Governing Telecommunications and the New Information Society in Europe

European countries have recently been involved in an extremely broad set of regulatory changes to introduce competitive markets into the area of telecommunications. New policies to develop the information society in Europe are also emerging, taking into account the changes in regulations. The contributions included in this book examine several dimensions of these major European issues, including multi-level governance, the instruments used to produce these policy changes, and the European idiosyncrasies of globalisation trends.

The authors debate the successes and failures of European strategies and policies engaged to foster the new IT based economic revolution, and European multilevel policy-making is discussed from the perspective of linking telecommunications policy to the promotion of an information society in Europe. The main policy instruments used by the European Union to advocate this new information society are reviewed, and a retrospective analysis of the 1990s European telecommunications industry transformation from public monopoly to a competitive market is introduced.

This book will appeal to a wide-ranging audience, including academics in the fields of public policy, economics, political science, media and communication studies, and communications engineering. Consultants, analysts and public servants specialising in telecommunications policy and information technology issues, along with private and public telecom executives will also find this book to be of importance.