"Multi-level governance and global market liberalization: The interdependence of national, European and multilateral telecommunications policies"

In 1998, most EU member states fully liberalized their telecommunications markets, thereby abandoning the long-established monopolies of their national postal administrations over services and network infrastructure. The creation of competition, however, was not only the result of various national policy programs, it was also heavily influenced and structurally determined by the European Union's liberalization initiative aimed at the establishment of a common market for telecommunications services and equipment. Since the mid-1990s, the World Trade Organization (WTO) developed into an important multilateral player in telecommunications policies and has ever since been pushing for global market access for the telecommunications industry. This paper argues that, as a result of parallel activities at the national level, the EU and the WTO, a multi-level governance system in telecommunications policies has emerged which is characterized by an increasing interdependence of actors and their policy programs