Digital Sovereignty in Conflict Call for Papers

Digital Sovereignty in Conflict is an international conference inviting original contributions that examine digital sovereignty through the lens of conflictuality, broadly construed: from armed conflict and geopolitical rivalry to regulatory competition, trade warfare, infrastructure dependency, and the structural tensions between state power and individual rights. It welcomes research from political science, law, sociology of science and technology, international relations, and interdisciplinary approaches. Empirical, theoretical and comparative contributions are all welcome, including work that moves beyond Euro-American frameworks.

Key Details

• Abstract submission deadline: 30 October 2026
• Notification of acceptance: 1 December 2026
• Author registration deadline: 15 January 2027
• Conference dates: 24-25 March 2027
• Venue: Paris-Panthéon-Assas University, Paris, France
• Organizers: the DIGISOV project, funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR), and the Research Chair in Digital Regulation, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University
• Organizing Committee, with the DIGISOV project team: Simon Bittmann (CNRS, Université Paris Dauphine - PSL), Françoise Daucé (CNRS, CERCEC, EHESS), Ksenia Ermoshina (CNRS, CIS; Citizen Lab, University of Toronto), Benjamin Loveluck (Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas; scientific coordinator of the DIGISOV project), Francesca Musiani (CNRS, Director of CIS), Riccardo Nanni (CNRS, CIS)
• Scientific Committee: Gregory Asmolov (King's College London), Anne Bellon (Université de Technologie de Compiègne), Edoardo Celeste (Dublin City University), Rachel Griffin (University of Duisburg-Essen), Alison Harcourt (University of Exeter), Tanya Lokot (Dublin City University), Maximilian Mayer (University of Bonn), Elisa Oreglia (King's College London), Julia Pohle (Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin), Roxana Radu (University of Oxford), Julien Rossi (Université Paris 8), Niels ten Oever (University of Amsterdam)

Contribution Types

The conference is organised along three research axes. Contributions may address the suggested issues under each.

Axis 1: Data and Market Regulation as Sites of Conflict in a Multiplex World

The governance of personal data and the regulation of digital market power as primary arenas of sovereignty contestation, including AI governance as a further site of conflict.

• The mechanisms and limits of the "Brussels Effect"
• Comparative approaches to platform competition regulation
• The relationship between data localisation requirements and surveillance capacity
• The translation and inversion of rights-based regulatory frameworks in non-liberal contexts
• Governance of AI systems as a site of geopolitical conflict
• Tensions between data sovereignty and the conditions for legitimate cross-border data flows

Axis 2: Controversies and Crises over Digital Infrastructures and Industrial Strategies

Infrastructures such as undersea cables, cloud server architectures, semiconductor supply chains and technical standards as distributions of power, including the ambiguous position of open source software.

• Geopolitics of technical standards in telecommunications, AI and internet protocols
• Strategic use of infrastructure investment to project governance norms
• The political economy of cloud sovereignty strategies
• Semiconductor industrial policy and its implications for digital autonomy
• Weaponisation of connectivity and the politics of kill switches
• Open source software as both sovereignty instrument and governance commons
• Dependency structures created by infrastructure lock-in

Axis 3: The Battle for the Digital Public Sphere

The governance of the online public sphere, where digital sovereignty most directly intersects with state legitimacy, democratic politics and freedom of expression.

• Comparative platform liability and content governance frameworks
• Governance of algorithmic systems and disinformation
• Circulation of content regulation norms across regime types
• Encryption policy and the cross-regime convergence of surveillance demands
• The role of civil society and non-state actors in contesting platform governance
• The management of AI-generated content

Application Process

• Prepare: a paper proposal with a title, an extended abstract of maximum 700 words (excluding bibliography), and a brief biographical note. Abstracts should include the research question(s), theoretical framework, approach and methodology, and empirical outcome or expected findings
• Submit: through the conference submissions page by 30 October 2026
• Register: at least one author must register by 15 January 2027 for a selected presentation to appear on the programme