Technological and Institutional Mediation in Democratic and Humanitarian Contexts

This seminar is part of InDocSem, the first interdisciplinary doctoral seminar series at Sciences Po. It offers a unique space for intellectual exchange, where doctoral researchers from across the School of Research come together to explore questions that transcend disciplinary boundaries. By inviting diverse perspectives on research and fostering dialogue across fields, InDocSem encourages participants to challenge methods, blur disciplinary lines, and uncover synergies between approaches. Each session features a presenter from one discipline and a discussant from another, creating a dynamic conversation that deepens our understanding of shared topics while cultivating a vibrant and engaged academic community.

Tamara SPITZER HOBEIKA

PhD candidate at New York University’s ‘Media, Culture, and Communication’ (MCC) department, with doctoral associate status at Sciences Po’s médialab

Title: “Democratizing Democracy”: The NationBuilder Platform & Ecosystem, Political Communication, and the Technological Mediation of Democracies

Abstract: This dissertation takes an ethnographic look at political campaign software and the industry that shapes and provides it -- in order to illuminate the enduring and new modes of political communication they enable, as well as the premises and models of democracy they rest on and perpetuate. Focusing on the current leading global provider of campaign software, NationBuilder (a nonpartisan company having served customers in over 140 countries in over a decade), and on its 'ecosystem' of partners, this dissertation examines the infrastructure of today's political campaigns, with a view to parsing the ecosystem’s assumptions and ideals about how democratic politics works (regarding access, discourse, and more) in the technologically-mediated present and across different cultural contexts. By exploring how NationBuilder seeks to “democratize democracy” (in their own words), this dissertation sheds light on the visions of society and democracy that this technology, its providers, and its users hold – unpacking this ecosystem’s role not as mere ‘neutral’ “intermediaries” in electoral contests, but as international “mediators” of political practices, narratives, and culture.

Sarah EL-ABD

Second-year doctoral student in Political science at Center for International Studies (CERI)

Title: Civil-military cooperation, foreign policy, and foreign interventions

Abstract: The research reconceptualizes statecraft as an infrastructural practice in multinational foreign military interventions, arguing that foreign policy operates not only through negotiation, coercion, and exchange, but also through the production of social infrastructures embedded in everyday life. Advancing the theory of infrastructural foreign policy as a practice-based framework, the dissertation examines how states project influence through humanitarian governance within multinational interventions. In the context of Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC), material infrastructures, bureaucratic routines, and humanitarian practices together produce durable relations of influence; constituting a practical modality of statecraft. States become inscribed within the social, informational, and relational infrastructures of intervention spaces through continuous, routinized CIMIC interactions. Cooperation thus emerges not merely as a technical process or an instrument of foreign policy, but as a form of everyday sovereignty management, where CIMIC operates as a site of sovereignty work. Empirically, the research explores CIMIC engagements by both small states and major powers in Lebanon, focusing on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the Military Technical Committee for Lebanon (MTC4L).