Digital Statecraft and Political Economy in China Conference
May 8-9, 2026
University of California, Berkeley
Conference website: www.dspeconference.com

Digital technologies, from big data, AI, and algorithmic governance to cloud computing and data infrastructures, are transforming how states drive development, govern society, exercise authority, and compete globally. This conference brings together fourteen in-depth qualitative studies that examine how state actors deploy digital tools in practice and how political institutions shape technological development.

Focusing on China as a strategically important and empirically challenging case, the conference showcases new ways to open the “black box” of digital governance beyond dominant computational methods and macro-level analyses. It advances a sociological agenda by showing how digitalization is reshaping core theories of the state and political economy, reconfiguring state capacity, bureaucratic operations, platform governance, and government–firm relations, while moving beyond conventional “digital authoritarianism” frameworks to foreground on-the-ground politics, institutional frictions, and organizational processes.

The papers engage broader debates on the transformation of the state under digitalization, the political economy of data, platforms, digital industries, and the shifting terrain of geopolitical competition.

Interdisciplinary and international in scope, the conference features scholars from four continents. It will be held at UC Berkeley and is open to the public, with both onsite and online participation. Breakfast and lunch will be provided for onsite attendees. Registration is required; online access details will be shared upon registration.

Register here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdqfT0H_0j6GL2RT50n_AQgHMcU37MKBoHqxDcDI0hv0knFpQ/viewform

Organizers:
Yan Long, UC Berkeley, Department of Sociology
Le Lin, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Department of Sociology
Zhifan Luo, McMaster University, Department of Sociology

Sponsors:
UC Berkeley Sociology Department, Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative, Fudan-UC Center

Contact
For questions regarding the conference, registration, or attendance, please contact the coordinator, Zhehang Zhang (UC Berkeley, Department of Sociology) at zhehang@berkeley.edu