Regulatory Frameworks in Developing Countries: An Integrative Literature Review

In spite of good intentions to develop effective ICT regulatory frameworks that foster universal access, improve competition, drive down access cost, address disputes between stakeholders and create equal opportunities to enter the sector, the outcomes often fail to match their preferences. The development of ICT regulatory frameworks in developing countries is dependent on lessons drawn from industrialised countries. Since the models from different countries have their strengths and weakness, it is imperative to investigate the causes of failure, to compile the strengths and avoid the weaknesses that are documented in literature as a first step to developing any effective ICT regulatory framework. This paper presents an integrative literature review on regulatory frameworks in developing countries using Habermasian Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) which views discourse under an Ideal Speech Situation. After a key word selection, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Synthesis (PRISMS) model was employed by three researchers and a compilation of 30 papers was drawn from an initial list of 90 papers from AIS, Research4lLife, Googlescholar and Academia.edu data bases. The results present the components of an effective ICT regulatory model for developing countries as a hub and spoke framework with institutionalism as the hub that supports the rest, and all under a common jurisdiction and legislative context.