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Ruling through technology : politicizing blockchain services
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Beaumier, Guillaume and Kalomeni, Kevin (2022) Ruling through technology : politicizing blockchain services. Review of International Political Economy, 29 (6). pp. 2135-2158. doi:10.1080/09692290.2021.1959377 ISSN 0969-2290.
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WRAP-ruling-through-technology-politicizing-blockchain-services-Beaumier-2021 .pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (1137Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2021.1959377
Abstract
Next to artificial intelligence and big data, blockchains have emerged as one of the most oft-cited technologies associated with the digital economy. Leading technology companies have recently contributed to making the technology used more widely by developing integrated blockchain offerings. The emergence of such services yet strikingly clashes with the original stated goal of the technology to remove any form of central political authority, such as the one companies behind these new services can represent. How should we then understand the embrace of blockchains by companies that this technology was notably supposed to displace? Using the concept of infrastructure from Science and Technology Studies, we argue that these companies are not merely adopting the technology but actively promoting a new assemblage of socio-technical devices to reassert their authority over how information is exchanged online. Based on a comparative analysis of the technical documentation of Ethereum and Amazon Web Services (AWS) blockchain services, we highlight how actors contributing to building digital infrastructures regulate their users' behavior by affording them different capacities and constraints. We moreover show how by pursuing its commercial interest, AWS supported a corporate form of governance historically promoted by the United States to oversee the digital economy.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | |||||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HF Commerce | |||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | |||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Blockchains (Databases) | |||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Review of International Political Economy | |||||||||
| Publisher: | Routledge | |||||||||
| ISSN: | 0969-2290 | |||||||||
| Official Date: | 2022 | |||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 29 | |||||||||
| Number: | 6 | |||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 2135-2158 | |||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1080/09692290.2021.1959377 | |||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | |||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | |||||||||
| Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Review of International Political Economy on 29 Jul 2021, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09692290.2021.1959377 | |||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | |||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 3 August 2021 | |||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 29 January 2023 | |||||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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