Making Policy for the New Information Economy: Comparing China and India

This volume is a theoretically informed comparative analysis of the telecommunications and information policy-making process in two major developing economies, China and India.

With a focus on how policies are made rather than what those policies are, the book investigates how policy actors interact within institutional structures to define policy problems and identify potential solutions. The authors explain the evolution of these policy-making systems as the two countries liberalized their economies and opened their media and telecommunications systems to competition over the past two-and-a-half decades.

With applications in numerous international contexts, this book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in public policy studies, telecommunications, business, development economics, political science, Asian studies, and public administration.

Krishna Jayakar is Professor and Head of the Department of Telecommunications and Media Industries in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University, United States, and the co-Director of the Institute for Information Policy. His research addresses telecommunications policy and economics, broadband impacts, and the digital divide. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a Research Officer for India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He earned his PhD from Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

Chun Liu is Professor in the School of Public Affairs and Administration of the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, in Chengdu, China. He has published extensively on the policy, regulation and management of information technology and is also a frequently speaker at major academic conferences. He has over 8 years’ experience in China’s telecommunications industry, first as a system engineer and later as a senior manager. He earned his Ph.D. in Mass Communications from the Pennsylvania State University, University Park, USA.