Current projects

I currently work on several interrelated projects on the governance of digital technologies drawing from a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches, including network analysis, content analysis, demographic analysis, historical narratives, and interviews.

How New Organizational Forms Emerge? The Organizational Ecology of the Space Industry

with Jean-Frédéric Morin (submitted for peer-review)

Abstract Outer space, a domain once governed by a handful of governmental agencies, is now increasingly populated by private space organizations (PSOs). PSOs launch rockets, operate satellites, and even take tourists on space expeditions. Few studies have investigated the factors behind the emergence of PSOs. This paper builds on the theory of organizational ecology to explain the phenomenon. Empirically, it draws from an original dataset of 1539 space organizations and 52 semi-structured interviews. It finds that mutualist relations between PSOs (i.e., commensalism) and between governmental space agencies and PSOs (i.e., symbiosis), have contributed to the development of PSOs. This finding contrasts sharply with the popular idea that PSOs developed as a result of technological innovations and visionary entrepreneurs. It also contrasts with the idea that dynamic PSOs are outcompeting a sclerosed public sector. PSOs have not superseded governmental space agencies. They are nurtured by and develop with them. This paper contributes to the literature on organizational ecology, by linking environmental constraints to mutualist strategies. It also contributes to the literature on interactions between public and private sectors, by showing how private businesses can emerge from the public sector.

When serving the Public Interest generates Private Gains: Private Actor Governance and Two-Sided Digital Markets 

with Abraham Newman (submitted for peer-review)

Abstract Business decisions on issues ranging from content moderation to data collection and use shape how important social values like free speech and privacy rights are protected online. This article examines when and how firms regulate public interest issues in a digital economy. In contrast to the shadow of hierarchy and functionalist explanations of private authority, we build an analytical framework based on business power and the economics literature concerned with two-sided markets. We emphasize how companies centrally located in platform infrastructures can embed their policy preferences in technical artefacts and regulate other users’ behavior. We then argue that firms benefitting from strong cross-network effects can use the public interest to legitimize closing off their infrastructure and extract economic rents. We probe our argument by looking at the privacy policy implemented by Apple in 2021. Our findings demonstrate the growing role played by digital companies in global regulatory debates and call attention to how market structures can simultaneously incentivize public interest regulation and become a source of business power.

Running out the digital clock: Transatlantic privacy politics and veto points in time

with Jonas Heering and Abraham Newman (Manuscript available on demand)

Why does the European Commission continue to sign onto unstable international data flow agreements with the United States? After two agreements were struck down by the European Court of Justice, and clear signals that a new one could meet a similar fate, the European Commission agreed to the Data Privacy Framework in 2022. To make sense of this behavior, we connect traditional work on veto points with work on historical institutionalism. While traditional veto points literature suggests multiple institutions with varying preferences will limit the set of potential policies or their adoption, we highlight how these dynamics change when considering veto points, and more specifically judicial veto points, in time. We showcase our argument by building three historical narratives detailing the negotiation of the successive data flow agreements among the transatlantic partners. Our findings have important implications for the future of the transatlantic privacy regime as well as negotiation dynamics.

The digital governance trilemma

with Lars Gjesvik (Manuscript available on demand)

The United States, the European Union, and China are commonly depicted as representing three competing models of digital governance. Their so-called market, democratic, and authoritarian approach supposedly reflects their respective preferences over which actors should control the development and use of digital technologies. Building on Dani Rodrik’s globalization trilemma, we argue that more than representing different values, each model differs in how it resolves inherent tensions associated with governing a digital economy. When devising new digital policies, they must navigate tensions between achieving the three following objectives: promoting their regulatory autonomy, developing their national industry, and supporting an open ecosystem. Significantly, the legacies and consequences of early policy choice promoting different combinations of these objectives create new constraints and limit their ability to move toward one of the other models. We examine this argument by comparing three historical narratives of the emergence and development of digital governance strategies in each jurisdiction. The article contributes to ongoing debates about the rise and origins of different digital governance models beyond presenting them as distinct ideal types clashing with one another in a battle for global supremacy.