Global Networks 10, 3 (2010) 424–442. ISSN 1470–2266. © 2010 The Author(s) 424 Journal compilation © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd & Global Networks Partnership Hybrid networks and the global politics of the digital revolution – a practice-oriented, relational and agnostic approach MIKKEL FLYVERBOM Department of Intercultural Communication and Management, Copenhagen Business School, Porcelænshaven 18A, 2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark mfl.ikl@cbs.dk Abstract The rapid growth of internet users and the importance of networked technologies for most spheres of life raise questions about how to foster and govern the digital revolution on a global scale. Focusing on internet governance and the use of ICTs for development purposes, I provide a multi-sited, ethnographic exploration of two UN-based multi-stakeholder arrangements – comprising governments, business and civil society groups – that have contributed to the construction of the digital revolution as an object of global governance. In this article I show how analytical insights from governmentality studies and actor-network theory can be used to capture how objects of governance and organizational arrangements are constructed and con- solidated. Conventional approaches to networks and governance tend to treat organiz- ational arrangements and issue areas as bounded, separate and fixed. By contrast, I demonstrate the merits of a practice-oriented, relational and agnostic research strategy, which foregrounds the governmental techniques and moments of translation involved when new objects and modes of governance are assembled and negotiated. Keywords NETWORK ORGANIZATIONS, DIGITAL REVOLUTION, INTERNET GOVERNANCE, ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY, GOVERNMENTALITY, CALLON S: So what can it [actor-network theory] do for me? P: The best thing it can do for you is to say something like, ‘When your informants mix up the organization, hardware, psychology, and politics in one sentence, don’t break it down first into neat little pots; try to follow the link they make among those elements that would have looked completely incommensurable if you had followed normal procedures.’ That’s all. ANT can’t tell you positively what the link is. (Latour 2005: 141–2)