The terms ‘platform’ and ‘platformisation’ are fast becoming an important concept in International Relations. Interdisciplinary research on social media (Facebook), app (Google Play), and gig economy (Uber) platforms has already shown how they have a significant impact, including on how we work, socialise, and regulate (Van Dijck et al. 2018). This literature has adopted different perspectives, focusing, for example, on the discursive work done by the ambiguous meaning of the platform concept (Gillespie, 2010), the rise of the platform as a business model oriented towards the accumulation of data and the coordination of network effects (Langley & Leyshon, 2017; Srnicek, 2017), or the socio-technical dimensions of platforms, such as their programmability and modularity, which explain the growing 'infrastructural' dimensions of platforms and their global power and reach (Helmond, 2015; Plantin et al., 2018).
While a focus on these processes of platformisation has been productive in studying how social and political relations are mediated and reconfigured through platforms in areas such as health, housing, journalism and finance, we know much less about their impact in security fields, such as border, security, military and humanitarian areas (Egbert et al., 2024; Aradau and Blanke 2022). The underlying infrastructures, economic processes, and governance frameworks of these platforms have also begun to permeate police work (Egbert et al. 2024). For instance, US company Palantir offers its software services to state institutions to take over data integration and analysis tasks, thus ensuring its applicability for surveillance purposes (Galis and Karlsson 2024). Furthermore, the adoption of digital platforms within warfare has seen a marked increase (Hoijtink and Planqué-van Hardeveld 2022). Defense technology companies are promoting their software platforms as data tools that can be readily installed on legacy hardware systems.
We welcome contributions with new conceptualisations of platforms as metaphors, infrastructures, and business models. Starting from the assumption that platforms provide critical services through which data is integrated and analysed, such a focus is crucial for understanding developments in surveillance, humanitarianism, security, and warfare. We also invite methodological approaches that address the complex issues (lock-in effects, ownership, co-option, power relations, and sovereignty) that emerge from these public-private partnerships. In addition, we welcome research strategies that engage with the specific socio-technical arrangements of platforms, their modularity and programmability, and the dynamism and multiplicity of practices they enable.
Please submit an abstract (max. 250 words) to the panel organizers (marijn.hoijtink@uantwerpen.be; jasper.vanderkist@uantwerpen.be) by 17 March 2025.
