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Shared fundamental liberties and democratic principles have long provided the core of what observers of international affairs termed the West. While national institutions and policies have at times varied, they rarely challenged the foundations of the transatlantic partnership. With the rise of information technology and the new security environment, however, local variations in fundamental rights have produced significant international implications. Examining recent transatlantic disputes over privacy and free speech, the paper argues that a new set of international issues have emerged dealing with transnational civil liberties. Once core unifying principles of the transatlantic relationship these basic freedoms have transformed into flashpoints for conflict. After identifying this new trend, the paper argues that the nature of these conflicts is framed by the timing of international interdependence relative to the maturity of national regulatory regimes.

Cover -- Protectors of Privacy -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Data Privacy and the Global Economy -- 2. Privacy Regimes: Comprehensive and Limited Approaches -- 3. The Computer Age: Similar Problems, Different Solutions -- 4. The EU Data Privacy Directive: Transgovernmental Actors as Drivers of Regional Integration -- 5. The Spread of Comprehensive Rules: The International Implications of the Regulatory State -- 6. The Struggle over Transnational Civil Liberties -- 7. Regulatory Power in the Global Economy -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Since the end of World War II, scholars have attempted to make sense of Germany's insistent multilateralism. Many concluded that this sacrifice resulted from a deeply ingrained political identity that stressed international cooperation and shunned parochial national politics. More recently, however, German leadership has suggested a willingness to weaken its role as global altruist and reassert its interests in Europe and abroad. This article argues that core German attitudes towards regional and global cooperation have changed. But rather than a shift to "national self-interests," I argue that the unification process elevated long-held beliefs about policy conservatism and caution that now compete with the postwar multilateral policy frame within the foreign policy elite. In addition to the pro-European, multilateralist agenda, a second powerful lesson of the interwar period emphasized the dangers associated with sudden change and the benefits of incrementalism. Owing to the uncertainty associated with sociopolitical events, decision makers must rely on their beliefs about how the world works to guide their decisions. To explore the relationship between beliefs and Germany's regional policy, the paper examines the government's regional response to the post 2008 financial crisis and the banking crisis in Eastern Europe.

Information has become a core input for many companies. This article examines how this affects firm policy preferences. In contrast to national typologies of capitalism or microeconomic expectations, it uses information economics and historical institutionalism to construct a deductive model positing two basic logics. Firms with significant information assets view data as a private good, supporting policies that constrain information access and distribution. Companies with few information assets face a network effects economy and thus call for policies that promote a liberal data environment. The information asset argument is examined in the context of initial data privacy legislation passed in the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom in the 1970s and early 1980s. The finding of the article contributes to literature interested in the political economy of services-based economies, underscores the significance of sociohistorical processes for preference formation, and calls attention to the boundary conditions of historically derived causal propositions.