Anu Bradford wins the 2024 Stein Rokkan Prize

“The Jury found Digital Empires to be a path-breaking book that addresses one of the major challenges of our time: the regulation of the digital economy.

Drawing extensively on her legal background, Bradford charts in detail the major regulatory developments in China, the US, and the EU, and discusses their economic, social and political implications. We learn how each of the three polities organizes the regulation of the digital economy around, respectively, the state, the market, or the digital rights of its citizens. The regulatory developments are analyzed in their full cultural and social complexity, placing this book at the cutting edge of contemporary social science. The author shows how these models often come into conflict with one another both horizontally (between governments) and vertically (tech companies versus their governments).

Digital economy in the future 

The book poses important questions about which model may dominate the regulation of the digital economy in the future.

This bold and provocative book compels us to reflect on these challenges that will shape global politics in the decades to come.”

“Digital Empires explores the rivalry between the United States, the European Union, and China over the governance of the digital economy.

The most consequential battle among these leading technology and regulatory powers is being fought over the future of liberal democracy. The book warns that liberal democracy can deteriorate if “techno-democracies” lose their battle to “techno-autocracies” but also if democratic governments lose their battle to tech companies who exert often outsized influence over individuals and societies.

"Given Stein Rokkan’s own path-breaking work on the nation state and democracy, this is a distinctly meaningful recognition for me. I am truly honoured and deeply grateful for this prize.”

Anu Bradford

About Anu Bradford 

Anu Bradford is Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School. She is also a director for Columbia’s European Legal Studies Center and a Senior Scholar at Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School. Bradford’s scholarship focuses on European Union law, digital regulation, international trade law, and comparative and international antitrust law. She earned her S.J.D. and LL.M. degrees from Harvard Law School after completing a law degree at the University of Helsinki. Bradford is the author of “The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World” (OUP 2020), which was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by Foreign Affairs. Her most recent book “Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology” was published by Oxford University Press in September 2023, and was recognized as one of the Best Books of 2023 by Financial Times.