourse Analysis Guide
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Appendix : Discourse Analysis Guide Step one – Location and context 1.1 What type of document is this? (policy statement, interview, comments to reports, congressional testimony, position paper, etc.) 1.2 Who is the author of the document? Does it represent the view of the United States government? Is it representative of personal opinion only? (If it has no personal author, does this make it seem more official/formal/authoritative?) 1.3 To whom is the author speaking? Is this document for a particular audience? 1.4 In relation to the other documents studied, does this document seem consistent with the others, or has the author specifically tailored their message to meet the approval of a given audience? (Consistency of message) Step two – Representation of the Internet 2.1 What does the document say in a straightforward macro-reading? That is, who is doing what to whom in the article? What is it about? 2.2 Binary oppositions – what are people/actions/events/places defined in opposition to? 2.3 What are the verbs/adjectives attached to the Internet? (E.g. revo- lutionary, democratic, progressive, neutral?) What are the predi- cates and relations to other things and people? How, if at all, is the Internet related to other aspects of international society? 2.4 Is the Internet accorded a positive, negative, or neutral value overall? What are the metaphors employed? What other texts are referred to in the document? 2.5 Is the Internet deterministic, a neutral tool, a biased but ambivalent technology? Is any kind of causation implied? 2.6 Is the Internet described as an actor/agent? A state of being? 2.7 Are there any clear unquestioned assumptions about the Internet? 162 Appendix: Discourse Analysis Guide 163 Step three – Representations of markets, innovation and property rights 3.1 What are the verbs/adjectives attached to intellectual property rights? (Predicates/Relations) 3.2 Are property rights accorded a specific value? Are metaphors employed? 3.3 Relationship between intellectual property rights and the Internet? 3.4 What verbs/adjectives, if any, are attached to actors who violate intellectual property rights? 3.5 What role is accorded to markets in the article, if any? What predi- cates attach to markets? What values does this suggest adhere to markets, if any? What is the general relation to markets, intellectual property rights, innovation? 3.6 Does the narrative disclose any particular view or understanding of how innovation occurs? Step four – United States foreign policy culture/practices 4.1 Does the document fit within a particular stain of American foreign policy culture? Is it Universalist/Exemplarist/Crusading/Isolationist/ Realist? Does it suggest universal values or culturally specifically values? 4.2 Does the document refer to particular political values that resonate within American political culture? (E.g. freedom of speech/press) Step five – Disjunctures 5.1 Are there any elements of the discourse that do not fit together, or do not fit with the wider discourse? What are the inconsistencies or contradictions? 5.2 Does the discourse significantly shift over time, e.g. with the change in administration from Bush to Obama? Notes 1 Introduction 1 . Schmidt (1998, 2002) has argued for an ‘internalist’ approach to the founda- tion of International Relations as a discipline. While this argument is helpful in preventing any claims to straightforward causal effects between the First World War and ‘Idealist’ thought claims, it misrepresents the nature of ‘exter- nalist’ or contextualist approaches to the history of ideas (see Holden 2002). The cultural and intellectual climate engendered by the First World War should not be underestimated. 2 . Please note that the discipline of International Relations (IR) will be capital- ized, while the practise of international relations will remain in lower caps. 3 . Please note that the focus here is on studies that actually engage with the politics of technological objects, as opposed to scholarship that emphasises the technology of politics. The latter examines how the political is treated technologically, engaging in a form of reification of technology that this book rejects. For an example of such approaches, see Reid (2009). 4 . The approach taken here draws on both historical and sociological institu- tionalist approaches (Hall and Taylor 1996). 5 . STS has acknowledged both the significance of technologies essential to the conduct of world politics, such as nuclear weapons (Mackenzie 1987; Spinardi 2013), and the importance of the transnational diffusion of technological objects (Van der Vleuten 2009), but not the relationship between states or political communities that form the distinctive terrain of IR. 6 . Despite some shared emphasis on the important impact of technology, this book does not draw significantly on medium theory. This body of scholarship, while important in opening avenues for study, fails to outline in any depth how technology is created or maintained through social relations. 7 . The debate over Internet politics has often been confined to a very narrow scope, such as the politics of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) or the relevance or obsolescence of the state. The decision to consider wider issue areas was partially driven by the United States officials interviewed for the book, who stressed debates around ICANN as a minor aspect in the overall structure of Internet governance. 8 . On Actor-Network Theory, see Latour (2005) for a clear introduction. While an interesting approach to social theory which usefully provokes an engage- ment with difficult questions of methodology, ontology, agency and ethics, I find its enthnomethodological approach inconsistent, the inability to account for unequal power relations rooted in enduring social structures (or enduring networks) problematic, both analytically and politically, and the ontological agency attributed to non-human objects both deeply problematic and incon- sistent with the Marxist historical materialism adopted here. For critiques of Actor Network Theory (ANT) consistent with my views, see Vandenberghe (2002), Castree (2002), and Hacking (1987). 164 Notes 165 2 Power and Information Technology: Determinism, Agency, and Constructivism 1 . Please note that this chapter draws upon elements of McCarthy (2013). 2 . Herrera (2006) notes the limitations of both Realist and Constructivist approaches to technology. The current discussion, in contrast to Herrera, distinguishes between instrumentalism and essentialism in IR theory, rather than discussing how different ‘schools’ conceptualize technology, in order to grasp the underlying concepts of power both types of determinism employ. As noted in the introduction, there is often as much variation within schools of IR theory as between them. For a discussion of the Realist approach to technology in general see Scheuerman (2009); for a discussion of Gramscian concepts of technology and materiality – one that also discusses Waltz’s work – see McCarthy (2011b). 3 . The literature on power in International Relations has tended to neglect considerations of technology: for example, Barnett and Duvall (2005) does not feature any consideration of technology or material culture in discussing forms of power. 4 . Please note that this claim is distinct from claims surrounding ‘cyberpower’ as a new element of global politics (cf. Betz and Stevens 2010). The power referred to here, and developed further in Chapter 3, centres upon the ‘ability to create abilities’ expressed via the institution of ICTs, and not the actual abilities created, which belongs to the realm of recent theorizations of cyberpower. 5 . The understanding of ICTs facilitating disaggregation is also highly contested: a large body of scholarship exists noting the ability of the state to assert its power in cyberspace. See, for example, Goldsmith and Wu (2006); Drezner (2004); Deibert, Palfrey, Rohozinski, and Zittrain (2008, 2010, 2012). 6 . However, Rosenau does suggest that information technologies ‘influence, contextualize, permit or inhibit courses of action’ (Rosenau 2002: 276; 1990: passim), that they undermine state authority (1990: 90–100; 1992a: 3; 1992b: 256–265), and that they change learning patterns for world leaders and mass publics (1990: 321; 1992b: 262). 7 . Hanson (2008: 6–7) describes Keohane and Nye as ‘societal determinists.’ This phrase is slightly awkward – it suggests that technology is not always already social – and cannot capture the technological determinism that underlies instrumentalist and essentialist viewpoints. 8 . Nye’s work builds on that of Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz and their theorization of the ‘second face’ of power. See Nye (2004: 150, footnote 5). Bachrach and Baratz’s understanding has been the subject of substantial criti- cism that has focused on their inability to break with behaviouralism. See Lukes (2005: 7, 19–27); Hay (1997: 45–52); Hayward (2000: 14–19). Nye has recently tried to integrate Lukes’s ‘third face’ of power into his framework (Nye 2010c), but this effort does not grapple with the theoretical underpinnings that make such a move incompatible with the other aspects of his approach. 9 . This form of power, outlined by Keohane and Nye, is sometimes attributed to them as ‘institutional power’: see, for example, Barnett and Duvall (2005: 48). I feel this usage is incorrect and confuses an institutional context with socio- logical institutionalism, particularly given Barnett and Duvall’s understanding of institutional power as action at a distance, an understanding that Keohane 166 Notes and Nye’s behaviouralist model of power and causation seems to disallow. For Keohane and Nye, power does not lie in the institution: actor A acts on actor B within the institution, not through it, and thus the institution remains as a context rather than a form of power. On direct and indirect forms of power and their related concepts of causation, see Hay (1997: 51) and Ball (1975: 189–215, esp. 204). 10 . These articles form the core of the ‘power debate’ in social science. The literature on the topic is massive: for critical summaries see Hayward (2000: 11–39); Wartenburg (1990: 53–70).