Over three years, beginning in January 2026, the research team will investigate how digital dependencies affect the state’s ability to manage risk and maintain security.
The project analyses the growing challenges faced by public institutions as they become increasingly reliant on large-scale digital infrastructures owned and operated by global Big Tech actors—at the same time as cyber threats, systemic vulnerabilities, and both civilian and military risks intensify. This tension is conceptualised as the technocapitalist (in)security paradox: the state’s attempt to uphold security and democratic autonomy while its technological dependencies deepen.
Focusing on the Swedish welfare state, the project examines how this paradox unfolds in the relationship between policy and practice, shaped by two competing welfare rationalities: competition and security. By combining theories of systemic risk with governmentality studies, the research explores the interplay between digital technological capacities and their institutional embeddedness, and how system-critical digital technologies are materially and organisationally constituted.
By making visible how digital infrastructures, political rationalities, and institutional dependencies interact, the project aims to deepen understanding of the systemic risks that characterise today’s governance landscape—and their implications for democratic resilience in a time of global crises and geopolitical transformation.
The research group
Malin Rönnblom (project leader), Professor of Political Science, Karlstad University
Marie Eneman, Associate Professor of Informatics, University of Gothenburg
Jan Ljungberg, Professor of Informatics, University of Gothenburg
Andreas Öjehag, Associate Professor of Political Science, Karlstad University
