Infrastructural power: State strategies for internet control

Juan Ortiz Freuler

Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, 2025, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-27

Abstract: This article explores the implications of the infrastructural turn in internet governance, a policy shift where nation-states increasingly assert sovereignty through material interventions in the internet's physical and technical architecture. I propose a typology of six strategies that nationstates deploy over key locations and levers within the internet infrastructure, referred to as points of control. These strategies include subsidising new network edges to circumvent certain nodes, adding a neutralising layer around points of control, breaking up key nodes, diversifying governance, hijacking the point of control, or creating smaller local nodes. Each strategy is illustrated by an example of how a nation-state deployed it within a particular context. The typology provides scholars with a novel analytical framework for examining internet governance preferences, while offering policymakers a practical roadmap for advancing digital strategic autonomy and resisting coercion, and shaping initiatives like the Non-Aligned Tech Movement. By focusing on how governments exercise infrastructural power, the article contributes to debates on sovereignty and digital decolonisation, while challenging the paralysing narrative of internet fragmentation.

Keywords: Internet governance; Points of control; Digital sovereignty; Infrastructural turn; internet fragmentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:iprjir:321976

DOI: 10.14763/2025.2.2009

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