Tech Titans and Global Order: Radical Shifts or More of the Same?

The Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs invites you to the following event on Monday 14 April from 2 – 3.30PM in the boardroom on level 2 of the Hedley Bull Building, 130 Garran Road, ANU.

Tech Titans and Global Order: Radical Shifts or More of the Same?

In 2024, Dartmouth sociologist Brooke Harrington coined the term ‘broligarchs’ to describe the wealthy and apparently exclusively male tech actors inserting themselves into US politics. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and crypto king David Sacks all fall into this category. Harrington describes these individuals as largely indifferent or even hostile to democratic tradition while benefitting enormously from the operation of government.

Broligarchs play an increasingly important in global politics: Elon Musk provides communications infrastructure to Ukraine, Mark Zuckerberg is agitating for the US to dilute European tech regulations, and Jeff Bezos’ Amazon accounts for 30 per cent of the global cloud infrastructure market.

This panel presentation and discussion interrogates the impact of these so-called broligarchs on global order. It asks:

• Do so-called broligarchs differ in their impact on global order compared to extremely wealthy individuals in previous eras? What, if anything, has changed?

• Is this an American issue or a global issue? How does it apply to tech wealth in the Asia Pacific region – for example in China?

• How, if at all, does the extreme wealth afforded by the tech sector to certain individuals shape global order? Does it change the nature of political units? Does it change the nature of exchange between them?

The panel will feature short presentations on these provocations from participants from the Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs—Professor George Lawson, Dr Sarah Logan, and Cynthia Mehboob. 

The floor will then be open to questions. 

This event will be conducted under the Chatham House Rule. 


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