The cyberface of global governance: WTO discourse and the management of globalization

This study seeks to address the contested character of globalization by highlighting two important features of contemporary global processes; first, emerging forms of global governance, second, emerging forms of legitimization in cyberspace. The study will argue that emerging forms of governance represented by intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and the increasing use of cyber-discourse as a form of legitimization can be theorized through the concept of the cyberface of global governance. The cyberface of global governance refers to the ways in which IGOs representing forms of global governance utilize cyber-discourse as a means to legitimize that governance, through the creation and maintenance of an organizational web presence that manages representations of organizational identity and organizational issues. This study conducts a case study discourse analysis of the official website of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to assess the ways that the WTO uses cyber-discourse to legitimize the WTO system as a form of global governance. The WTO cyber-discourse legitimizes the WTO system by articulating its organizational identity and organizational issues in a way that attempts to manage globalization through the management of the sovereignty of the nation-state.