| This dissertation explores how particular types of global rules and norms have emerged with respect to the governance of electronic commerce. In order to achieve this research objective, this study does not give attention to how actors pursue their interests through decision-making processes. Instead, what this study focuses on is the ideas of those actors concerning policy problems, and their discursive practices to control collectively shared meanings on these problems in the rule-making process. Put differently, the development of international rules and norms for electronic commerce is regarded as a process in which actors develop their ideas and views on policy problems and act in accordance with these views. In order to analyze emerging ideas and views on the governance of electronic commerce, the present study employs frame analysis, which directs attention to frames, their emergence, conflicts and change.; Using a content analysis of policy documents, this study provides an empirical analysis of the emerging frames on the governance of global electronic commerce. For the empirical data, this study utilizes policy documents that were released between 1997 and 2001 from six international organizations which have been widely regarded as the leading organizations in setting the policy agenda for electronic commerce. From the content analysis, the current study has found that there have emerged three different frames on electronic commerce governance in the international rule-making process. Presenting different constructions of how electronic commerce should be governed, the emerging three frames have competed against each other to win popular acceptance of their own framing of electronic commerce governance in the rule-making process. As a result, due to the challenges to the economic dimension frame that the development and social dimension frames have posed, interest in and attention to the social and development aspects of electronic commerce have gradually increased in international discussions over time, resulting in a convergence among the competing frames in terms of the way they frame how electronic commerce should be governed. |
