Technology Regulation and the Challenge of Infrastructural Power
The emergence of networked digital technologies has catalyzed a transformation in political economy, organized around networked, programmable, platformized digital infrastructures and supply chains.
Such infrastructures represent a novel mode of powerthat has presented thorny conceptual and practical challenges for political regimes of all persuasions. In part, this is because networked digital infrastructures are privately controlled and operate at very large scales, but even if such environments were to be publicly built and operated, their operations would resist conventional modes of political and bureaucratic control and accountability.
Understanding infrastructural power is a necessary first step to developing more effective governance institutions.
