Domain Name Economics
I've tried to take a look at the "big picture" of ICANN you get when you just try to look at the economic aspects of the various activities in the DNS field. The result was called Domain Name Economics and posted to the icann-europe mailing list.
On a related topic, you may wish to have a look at David R. Johnson's presentation on Why A General Assembly Matters. In this text, he asks about what kind of social contract underlies ICANN, and how the organization was originally supposed to work.
