Invisible Infrastructure In Turbulent Times: Political Economy and the Making of Digital Societies

Digital societies are shaped not only by technological innovation but also by the often invisible political and economic infrastructures that enable, govern, and sustain digital transformation. Behind platforms, artificial intelligence, digital public services, and tech-driven governance lie complex relationships among states, markets, scientific institutions, and technology industries that structure the development, deployment, and regulation of digital technologies. Responding to the ISA World Congress theme, Global Sociology in Turbulent Times, this session invites contributions that reveal the institutional and political-economic arrangements underpinning contemporary digital societies. We are particularly interested in research that discloses how state–society relations, state–market collaborations, technological industrialization, and other forms of institutional coordination shape the trajectories of technological development and the digitalization of social life. Bringing together perspectives from the sociology of science and technology, political economy, digital sociology, organizational sociology, and infrastructure studies, this session seeks to understand how infrastructures constitute sites of power, accumulation, governance, and contestation in an increasingly turbulent world. We especially encourage historical and ethnographic studies that illuminate the socio-material and institutional processes through which infrastructures emerge, evolve, and shape digital societies across the global.

We welcome contributions on topics including, but not limited to:

* State–society relations in digital governance

* State–market collaborations in technological development

* The political economy of AI and digital infrastructures

* Platform governance and digital capitalism

* Technology industries and innovation ecosystems

* Digital bureaucracy, surveillance, and public administration

* Knowledge infrastructures and the production of technological expertise

* Comparative and transnational studies of digital transformation

Session Organizers:

Bolun ZHANG, Zhejiang University, China, bolunzhang@zju.edu.cn
Yi JIN, Nanjing University, China, y.jin@nju.edu.cn
Rui HOU, Saint Mary’s University, Canada, rui.hou@smu.ca

See more of: RC23 Sociology of Science and Technology
See more of: WG10 Digital Sociology
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