How will the global race to define rules for the ever-expanding digital economy shape the future of privacy, democracy and societal norms?
That question is at the heart of cutting-edge research into how different political jurisdictions are managing the growing influence and power of tech companies and platforms.
“These tech companies have so much not only economic power, but political power, cultural power, informational power, that they are shaping our societies – and ultimately, they’re shaping the future of liberal democracy,” explains Anu Bradford, the Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School and director of Columbia’s European Legal Studies Center.
“We are all influenced by the products and services that these tech companies develop – so obviously, any regulation either enabling or restricting the development and deployment of these technologies will shape our engagement with each other and with the world,” she adds.
Bradford received the 2024 Stein Rokkan prize for her book Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology, which the jury described as “path-breaking”. The book builds on work Bradford explored in her previous book, The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World, which looked at how EU regulations and standards influence policy around the world, including on digital privacy and tech regulation.
Bradford’s new research tracks the emergence of the EU, U.S. and China as “digital empires”, each with different visions for the future of the digital economy. Like empires of the past, the decisions made by each of these digital superpowers can create profound global effects.
Digital Empires charts these different paths, examining each in the socio-political and historical contexts which have guided the competing approaches. The work offers new insight amidst growing conversation and concern about how the unrelenting growth of the digital economy is affecting privacy, democracy and societal norms.
“Part of what drew me into this research is that I think the stakes are enormous,” Bradford says.
Our sense of the power of tech companies has changed from the early days of the internet, she argues. “I think we never truly saw at that time how gigantic these companies would become, and how much control over individual lives and societies they would have,” she says.
“There was this idea that they are an instrument for more robust civic engagement, and they would liberate societies – and we’ve learned that ultimately these companies have become too big for them to self-govern responsibly,” she explains.
Bradford’s research draws on extensive conversations with parliamentarians, tech companies and legal experts, among others, as well as deep primary research – with the help of a diverse team of researchers with experience in different jurisdictions.
“Your job as a researcher is to provide the kinds of analytical frameworks that then help the conversation evolve, and that give you deeper insights into the dynamics that are driving those conversations,” she notes.
The work has significant implications for policymakers looking at how to regulate the digital economy. “This is not just about technology. It’s about how technology impacts democracy and individual rights,” she says. “Tech companies are not experts on democracy or individual rights, so it’s really an obligation of the lawmakers to step in and regulate the kinds of domains of economic activity that have such a deep impact on individual rights and societies.”
Companies also need to think deeply about the societal impacts of their actions – and it’s important for individuals to exercise power as consumers and users of technology to hold companies to standards that fit their values, she adds: “In many ways, I think it is imperative that the users of technology demand from these companies better privacy protections, greater civility online, more truthful information.”
Building on Digital Empires, Bradford aims to continue the work by digging further into the broader economic and political shifts which she sees affecting tech policy – particularly around the collision of regulatory and economic approaches of democratic and authoritarian regimes, and a rise in nationalistic policy: “As we move into this era, in a sort of post-neoliberal world where we have less faith in free trade, less robust liberal international institutions, more techno-nationalism, more protectionism, more national security justifications to restrict commerce – I’m very interested in where the world is heading,” she says.
Anu Bradford is Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School. She is also a director for Columbia’s European Legal Studies Center and a Senior Scholar at Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School. Bradford’s scholarship focuses on European Union law, digital regulation, international trade law, and comparative and international antitrust law. She earned her S.J.D. and LL.M. degrees from Harvard Law School after completing a law degree at the University of Helsinki. Bradford is the author of “The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World” (OUP 2020), which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by Foreign Affairs. Her most recent book “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology” was published by Oxford University Press in September 2023, and was recognized as one of the Best Books of 2023 by Financial Times.
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