Abstracts

Input without influence: Multistakeholder legitimacy and corporate power in global AI governance - (Wendy Lam)

The WSIS+20 review reaffirmed that effective cooperation between governments, the private sector, civil society and the technical community remains central to the development of the Information Society. Yet the multistakeholder approach is often in tension with power asymmetries between stakeholder groups. As governance processes increasingly depend on corporate actors for technical implementation, firms such as Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta (‘Big Tech’) have emerged as key decision-makers through infrastructural control and normative influence. This paper argues that Big Tech's influence has created significant structural barriers to multistakeholder legitimacy in the context of AI governance. By examining this across input, throughput and output dimensions of legitimacy, the paper finds that participation, deliberation and implementation are all compromised by corporate concentration. While multistakeholderism can still offer a path forward for state and non-state actors to influence AI governance, it is critical that mechanisms are deliberately designed for inclusion rather than adapting to an order produced by corporate concentration. Middle powers, including Australia, have a significant role in advancing this reform agenda.

Measuring resilience in alternative network deployments - (Anastasia Beasley)

Power instability, extreme weather, and economic shocks wreak havoc with networks around the world, and many can't get back online after a disaster without outside help. If a method for "building resilience" makes a network less likely to fail but harder to repair or more expensive to run, it exposes a new vulnerability to these unpredictable operating challenges. In "alternative" networks (whose primary purpose isn't profit), the entire operating environment is considered in network design and risk analysis. Standard methods for modelling networks and simulating their response to an attack can be extended to include these operational factors. Insights derived from a fuller picture of operational and technical threats will help decision-makers identify strategies for long-term, sustainable resilience.

Australia and the Case for a Middle Power Digital Governance Coalition - (Rebecca Kuiters)

This paper examines Australia's position in internet and digital governance through the lens of "middle power" strategy, a framing brought to prominence by Mark Carney's 2026 Davos address. It considers what sovereignty means for a state that cannot achieve full independence on an interoperable global network, and surveys how other actors have approached the problem. The paper then maps Australia's existing assets, particularly its diplomatic standing in the Pacific against its more modest footprint in bodies like ICANN and the IGF. It outlines a possible pathway built around informal, Pacific-led coordination using existing regional architecture, before considering how such habits might extend to coalitions with Canada, Indo-Pacific economies such as Indonesia and Vietnam, and small advanced economies including Singapore, Chile and New Zealand. Finally, it discusses the general roadmap Australia needs to follow to achieve greater agency in the digital sphere.