International Conference “Google, a major stakeholder in local governance?” 10.07.2023

Google, a major stakeholder in local governance?

Sciences Po’s Digital Cities Chair International Conference. Paris, 10 July 2023

The Digital Cities Chair of the Urban School of Sciences Po, in partnership with the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics, is organizing an international conference on July 10, 2023, on the theme of “Google and Territories”.

As an essential part of the daily lives of city dwellers and in the discourse on digital cities, the relationship between Google and local governance raises several issues that have surprisingly been relatively unexplored in the scientific literature. This conference, organized in three areas of reflection, aims to question the presence of Google in the territories and its effects on local policies and urban governance. Based on empirical investigations, the proposals may come from several social science disciplines (political science, sociology, geography, economics, urban planning, law, etc.) and may fall within the following three axes.

1. Alphabet’s territorial implementation and strategy with respect to cities and territories

The first line of thought examines Alphabet’s strategy towards cities and territories. Although it cannot be categorized as an urban firm, the company has gradually developed a range of products and services that target territories, their inhabitants, and local authorities. While with the creation of Sidewalk Labs in 2015, the Alphabet group openly positioned itself on the urban market, the company, through Waze and Google Maps in particular, has been a key player in territorial activities for many years. Through the various acquisitions and offers deployed, can we detect a strategy of the Alphabet group towards cities and territories?

Other papers may also focus on the Alphabet company’s relationship towards territories. Although the products offered by the company are largely immaterial, the company is established in the territories in several ways. On the one hand, the products and services offered by Google are based on material infrastructures (cables, data centers), which are deployed in the territories according to a specific geography that the communications could question. On the other hand, the location of the company’s headquarters has social and spatial effects, which have been the object of contestation. While some cities are trying to attract them to their territory, social movements in San Francisco and Berlin have blamed Google and other digital companies for rising rents, gentrification, and privatization of public infrastructure (“Google Bus”).

2. Digitalizing and calculating the territory

The second axis questions the process of production, use and valorization of spatial data by Google. The papers will first focus on the construction of its infrastructure of spatial data to question the processes of production of territorial data by Google. What information do they collect and how? How and by whom is this data work carried out? What are the partnerships and collaborations with local actors (public authorities, companies, citizens, etc.) in the production of this data?

The papers will also analyze the effects of this territorial data on markets, public policies, and socio-spatial hierarchies. Inserted in algorithmic calculation devices, these data participate in establishing alternative categorizations of space that can challenge the traditional stratifications established by public authorities or economic markets. Indeed, following the example of the Waze app, which leads to traffic shifts in residential areas, this calculation of space by these applications is likely to modify individual and collective practices, transform modes of appropriation of space and challenge public policies. In the same way, ranking systems, and in particular the company’s search engines, are likely to modify the hierarchies of goods and services markets. To what extent does a service such as Google Maps transform relations between actors and restructure competition on markets embedded in territories?

Finally, while the company is often presented as the symbol of surveillance capitalism, the papers may question the precise modalities of data valuation by Google. Although it does not sell them directly, Google values its data on the advertising market, but also through their distribution via APIs. Who are the users of these data? How do they use it? How has Google gradually built these territorial data markets? What is the ecosystem of actors that has emerged around Google’s territorial data? Does Google mark a transformation of urban capitalism around the accumulation and valorization of data?

3. Mobilization, contestation, regulation, collaboration: Google in local governance

The third axis aims to better understand the place of Google in the urban field and in local policies. The rise of Google’s services has indeed provoked mistrust and fears on the part of traditional urban actors, whether public, private or citizens, as illustrated by the mobilization that led to the withdrawal of Sidewalk Labs in Toronto. How were these mobilizations formed? Did they succeed in putting their demands on the political agenda? What were the strategies implemented by private actors to maintain their position and contain Google’s arrival on their markets? Conversely, what are the influence and lobbying strategies implemented by the Alphabet group with local actors to obtain regulations that are favorable to it?

Beyond visible mobilizations, Google’s services have also quietly imposed themselves on public policies. Waze and Google Maps, for example, have become key players in mobility policies. What conflicts have emerged through the development of these services? How do public authorities integrate them into their governing strategies? Are we seeing the emergence of new modes of local governance through which public or private actors work with Google to implement public policies?

Calendar:

Submission deadline: April 20, 2023

Assessment of the proposals and choice: April 30, 2023

Conference: July 10, 2023, in Paris

The one-page proposals, either in French or English, should be sent to Antoine Courmont (antoine.courmont@sciencespo.fr) before April 20, 2023. They should set out the topic of the paper, the research question, the methodology and the data used.

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