International Political Economy of IСT Industry

Abstract

The development of the ICT industry in the modern globalized world has an increasing impact on political relationships between states and various non-state actors. The article aims to research the nature of the international system of relations between states in the ICT sphere and to define whether this system is unipolar, bipolar or polycentric. By using the provisions of the international political economy, technology transfer theory and world-systems theory, as well as quantitative methods, the authors developed and substantiated the international rankings methodology of international power research in the global ICT industry based on the data of OECD TiVA FD_EXGR_VA Gross exports by origin of value added and final destination of the ICT three key industries (IT and other information services, Telecommunications, Computers, electronic and optical equipment) for every system actor. Based on this the authors evaluated the distribution of the power between the states and identified key actors, defined state functions and resulting therefrom components of the global ICT industry, competition types for these components, and by typological classification of states defined five of their types (“worker”, “altruist”, “merchant”, “median”, “consumer”), analysed their strengths and weaknesses, provided the network analysis of creating value added, which visualises the key connections between countries. Conclusions are drawn that the international system of relations between states in the ICT sphere has a polycentric nature, a number of practical results have been achieved, which contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of the uneven development of the states from the point of view of non-hierarchical models and show state functions in the ICT sphere; estimations are provided for the balance of power in the current system as a result of the process of decoupling economies and technological decoupling between USA and China.