Tech giants versus nation states: prospects for digital multipolarity

Abstract

This paper presents a political and predictive study of relationship between nation states and large corporations (tech giants) in relation to socially relevant online platforms (SROP). The key question of the article: will the current dominance of global SROP increase, or will they be fragmented (that is the separation of relatively isolated national or meta-regional segments) under the influence of nation states’ intention to protect their sovereignty. A methodological framework includes the following tools: (1) a discourse analysis of the research literature, (2) constructing predictive scenarios based on implicit models revealed in reviewed publications. Despite the search for some kind of control that nation states can have over global SROP (specifically, in India and Turkey), the Chinese model of total fragmentation of SROP is gaining support. Global SROP, as a manifestation of non-public and illegitimate power of tech giants, have transformed the landscape of contemporary international relations. A systemic virtualization of politics reduces the capacity of nation states to survive in a medium where social relations, identity, political behavior, and historical memory are formed and destructed through the intangible impact of global actors and unpredictable virtual cataclysms. The author draws a conclusion that the presumption of multipolarity of the world makes the fragmentation of SROP the only positive scenario. The intention of some governments to make do with only regulating the global tech giants can be interpreted as an illusion that threatens the survival of nation states.