Call for Papers: Power in a Digitalized World and Modern Bigness

Photo: Fabio via Unsplash

The Modern Bigness project group led by Prof. Anna Gerbrandy, at Utrecht University, would like to invite you to participate in, or share the Call for Papers for the upcoming Modern Bigness Conference and Utrecht Law Review Special Issue titled "Power in a Digitalized World: Evolving Perspectives on Competition Law, Regulation and Beyond", which will take place on 4-5 April 2024.

The theme of this special issue is to bring together different contributions in order to examine the power of big technology corporations, and to explore the possible legal (and non-legal) counterbalancing forces. We also welcome contributions that diverge from the focus on big technology platforms to other sectors of corporate power, or change the focus away from European competition law. The non-exhaustive list of topics that could be covered include:

  • Digital companies' influence over politics;
  • Exploring measures of counter-power: public counter-power of commons and cooperatives, privacy and data-protection laws, or other regulatory and enforcement approaches;
  • Examining the relevance of anti-power theories e.g., feminist theory, anarchist theory;
  • Examining the relevance of digital constitutionalism and digital sovereignty debates in the changing EU's digital regulatory landscape;
  • Identifying and problematizing Modern Bigness' type of (platform-) power that lies with companies outside the domain of well-known big technology companies e.g., in healthcare, agriculture and other.

Submission

Interested researchers should submit an abstract (max. 400 words) to p.s.phoa@uu.nl by 20 December 2023. Decisions will be communicated no later than 31 January 2024. After the conference, organisers and the editorial board of the Utrecht Law Review will conduct an additional review process to select papers for publication.

Call for Papers Modern Bigness Conference and ULR (pdf)