Merging the interests of governments and Western monopolies in the field of ICT: modern geopolitical models

Abstract

The events in Ukraine have become evidence of a radical transformation of ideas about what armed conflicts are and who participates in them. The issue of the legal and political status of technology companies as participants in armed conflicts and actors in international politics has become especially acute. Unfortunately, in the modern scientific literature, this issue is not only not resolved, but also not properly posed. The exponential growth of the foreign policy influence of large IT enterprises leaves no doubt that they are closely merging with the public sector and at the same time developing their own geopolitical agenda. In the context of the active development of the digital economy and the formation of a global information field of non-governmental actors, there is a demand for an analysis of the synergy of states and corporations with an outlet for forecasts of the development of various strategies for merging governments with technology giants. In the dialectic of relations between Western public authorities and IT giants, both sides have effective resources to contain each other. However, much more valuable and important for political analysis is the search for their “common interests” and an assessment of the prospects for cooperation within the framework of the “win/win” strategy. Such an analysis allows not only to assess the “boundaries of friendship” between Western business and government, but also to use the contradictions in their geopolitical rhetoric to promote the Russian international digital agenda. The author analyzes various concepts of public authority transformation in the context of the digital economy, offers an original vision of strategies for merging the interests of Western IT giants and governments both in areas of activity and in geopolitical tasks, and predicts possible scenarios for such cooperation.