Jump to:
– Peer Reviewed Journal Articles
– Peer Reviewed Conference Papers
– Book Chapters
– Books
– Reports
– Technical Standards / RFCs
– Internet-Drafts

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

Jansen, Fieke, Maxigas, and Niels ten Oever. 2026. “From Critique to Hope: Infrawalking, Defamiliarisation, Transgressive Infrastructuring and Utopian Engineering.” Convergence, April 13. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565261441756.

Jansen, Fieke, Niels ten Oever, Sarah Vorndran, and Maxigas. 2026. “Infrastructural Anxiety and Digital Sovereignty: The Perceived Loss of Control in Dutch Communication Networks.” First Monday, ahead of print, February 27. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v31i3.14530.

ten Oever, Niels, and Christoph Becker. 2025. “Infrastructural Insecurity: Geopolitics in the Standardization of Telecommunications Networks.” Media International Australia 194 (1): 131–47. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X231225748.

ten Oever, Niels, Clement Perarnaud, John Kristoff, Moritz Müller, Arturo Filastò, Max Resing, and Chris Kanich. 2024. “Sanctions and Infrastructural Ideologies: Assessing the Material Shaping of EU Digital Sovereignty in Response to the War in Ukraine.” Policy & Internet, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.422.

Becker, Christoph, Niels ten Oever, and Riccardo Nanni. 2024. “Interrogating the Standardisation of Surveillance in 5G amid US–China Competition.” Information, Communication & Society, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2302991.

Maxigas, and Niels ten Oever. 2023. “Geopolitics in the Infrastructural Ideology of 5G.” Global Media and China, August, 20594364231193950. https://doi.org/10.1177/20594364231193950.

ten Oever, Niels. 2022. “5G and the Notion of Network Ideology, or: The Limitations of Sociotechnical Imaginaries.” Telecommunications Policy. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.telpol.2022.102442.

ten Oever, Niels, and Stefania Milan. 2022. “The Making of International Communication Standards: Towards a Theory of Power in Standardization.” Journal of Standardisation 1 (1).

ten Oever, Niels. 2021. “Norm conflict in the governance of transnational and distributed infrastructures: the case of Internet routing.” Globalizations. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2021.1953221.

ten Oever, Niels. 2021. “‘This is not how we imagined it’: Technological Affordances, Economic Drivers and the Internet Architecture Imaginary.” New Media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820929320.

ten Oever, Niels. 2018. “Productive Contestation, Civil Society, and Global Governance: Human Rights as a Boundary Object in ICANN.” Policy & Internet. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.172.

Milan, Stefania, and Niels ten Oever. 2017. “Coding and Encoding Rights in Internet Infrastructure: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Grassroots Ordering in Internet Governance.” Internet Policy Review 6 (1). https://doi.org/10.14763/2017.1.442.

Peer Reviewed Conference Papers

Kristoff, John, Moritz Müller, Arturo Filastò, Max Resing, Chris Kanich, and Niels ten Oever. 2024. “Internet Sanctions on Russian Media: Actions and Effects.” In Free and Open Communications on the Internet 2024, 1:1–12. https://www.petsymposium.org/foci/2024/foci-2024-0001.php.

ten Oever, Niels. 2023. “Distinguishing Infrastructural Ideologies in the EU, China, Russia and the United States.” Honolulu: Society for Social Studies of Science (4S).

ten Oever, Niels, and Christoph Becker. 2023. “Infrastructural Insecurity: Geopolitics in the Standardization of Telecommunications Networks.” Philadelphia: Association of Internet Researchers (AOIR).

Becker, Christoph, Niels ten Oever, and Riccardo Nanni. 2022. “The standardisation of lawful interception technologies in the 3GPP: interrogating 5G and surveillance amid US-China competition.” Washington, DC: TPRC2022.

ten Oever, Niels. 2021. “5G and the Notion of Network Ideology, or: The Limitations of Sociotechnical Imaginaries.” In Giganet Annual Symposium 2021 Proceedings. Katowice: Giganet, Internet Governance Forum.

Dunajcsik, Peter “Maxigas,” and Niels ten Oever. 2021. “Geopolitics in the Infrastructural Ideologies of 5G.” AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research, AOIR2021. https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12163.

ten Oever, Niels. 2021. “The Quantum State of Infrastructure Reconfiguration in 5G.” In Selected Papers in Internet Research 2021: Research from the Annual Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. AOIR 2021. https://doi.org/10.5210/spir.v2021i0.12056.

Book Chapters

ten Oever, Niels. 2026. “The Internet Infrastructure Has Never Been Open.” In The Politics of Open Infrastructures, edited by K. Mayer, A. Mager, and R. Ridgway, 6:65–78. Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0528.

Jansen, Fieke, and Niels ten Oever. 2026. “More Compute for a Burning Planet? A Scarcity Approach to AI Infrastructures.” In AI Infrastructures and Sustainability: Expanding Perspectives on Automation, Communication and Media, edited by Anne Mollen, Fieke Jansen, Sigrid Kannengießer, and Julia Velkova. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-09748-4_15.

ten Oever, Niels, and Maxigas. 2026. “Infrastructural Ideologies.” In Imagining the Internet(s), edited by Nathalie Fridzema and Anya Shchetvina. Institute for Network Cultures. https://networkcultures.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ImaginingtheInternets_INC2026_NetworkNotions.pdf.

ten Oever, Niels. 2025. “Infrastructural Futures: Transparency, Disconnectivity, and Transgressive Infrastructuring.” In Critical Internet Governance: From Positions to a Field, 79. https://www.criticalinfralab.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CIL011.pdf.

Maxigas, Fieke Jansen, Niels ten Oever, and Fernanda R. Rosa. 2025. “Critical Internet Governance: An Invitation.” In Critical Internet Governance: From Positions to a Field, 2. https://www.criticalinfralab.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/CIL011.pdf.

ten Oever, Niels, and Maxigas. 2023. “Standing out: critical infrastructure walks in Amsterdam.” In Eaten by the Internet, edited by Corinne Cath. Meat Space Press.

ten Oever, Niels. 2022. “5G, Community Networks, Standardization, and the Human Rights to Science and Technological Self Determination.” In Community Networks as Enablers of Human Rights, edited by Luca Belli and Senka Hadzic, 49–56. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: FGV Direito Rio.

Hadzic, Senka, Luca Belli, Niels ten Oever, Raquel Rennó, Erik Huerta, Carlos Baca, Karla Velasco, and Lee W. McKnight. 2022. “Community Networks as Human Rights Enablers.” In Community Networks as Enablers of Human Rights, edited by Luca Belli and Senka Hadzic, 25–48. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: FGV Direito Rio.

ten Oever, Niels. 2021. “The metagovernance of internet governance.” In Power and Authority in Internet Governance: Return of the State?, edited by Blayne Haggart, Natasha Tusikov, and Jan Aart Scholte. Routledge Global Cooperation Series.

ten Oever, Niels. 2021. “Covid-19 and the stripping of power from the edges.” In Covid-19 from the Margins, edited by Stefania Milan, Emiliano Treré, and Silvia Masiero. Institute for Network Cultures.

ten Oever, Niels, Davide Beraldo, and Stefania Milan. 2020. “Studying Discourse in Internet Governance through Mailing-List Analysis.” In Researching Internet Governance, edited by D. Cogburn, L. DeNardis, N. Levinson, and F. Musiani. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

ten Oever, Niels. 2020. Cybernetica, dataficatie en surveillance in de polder in: Ni Dieu, Ni Maitre. Festschrift for Ruud Kaulingfreks. Waardenwerk, Journal for Humanistic Studies, SWP. Pages 44-46.

Frank Jørgensen, Rikke, Cathrine Bloch Veiberg, and Niels ten Oever. 2020. “Information and communication technologies (ICT): Exploring the human rights impact of the ICT sector.” In Handbook on Human Rights Impact Assessment, edited by Nora Götzmann. Edward Elgar Publishing.

ten Oever, Niels., and Davide Beraldo. 2018. Routes to rights: internet architecture and values in times of ossification and commercialization. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students – Pseudonimity and Anonymity Volume 24 Issue 4, Summer 2018 Pages 28-31. https://doi.org/10.1145/3220561

Books

ten Oever, Niels. Infrastructure Politics: Connection, Coordination, and Control in Communication Networks. Under review, MIT Press.

Uhlig, Ulrike, Mallory Knodel, Corinne Cath, and Niels ten Oever. 2020. How the Internet Really Works: An Illustrated Guide to Protocols, Privacy, Censorship, and Governance. San Francisco: No Starch Press.

Reports

Jansen, Fieke, Niels ten Oever, Dmitry Kuznetsov, Valentina Ochner, and Jane Ruffino. 2026. Building a Shared Research Agenda on Submarine Cables. critical infrastructure lab. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19368835.

Ferreira Gomes, Alexandre, Maaike Okano-Heijmans, Niels ten Oever, Miriam Sanaito, and Susann Lüdtke. 2025. Standardisation with Chinese Characteristics: The Missing Pillar in Rebooting Europe’s Industrial Policy. China Knowledge Network and Clingendael. https://www.criticalinfralab.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Standardisation_with_Chinese_Characteristics.pdf.

Driessen, M., M. van de Koppel, D. Hollander, Stefania Milan, Jeroen de Vos, and Niels ten Oever. 2024. Public Values Concerning Digital Technologies. Amsterdam: IN-SIGHT.it and I&O Research. https://openresearch.amsterdam/image/2024/4/4/in_sight_public_values_report_en.pdf.

Driessen, M., M. van de Koppel, D. Hollander, Stefania Milan, Jeroen de Vos, and Niels ten Oever. 2024. Publieke waarden rondom digitale technologieën. Amsterdam: IN-SIGHT.it and I&O Research. https://www.ipsos-publiek.nl/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/in-sight-report-nl-digital.pdf.

Jansen, Fieke, Niels ten Oever, Maxigas, et al. 2023. Building a Relational Infrastructure: The Launch of the critical infrastructure lab. critical infrastructure lab. https://criticalinfralab.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/infralab-launch-report-with-programme.pdf

Brand, Paul, Niels ten Oever, Rudolf van der Berg, and Jelle Verweij. 2022. Internetinfrastructuur: Standaardisatie, techniek en geopolitiek. Telecommunication Authority, Dutch National Government. https://www.rdi.nl/site/binaries/site-content/collections/documenten/2022/12/7/standaarden-vrij-en-open-internet/Stratix+eindrapport+standaardisatie.pdf

ten Oever, Niels. 2021. Human Rights Are Not a Bug: Upgrading Governance for an Equitable Internet. Ford Foundation. https://www.fordfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/humanrights-tenoever-a11y.pdf

ten Oever, Niels. 2020. “The Internet infrastructure and its governance.” In Gesellschaftliche Technikgestaltung: Orientierung durch eine Metaperspektive auf Schlüsselelemente, edited by Karoline Krenn and Jens Tiemann. Fraunhofer Fokus. https://www.oeffentliche-it.de/publikationen/gesellschaftliche-technikgestaltung-orientierung-durch-eine-metaperspektive-auf-schluesselelemente/Gesellschaftliche%20Technikgestaltung%20-%20Orientierung%20durch%20eine%20Metaperspektive%20auf%20Schl%c3%bcsselelemente.pdf

The IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems. 2018. Ethically Aligned Design. IEEE. https://standards.ieee.org/wp-content/uploads/import/documents/other/ead_v2.pdf

Cath, Corinne, Niels ten Oever, and Dan O’Maley. 2017. Media Development in the Digital Age: Five Ways to Engage in Internet Governance. National Endowment for Democracy and Centre for International Media Assistance. https://www.cima.ned.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/CIMA-Internet-Governance_150ppi-for-web_REV.pdf

Technical Standards / RFCs

Grover, Gurshabad, and Niels ten Oever. 2024. Guidelines for Human Rights Protocol and Architecture Considerations. Request for Comments RFC 9620. Internet Research Task Force (IRTF stream). https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC9620.

ten Oever, Niels, and Greg Wood. 2024. Retiring the Tao of the IETF. Request for Comments RFC 9592. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF stream). https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC9592.

ten Oever, Niels, Corinne Cath, Mirja Kühlewind, and Colin Perkins. 2022. Report from the IAB Workshop on Analyzing IETF Data (AID). Request for Comments RFC 9307. Internet Architecture Board (IAB stream). https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC9307.

Grover, Gurshabad, Niels ten Oever, Corinne Cath, and Shivan Kaul Sahib. 2021. Establishing the Protocol Police. Request for Comments RFC 8962. Independent Submission stream. https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC8962. (1 April RFC.)

ten Oever, Niels, and Corinne Cath. 2017. Research into Human Rights Protocol Considerations. Request for Comments RFC 8280. Internet Research Task Force (IRTF stream). https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC8280.

Internet-Drafts

ten Oever, Niels, Stéphane Couture, and Mallory Knodel. 2023. Internet Protocols and the Human Rights to Freedom of Association and Assembly. Internet-Draft draft-irtf-hrpc-association-13 (expired). Internet Research Task Force (IRTF stream), Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-irtf-hrpc-association/.

Knodel, Mallory, and Niels ten Oever. 2023. Terminology, Power, and Inclusive Language in Internet-Drafts and RFCs. Internet-Draft draft-knodel-terminology-14 (expired). Internet Engineering Task Force (individual submission). https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-knodel-terminology/.

ten Oever, Niels. 2019. Notes on networking standards and politics. Internet-Draft draft-irtf-hrpc-political-07 (expired). Internet Research Task Force (IRTF stream), Human Rights Protocol Considerations Research Group. https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-irtf-hrpc-political/.

Arkko, Jari, Brian Trammell, Mark Nottingham, Christian Huitema, Martin Thomson, Jeff Tantsura, and Niels ten Oever. 2019. Considerations on Internet Consolidation and the Internet Architecture. Internet-Draft draft-arkko-iab-internet-consolidation-02 (expired). Internet Engineering Task Force (individual submission). https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-arkko-iab-internet-consolidation-02.

Abraham, Sunil, Maria Paz Canales, Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Olga Khrustaleva, Niels ten Oever, Christine Runnegar, and Shivan Kaul Sahib. 2017. Implementation Report for HTTP Status Code 451 (RFC 7725). Internet-Draft draft-451-imp-report-00 (expired). Internet Engineering Task Force (individual submission). https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-451-imp-report/.