Conclusion

Abstract

The present book took us from the sensitive and strategic issue of global Internet governance and other new information and communications technologies ( chapters 1–3 ) to issues of global governance of culture ( chapters 4 and 5 ), to broader issues related to global trade ( chapters 6 and 7 ). The digital age is mostly defined by new technologies and the way they enable information to flow free and fast, making our globalized world increasingly smaller and more instantaneous. This creates an institutional vacuum and brings about new regulatory imperatives and challenges, both of which, together, create what we understand as being a process of creative destruction that affects all aspects of human life. New institutions are needed but none seems to be playing a central role at the moment. Instead, what we find is a web of institutions and systems of rules we call global governance, in which there is no specific order at this time.