Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Private Sector Influence In The International Telecommunication Union, Patricia K. Mccormick

Communication Faculty Research Publications

This paper aims to examine the influence of private corporations in the tripartite structure of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU): Telecommunications Standardization, Radiocommunication, and Telecommunications Development. The paper finds that, in the standardization sector, power has been effectively transferred from nation states to the private corporate sector since the approval process now enables standards to be approved by members of the study group that developed them, which is essentially the private sector. In the radiocommunication sector, the private sector continues to conduct much of the requisite technical work, but national governments are ultimately the decision makers and, further, it is …