Global Digital Data Governance | Polycentric Perspectives | Carolina A
www.taylorfrancis.com
This book provides a nuanced exploration of contemporary digital data governance, highlighting the importance of cooperation across sectors and disciplines in

(Reproducing this from Fission Talk)

Below I will add in my condensed chapter notes. Each chapter is available as its own paper on the book website 1 if you want to just pick and choose. Many of these chapters were presented as papers at the Internet Governance Forum in 2022.

Here is the TOC for your reference:

  • Chad KohalykOPMEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    Ch12: The Distributions of Distributed Governance: Power, Instability and Complexity in Polycentric Data Ordering

    • examines blockchain and “supposedly ‘new’ forms of ‘distributed’ digital data governance”
    • this chapter assesses patterns of continuity and change regarding two inter-related structural issues in blockchain-based ‘distributed data governance’: power concentration and instability.
    • The main argument advanced in this chapter is that distributed data governance is neither new nor devoid of the pathologies of more centralized digital data governance.
    • describes some Norms, Practices, and Underlying Orders of the blockchain space, eg
      • security through transparency
      • Bitcoin and related distributed data projects in practice mainly advance attempts at developing ‘freer’ versions of capitalism. … Supposedly 'novel, these twenty-first century projects extend the project of ‘neoliberal’ capitalist order of the late twentieth century.
    • Whoa! I hadn’t heard of this Network State precursor:

    Borderless Voluntary Nations, as Bination (2017) calls for in constructing “the first ever digitally constituted nation that represents both a reputation system which is managed by an algorithm named Lucy, and a monetary system which rewards participants according to their virtuous behaviour”

    • talks about concentration of Bitcoin, CDEXs, Foundations, etc: “blockchain-based distributed data governance has remained replete with tensions between centralized institutional and behavioural practices, on the one hand, and the norms as well as discursive and material practices of distributed data governance on the other.”
    • growing attention to the environmental impacts of Bitcoin production led to the formation of a Bitcoin Mining Council. Led by two CEOs of American multinationals, Tesla’s Elon Musk and MicroStrategy’s Michael Saylor … compared to a ‘cartel’ like the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
    • demonstrates the polycentricity of blockchain governance in a table showing Industry Associations, Internet Governance Organizations, Multinational Technology Firms, International Organizations
    • basically, this article is trying to show how the “distributed governance” of blockchain space looks a lot like the existing order.