International Spectrum Management Regime : A Case of Regulatory Lock-In for the Developing Countries?

The international spectrum management regime was established over a hundred years ago by few developed countries. Since then, the number of the developing countries in the Radio Sector of the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU-R) membership has increased significantly until these countries became a majority. However, until recently, the developing countries’ contributions were limited to demanding preferential treatment for themselves over the developed countries or resisting the introduction of new wireless technologies and services within the ITU-R Radio Regulations. This paper investigates whether the international spectrum management regime has created a case of regulatory lock-in for the developing countries where the ITU-R has over the years influenced and formulised national preferences in these countries so that they have been refusing major changes to the regime. In order to achieve that the paper examines the different developing countries positions with regard to the international spectrum management regime. The paper shows that the resistance to changes in the regime is related to the differences between the needs of the developed and developing countries. Moreover, the paper argues that supporting particular technologies by the developing countries intends to support the equal treatment within ITU-R to all technologies and to provide some sort of international regulations for these technologies under the umbrella of the ITU-R. In general, the neoliberalism/liberalism approach to regime analysis explains the resistance or support of developing countries to particular new services and technologies by the absence or presence of mutual interest with the other stakeholders. On the other hand, the proactivity of developing countries can be explained by applying the constructivism approach in regime analysis which shows that the attitudes of the elite policy makers in the leading developing countries have an impact on the positions of the developing countries. In general, the paper shows that the international spectrum management regime is not completely a case of regulatory lock-in for the developing countries. With the right incentives and qualified leadership, these countries were able to be proactive and to overcome some deficiencies of the regime such as the limitation of the discussion to items that are on the agenda of WRCs