ICT Institutional Framework

This book explores the institutional variable of federalism in its several legal manifestations for the ICT development literature. In doing so, it builds a fivefold assumption that: (i) ICT is a multifaceted construct that demands an interdisciplinary approach, not least a legal one; (ii) legal analysis is not a straightforward process and a specific method is needed to uncover legal concepts that constitute the federal dimension of a country's ICT institutional framework; (iii) federalism is a pervasive experience, making it indispensable for comparative analyses and useful for guiding further studies; (iv) federalism is also a complex concept made of features of national sovereignty, subnational autonomy, and interdependent allocation of powers, and they should be taken in account for the purpose of clarifying federal institutional background in the ICT development literature; (v) several variables are needed to identify the true federal character of a countries' ICT framework. Applying hermeneutics and legal analysis in the Americas Region, we managed to create an ICT Federal Index that can be used for amalgamating clusters of states with similar federal background in a different way than it has been made so far in the comparative research on ICT and development.