Digital Rights Activism in Multilevel Governance

ABSTRACT Multilevel governance (MLG) without a clear hierarchical structure can create power imbalances among various actors, particularly in settings with overlapping jurisdictions and policy areas. This dynamic is especially pronounced in Internet governance, which faces a complex interplay of domestic laws, state interdependence, and heightened influence from the private sector. This article contributes to MLG by drawing on the academic literature surrounding transnational advocacy networks (TANs) to analyse the strategies employed by digital rights groups in the closed environment of Internet standard setting. The findings indicate that digital rights advocacy has been most effective when accountability politics are leveraged to impact decision‐making at state and European levels. However, this influence diminishes as decision‐making shifts to global level standard development organisations (SDOs). The conclusions highlight a crisis of representation, marked by a rapid decline in state authority as governance in the digital realm increasingly shifts to the private sector.