The Liberal Internet in the Postliberal Era

Digital Sovereignty, Private Government, and Practices of Neutralization

Johannes Thumfart

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9783031634253
• eBook ISBN:
  9783031634260
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book begins with an examination of the internet as a central institution of the post-Cold War liberal order. From this starting point, Johannes Thumfart analyzes the contemporary rise of digital sovereignty in Asia and Europe, alongside the establishment of private government within digital networks. He interprets these phenomena as indications of an emerging postliberal era. Thumfart engages with a wide array of empirical research and assesses liberal ideals such as state and net neutrality by discussing thinkers like Hegel, Schmitt, Mouffe, Taylor, Sandel, Fukuyama, Anderson, Jasanoff, and Girard, as well as network and rational choice theories. He contends that the internet's reification of liberal values has, paradoxically, subverted these values and catalyzed the transition to postliberalism. Thumfart suggests that instead of adhering to the traditional liberal focus on neutrality, states should adopt the more flexible approach of neutralization to respond to the complexities of this digital and postliberal era.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Conceptual, Terminological, and Methodological Clarifications
• 3. The Construction of Digital Sovereignty in Struggles for Recognition
• 4. Net Neutrality, State Neutrality, and Neutralization
• 5. The Critique of Liberal Neutrality and the Concept of Neutralization
• 6. The Neutralizing Mechanism of Liberalism
• 7. The Aporias of Liberalism Before the Digital Age
• 8. The Aporias of Liberalism in the Digital Age
• 9. Practices of Neutralization
• 10. Conclusion: Beyond the End of History
• Back Matter