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The organization of political authority is undergoing profound transformation as functions traditionally associated with the state are increasingly shared, delegated or contested by a growing range of non-state and transnational actors. Multinational corporations, international organizations, digital platforms, technology companies, civil society organizations and transnational networks now exercise forms of influence and governance that extend beyond conventional state institutions. These developments raise fundamental questions about the location of political authority and the capacity of democratic institutions to remain accountable in an increasingly fragmented governance environment.
This panel explores whether these transformations represent a genuine decline in the authority of the state or, rather, a redistribution and reconfiguration of political authority across multiple levels and actors. It challenges the assumption that the expansion of non-state governance necessarily corresponds to state weakness and instead considers the possibility that contemporary governance increasingly operates through complex arrangements of cooperation, delegation, competition and negotiation between public and private actors.
A central concern of the panel is the democratic accountability of actors that exercise significant political influence without being subject to the mechanisms of electoral accountability traditionally associated with democratic government. As private and transnational actors increasingly participate in the provision of public goods, regulation, information, security and other functions with significant political consequences, the boundaries between public authority and private power become increasingly blurred. This transformation also raises a fundamental question about popular sovereignty: if citizens are the ultimate bearers of sovereignty in democratic systems, how can they exercise meaningful political agency when decisions affecting their lives are increasingly shaped by actors beyond the institutions through which they traditionally exercise democratic control?
The panel further considers how digitalization and technological transformation are accelerating these processes by creating new forms of political influence and governance that operate across territorial and institutional boundaries. It examines whether existing democratic institutions and accountability mechanisms are capable of adapting to these emerging configurations of authority.
The panel welcomes theoretical, conceptual and empirical contributions examining fragmented authority, non-state governance, private political power, transnational actors, digital platforms, international organizations, civil society and the changing relationship between state authority and democratic accountability.