The project develops a theory of digital statehood. Digital technologies are often regarded as the driving force of state transformation, yet it remains unclear whether they are truly decisive—or whether other social and political trends play a more significant role. The innovation of the project lies in not viewing digital technologies in isolation but embedding them in a broader context: the aim is to analyze statehood in its contemporary diversity and to ask what role digital technologies actually play within it. At the center of the analysis is the question of whether state authority is being transformed through digital technologies: Is it becoming more market-driven? Is the state’s claim to control being strengthened? Or are new forms of cooperation emerging between governments, businesses, and civil society? The project also explores the consequences for democratic orders. Does digital technology enhance or restrict political participation? Are citizens today more exposed to state surveillance? And which understandings of democracy are embedded in the very structure of digital technologies—depending on whether they are organized in centralized or decentralized ways, governed by state institutions, private corporations, or civil society actors? Finally, the project asks whether autocratic regimes employ digital technologies differently, and whether such technologies serve to stabilize or destabilize authoritarian rule.

Theoretically, the project draws on several strands of scholarship: theories on the political qualities of technology (Langdon Winner, Lewis Mumford), state theory, and approaches to governing by numbers (e.g., Theodore Porter, James Scott, Marion Fourcade). In addition, regime theory and democratic theory provide key analytical lenses. Empirically, the project relies on case studies. These include strategies of the European Union to promote artificial intelligence while simultaneously tailoring it to European values and norms. Another area of investigation is the development of “sovereign digital infrastructures.” A further example concerns citizen and identity databases, which profoundly shape the relationship between the state and the individual.