Inevitably, the impacts of the Information Age will affect international affairs as well as commerce and culture, business and the services, and the government and military. Indeed, according to James Robinson in his article, "Technology, Change, and the Emerging International Order," the technologies of the Information Age have already had a significant impact on international affairs and the structure of the international system. In Robinson’s view, the inability of the Soviet Union to apply the advanced information and communication technologies of the "third industrial revolution" to economic development and economic competitiveness played a significant role in the collapse of the U.S.S.R. Further, Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts to loosen the reigns of state control to permit the Soviet Union to accommodate the new technologies accelerated the collapse of the world’s first communist state and led directly to the demise of the old bipolar international system.
But where do we go from here? To Robinson, the answer is straightforward: a globalized system of "international markets now function[s] as essentially one where buying and selling never stops." This has led to the increased mobility of capital, goods, and services, with multinational corporations providing much of the impetus behind the march toward globalization. However, Robinson recognizes there is a downside to the new technologies for some states, especially those that have neither the managerial expertise, technical know-how, or financial capabilities to take advantage of the capabilities the technologies afford. Nevertheless, because they redefine "the basis of power and economic competitiveness," Robinson argues, the new technologies are "forcing increasing numbers of states to become democratic and adopt market-based economies."
Barney Warf uses a different approach to reach many similar conclusions in his "Telecommunications and the Changing Geographics of Knowledge Transmission in the Late 20th Century." Basing his analysis on geography and spatial dynamics, Warf concentrates on the impact of transborder flows of data and services made possible by teleports and the Internet, concluding that at least in the early phases of the Information Age, "uneven development and spatial inequality" are the result. The author points to three different features that he believes are central features of this trend: (1) the emergence of "world cities" such as London, New York, and Tokyo, where much of the international traffic in information and finance is centered; (2) the development of "offshore banking" centers in locations such as Bahrain, the Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, and Vanuatu, that permit individuals, groups, and corporations to conduct financial affairs "outside the regulation of their national authorities"; and (3) the globalization of "back offices" that perform routinized clerical functions in locations where there is cheap labor far distant from a business’s primary location.
At the same time, Warf stresses, "the emergence of global digitalized networks" has "generated growth in a number of unanticipated places" such as Singapore, Hungary, and the Dominican Republic. Since it was unexpected as recently as a decade ago that economic growth would result in these and other locations that have benefited from the new information and communication technologies, Warf predicts that "the future will hold an equally unexpected, even bizarre, set of outcomes."
But economic development resulting from the technologies of the Information Age does not necessarily have to be random or unexpected, or so Jean-Francois Rischard argues in the third article, "Connecting Developing Countries to the Information Technology Revolution." Rischard concurs that a tidal shift is taking place in the way the world works, on a visible basis in business (as demonstrated by "accelerated, more standardized business processes"; "increasingly complex trans-national business alliances"; "hypercompetitive purchasing worldwide"; "borderless capital flows"; and "soaring international trade in services") and on a not-yet-visible social basis (in "teleworking on a large scale"; "education as a universally tradable commodity"; "teleshopping"; "the advent of paperless electronic money systems"; and a "revolution in human organizations").
This, Rischard posits, lays the groundwork for the use of information technologies in economic development on a global basis, especially in areas such as education and training, better health systems, improved environmental monitoring and management, reduced isolation, improved connectivity between small and large businesses, and better government. Developing countries have a responsibility in making this happen, Rischard says, and must undertake several tasks: raise awareness that change is happening and that it is inevitable, invest heavily in information infrastructure development, and mobilize additional resources to increase demand in areas such as education, technical literacy, and computer literacy. But developed countries have a responsibility too, Rischard concludes, and that is to help reduce the "knowledge gap" between the have’s and the have not’s. This, Rischard believes, will accelerate development and alleviate poverty.
Despite the need to apply information and communication technologies in efforts to combat poverty in developing countries, the benefits of the Information Age to date have not been restricted to large rich countries. Some small countries both rich and poor have also benefited, as was already pointed out in Barney Warf’s article. However, in their article "Little Engines That Could: Computing in Small Energetic Countries," J.L. Dedrick, S.E. Goodman, and K.L. Kraemer use Singapore, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Israel, and several Nordic states to point out that in small countries, having at least a modicum of wealth seems to abet entry into the Information Age. At the same time, they maintain that government policy toward trade, investment, information technology production and use, and defense are also critical factors in information technology adoption and use. Although "a laissez-faire policy approach is adequate for the diffusion of IT use," they continue, "some forms of active government support seem necessary for a country to become a major [information technology] producer."
The authors also delve into the desire of some states to control internal flows of information for political reasons. However, they do not pursue the point very far; indeed, they close with a crucial question that they do not answer: "Can such countries participate in the global information economy while maintaining domestic control over access to information, or will their political and social cultures have to change to deal with a potential flood of uncontrolled information?"
Daniel S. Papp and David Alberts close the anthology with a far-ranging chapter that offers several observations about the impacts of emerging information and communication technologies on international actors and the international system. Basing their assessments on conclusions developed in earlier chapters in this anthology, Papp and Alberts believe that their first four observations are applicable not only at the international actor and system levels of analysis, but also at levels below the international actor and system, that is, within individual states, corporations, organizations, and institutions.
To Papp and Alberts, their first conclusion is straightforward: As the cost of information goes down and the accessibility and flow of information increase, there will be more and more locations at which information will be available, and a greater and greater proliferation of ability to communicate it and analyze it. Their second conclusion is that at all levels of analysis, decision-making authority will be increasingly decentralized as a result of this, although efforts will be made by some individual actors, institutions, and organizations to maintain centralized control. The authors also conclude that the Information Age will bring with it greater permeability of actor, institutional, and organizational boundaries, although some will again seek to curtail such permeability. Fourth, new forms and types of actors, institutions, and organizations will also emerge, including "virtual" entities, some of which will be ephemeral and others of which will be amorphous.
The authors next explore the impact of the Information Age on the primary types of actors at the international level, including states, international governmental organizations (IGOs), multinational corporations (MNCs), and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). They raise questions about the future role of the state, posit that IGOs will remain hostage to state objectives even in the Information Age, and speculate that MNCs, NGOs, and other related international actors may attain even greater prominence in the Information Age.
Papp and Albert’s last four conclusions apply primarily to the international system level of analysis. First, they argue, traditional power relationships among individual actors and types of actors will be disrupted. Second, as the Information Age progresses, regionalization and globalization will accelerate, sometimes in competition with one another, and sometimes local and national reaction to both will set in. Third, to the extent that new information and communication technologies create new wealth and are adopted at different rates by different international actors, the Information Age has potential to lead to increasingly skewed patterns of distribution of wealth within and between international actors. And finally, as a result of the above impacts, the international system that accompanies the Information Age will be more diffuse than those which existed earlier in the twentieth century.
The Information Age, then, promises to usher in a brave new world that will contain many uncertainties. But one certainty that will exist is that of change. However, as it was observed earlier, we are in a certain sense fortunate, for we are now only at the dawn of the Information Age. Thus, we have a window of time during which we can look for answers before the full impact of the Information Age is upon us.
Nevertheless, the full impacts of the Information Age are fast approaching, so our window of opportunity is a small one. The time to begin examining the questions and issues raised here is now. And the answers that we develop will in turn play a role in determining what the Information Age becomes, for as Peter Drucker once observed, albeit somewhat paraphrased, assessing the future impacts of information and communication technologies on human affairs is not an effort to assess the future, but to assess the future of present decisions.
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