Research in Progress Seminar – What Kind of Governor is Big Tech?

This seminar welcomes Dr. Wendy Wong as a guest speaker in the Department of Political Science.

DATE:        Tuesday, September 23^rd, 2025

TIME:         2:30 PM – 4:00 PM EST

WHERE:     LRW 3001

In IR, we think that governance by states follows the logic of power and authority, whereas non-state governance follows the logic of authority. Big Tech companies, however, break the typical mold that has been developed for analyzing non-state governors because of their embeddedness in modern society. This embeddedness has qualities that align with power (“getting A to it otherwise would not do”), and not authority (“rightfulness”). Big Tech companies’ global reach makes theories of global governance relevant, but also shows the limits of the framework. Using Barnett and Duvall’s (2004, 2005) typology of power that differentiates between compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive means Dr. Wong shows how we can use this theory to understand the sources of Big Tech’s power as data and platforms and the implications it has for creating political, social, and economic order. In so doing, Dr. Wong draws on science and technology studies (STS) to show its application in IR.

Wendy H. Wong is Professor and Principal’s Research Chair in the Department of Economics, Philosophy, and Political Science at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan) and co-lead of the Digital Transparency Excellence Cluster. A leading scholar in International Relations, her research focuses on global governance, technology, human rights, and NGOs. She is the author of We, the Data: Human Rights in the Digital Age (MIT, 2023), which received the 2024 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy and was a finalist for the 2024 Lionel-Gelber Prize, as well as two other award-winning books from Cornell University Press and dozens of academic and public writings. Currently, she has two books under contract, Mirrored States: How to Govern Big Tech (Penguin Canada) and Governance Constellations (Cornell). Dr. Wong is a frequent media commentator on technology and society. She previously directed the Trudeau Center for Peace, Conflict, and Justice and served as Research Lead at the Schwartz Reisman Institute at the University of Toronto, where she was Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor from 2008-2024.