Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age

265 Pages·2015·1.78 MB·English

by  Taylor Owen

disru ptive p ower
OXFORD STUDIES IN DIGITAL POLITICS
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d i s r u p t i v e
p o w e r
The Crisis of the State
in the Digital Age
t a y l o r o w e n
1
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contents
Acknowledgments ix
1. Losing Control 1
2. Disruptive Power 22
3. Spaces of Dissent 48
4. New Money 67
5. Being There 98
6. Saving the Saviors 122
7. Diplomacy Unbound 148
8. The Violence of Algorithms 168
9. The Crisis of the State 189
Notes 211
Index 245

acknowledgments
This book represents the culmination of three meandering
years exploring the intersection of digital technology and
international affairs and is ultimately the product of many
people’s work. It began as a lecture and working paper for
the Trudeau Foundation in the spring of 2012, and I am
appreciative of PG Forest giving me the chance to come
back to the Foundation and try out some new ideas on the
smartest (and most critical) crowd in Canada. At the time,
the ideas presented were nascent, and represented my ini-
tial explorations of what I increasingly saw as the profound
ways technology was reshaping the international system.
This essay became a larger research project funded by
a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grant
called International Relations in the Digital Age, a part-
nership between the Canadian International Council and
UBC. My friend and colleague Anouk Dey was critical as
an RA on both of these initial stages. And my co-PI on the
SSHRC research project, partner at the CIC and Open-
Canada and close friend Jennifer Jeffs built the project and
team with me. We had a great group of UBC journalism
students helping out with a wide range of research, includ-
ing Sadiya Ansari, Lindsay Sample, Kate Adach, Alexis
Beckett, and Alexandra Gibb.