Global Regulatory Reform in Telecommunications – the Importance of International Organizations

This paper asks when and why countries over 129 countries chose to establish new independent telecom regulators and over 109 countries privatized incumbent telecom operators during the 1990s. Using a Weibull multivariate hazard model, this paper analyzes the timing of establishing a separate regulator and privatizing the telecom incumbent in 184 countries from 1975-2004. While much of the conventional wisdom emphasizes the importance of international markets or domestic determinants of telecom reform, I find that international political factors, particularly membership in some international organizations (the WTO and the OECD) are more important than international market factors in the timing of liberal telecom reform. Further, while international policy diffusion seems to be at work, it occurs in a different, more directed way than indicated in the diffusion literature. The paper provides suggestions of further focus on actors and mechanisms.