Tesi etd-10212025-121033
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Tipo di tesi
Corso Ordinario Secondo Livello
Autore
PAGNACCO, ANNA
URN
etd-10212025-121033
Titolo
PRC INVOLVEMENT IN STANDARD-SETTING INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS: WHO IS DESIGNING THE FUTURE OF THE INTERNET?
Struttura
Classe Scienze Sociali
Corso di studi
SCIENZE POLITICHE - SCIENZE POLITICHE
Commissione
Tutor Prof.ssa LORETONI, ANNA
Relatore Dott. Gasbarri, Lorenzo
Presidente Prof. SOMMARIO, EMANUELE GIUSEPPE
Membro Prof. NATALI, DAVID
Membro Prof. BRESSANELLI, EDOARDO
Membro Dott.ssa POPIC, TAMARA
Membro Prof.ssa CAIANI, MANUELA
Relatore Dott. Gasbarri, Lorenzo
Presidente Prof. SOMMARIO, EMANUELE GIUSEPPE
Membro Prof. NATALI, DAVID
Membro Prof. BRESSANELLI, EDOARDO
Membro Dott.ssa POPIC, TAMARA
Membro Prof.ssa CAIANI, MANUELA
Parole chiave
- Internet Standards
- ITU-T
- New IP
- PRC
- Standard Development Organizations
Data inizio appello
25/11/2025;
Disponibilità
parziale
Riassunto analitico
This work seeks to answer the following research question: What is the role of Chinese industry in standard setting International Organisations (IOs), and what does it tell us about who is empowered to set standards, and why? Further, what does it tell us about the democratic legitimacy of standards as regulation and the structural limitations of Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) like the Telecommunication standardisation sector of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU-T)?
To introduce these questions, this thesis will establish the role of digital telecommunications standards and set the stakes of any undesirable changes; and explore how the structure and processes at ITU and ITU-T in particular enable industry involvement. The subsequent section will be dedicated to the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s relationship to digital standardisation, from their political strategies, to their domestic industrial ecosystem, including a short summary of the “New IP” saga (where Huawei proposed a set of standards before ITU-T that was ultimately rejected as too disruptive) and finally confronting the narrative that the PRC’s involvement possesses no special characteristics.
The peculiarity of the PRC’s approach to standardisation will be in full display in the case study, which will demonstrate the extraordinarily wide involvement of PRC-affiliated actors – particularly SOEs and Academia – in a series of five ITU-T Study Groups. While involvement by itself is not malicious, it proves that the PRC’s political intent on standardisation is concretised through both State and State-affiliated actors. The case study is followed by a discussion on the legitimacy of standardisation as a regulatory process, and how many factors – from participant resourcing, to procedures at standardisation IOs – influence the composition of participants in these processes, affecting their output and legitimacy.
In this work, the analysis of structural factors that determine the accessibility, representativeness and ultimately democratic legitimacy of standardisation is combined with the analysis of the policy, tactics and behaviours of a non-democratic State actors. It can be seen that a complex and mostly opaque process favours an actor such as the PRC, which is both economically and technically well-resourced, in influencing the development of the “lowest” layers of the technological stack. The work concludes with a series of potential future research questions radiating outwards from this thesis, alongside a policy call to action – to raise awareness on the importance of Internet standards and to propose technically competitive and democratically valid alternatives in the face of the challenge posed by the PRC in this regard.
To introduce these questions, this thesis will establish the role of digital telecommunications standards and set the stakes of any undesirable changes; and explore how the structure and processes at ITU and ITU-T in particular enable industry involvement. The subsequent section will be dedicated to the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s relationship to digital standardisation, from their political strategies, to their domestic industrial ecosystem, including a short summary of the “New IP” saga (where Huawei proposed a set of standards before ITU-T that was ultimately rejected as too disruptive) and finally confronting the narrative that the PRC’s involvement possesses no special characteristics.
The peculiarity of the PRC’s approach to standardisation will be in full display in the case study, which will demonstrate the extraordinarily wide involvement of PRC-affiliated actors – particularly SOEs and Academia – in a series of five ITU-T Study Groups. While involvement by itself is not malicious, it proves that the PRC’s political intent on standardisation is concretised through both State and State-affiliated actors. The case study is followed by a discussion on the legitimacy of standardisation as a regulatory process, and how many factors – from participant resourcing, to procedures at standardisation IOs – influence the composition of participants in these processes, affecting their output and legitimacy.
In this work, the analysis of structural factors that determine the accessibility, representativeness and ultimately democratic legitimacy of standardisation is combined with the analysis of the policy, tactics and behaviours of a non-democratic State actors. It can be seen that a complex and mostly opaque process favours an actor such as the PRC, which is both economically and technically well-resourced, in influencing the development of the “lowest” layers of the technological stack. The work concludes with a series of potential future research questions radiating outwards from this thesis, alongside a policy call to action – to raise awareness on the importance of Internet standards and to propose technically competitive and democratically valid alternatives in the face of the challenge posed by the PRC in this regard.
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