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Digital Sovereignty and Civic Life: The Role of IT Industries Worldwide

This workshop will allow participants to consider how the IT industries and the infrastructures they develop – platforms, communication networks, apps and AI services – shape the role of citizenship in contemporary politics. The research presented will consider how the design and governance of such infrastructures shape the status and behavior of citizens enabling some forms of political participation and constraining others. It will also consider how industrial actors intervene in the political arena whether through political activism, campaign financing, engagement with the legislative process, or behind the scenes lobbying promoting particular notions of citizenship, and the public good. The speakers at the workshop will engage with these themes in diverse contexts under divergent and often rapidly changing political regimes and provide relevant examples and use cases. A cooperation between the University of Vienna and the University for Continuing Education Krems.