Hegemony, symphony, or technology? Explaining regime change in international telecommunications

This study attempts to explain international regime change in the world's most important economic sector---telecommunications. The investigation compares the explanatory power among three competing theoretical approaches: the two most dominant theories in international relations, neorealism and neoliberalism, and a third, original model referred to as "technological dominance." Employing an explanatory emphasis on property rights and relative prices, the technological dominance model draws from previous work on institutional change by Douglass North. Hypotheses are tested through case studies drawn from regimes in three primary international communications media: undersea cable systems, satellite communications systems, and the Internet. The study seeks to provide new insights into regime change in issue areas characterized by high technological content, an increasingly common feature of modern world society.