Globalisation, convergence and European telecommunications regulation

Abstract:
This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the complex interrelationship between technological change, globalisation, ‘Europeanisation’, national institutional structures, and the transfer of ideas in the reform of European telecommunications regulation.

Globalisation, Convergence and European Telecommunications Regulation analyses the achievements and limitations of over twenty years of EU efforts to liberalise markets and to harmonise regulation. A key feature is the author's treatment of the EU’s regulatory policy response to technological convergence in the information and communications sector, through its new Electronic Communications Regulatory Framework. The book explores in detail the dynamics of the complex relationship between technological and globalisation pressures, economic interests and European and national policy responses. A key finding is persistent Member State diversity in regulatory implementation alongside remarkable policy convergence on a new institutional model for the telecommunications sector. An overarching trend is the emergence of distinct features of a ‘regulatory state’, at national and EU level, in the telecommunications sector.

Contributing to the ongoing debate on the role of the EC and the extent to which EU telecommunications policy can be described as ‘supranational’, this book will strongly appeal to academics, researchers, students and practitioners involved in the fields of technology, public policy and European studies.

Contents:
1. Introduction: The Analytical Framework
2. Globalisation and the Competition State
3. Liberalisation and Europeanisation of Telecommunications – The Emergence of an EU Policy Framework
4. The Transposition and Implementation of the EU’s 1998 Regulatory Framework
5. A New EU Regulatory Package for Converging Electronic Communications Networks and Services
6. Regulation of Communications Content and the EU’s Electronic Communications Regulatory Framework
7. The Changing Global Governance of Telecommunications and the EU
8. Conclusions – Globalisation, Convergence and European Telecommunications Regulation