A Conversation with the Authors: Geopolitics at the Internet's Core

SIS Research, AU's Internet Governance Lab, and the Center for Internet and Society invite you to a conversation with the authors of the new book Geopolitics at the Internet's Core: Fiona Alexander, Laura DeNardis, Nanette Levinson, and Francesca Musiani.

Friday, October 17, 2025

12:00 - 1:30 PM EST

Zoom Webinar Link: https://american.zoom.us/s/98532305544

The conversation will be moderated by Derrick Cogburn, Series Editor and Professor at SIS.

About the Book:

Contentious geopolitical conflicts over digital technologies have arisen around a complex set of technical specifications at the Internet’s core. One of these is the Internet Protocol (IP), designed for addressing and routing information to its destination. China redesigning the Internet? Ukraine asking that Russia be disconnected from the Internet? The U.S. ‘surrendering’ the Internet? The Internet Protocol - rightly or not - has been at the center of many digital policy concerns for decades.

In examining entanglements between IP and public interest issues, Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core illuminates how technical infrastructure is now a proxy for political and economic power. Ongoing global controversies over the Internet Protocol ecosystem hint at its importance and why IP is a flashpoint mediating broader conflicts in various cultural and historic contexts.

Geopolitics at the Internet’s Core analyzes the trajectory and possible futures of the Internet Protocol as a space mediating geopolitical and domestic controversies in an increasingly contentious digital world; it explains the IP ecosystem, a complex combination of virtual resources, abstract specifications, tangible infrastructure, functionally specific systems, and the institutions and rules that design and govern these systems.

With a view toward the future and insights into the governance of emerging technologies, this book identifies eight IP-related levers of power that illuminate technology governance debates. Opening up the black box of the Internet Protocol and related global governance challenges, it explains the political battles and the stakes of these battles at the heart of the Internet.

Find more information here.

About the Authors:

Fiona M. Alexander is both Distinguished Policy Strategist in Residence in the School of International Service and Distinguished Fellow at the Internet Governance Lab at American University. Fiona is a former government executive with extensive experience and globally diverse contacts in international Internet, telecommunications and emerging technology policy. For close to 20 years, Fiona served at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in the U.S. Department of Commerce where she was Associate Administrator for International Affairs. She now serves as an advisor to the United Nations International Narcotics Control Board, a Non-resident Senior Fellow with the Digital Innovation Initiative at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a member of the Freedom Online Coalition Advisory Network, and a Mentor for the International Telecommunication Union Woman in Cyber Mentorship Program.

Laura DeNardis is the Inaugural Endowed Chair in Technology, Ethics, and Society at Georgetown University and the Director of the Center for Digital Ethics and Professor in the department of Communication, Culture and Technology. Professor DeNardis is recognized as a leading scholar of technology and society in both the United States and the world. Wired UK recently named her one of “32 Global Innovators Who are Building a Better Future” and her book The Internet in Everything: Freedom and Security in a World with No Off Switch (Yale University Press) was recognized as a Financial Times Top Technology Book of 2020. Among her eight books, The Global War for Internet Governance (Yale University Press), is widely considered the definitive source for understanding power struggles over technical infrastructure. DeNardis joined Georgetown from American University, where she served as Professor, Faculty Director of the Internet Governance Lab, Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, and also Interim Dean of the School of Communication.

Nanette S. Levinson is Professor and Academic Director of the SIS/Sciences-Po Exchange. Currently one of two Directors of the Internet Governance Lab, she has also served as Editor of the International Communication Section, The International Studies Compendium Project. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Recipient of awards for outstanding teaching, program development, academic affairs administration, multicultural affairs and honors programming, she has designed campus co-curricular learning initiatives as well as research-based training programs for the private and public sectors. Her research and teaching focus on knowledge transfer, culture, and innovation; internet and global governance; and social entrepreneurship. She also studies co-processes and change focusing on new media, culture and policy issues in the developing world. Prof. Levinson's writings appear in journals ranging from Information Technologies and International Development to International Studies Perspectives.

Francesca Musiani is a research director at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). She holds a PhD in socio-economics of innovation (MINES ParisTech, 2012) and received her Habilitation to supervise doctoral research in sociology from Sciences Po Paris in 2022. She has been director of the CNRS Internet and Society Center (UPR 2000) since January 1, 2025, after having been deputy director from 2019 to 2024. She has also been deputy director of the Internet, AI and Society research network (GDR 2091) since 2020. She co-founded the CIS in 2019 (UPR) and 2020 (GDR) with Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay. She is also an associate researcher at the Center for the sociology of innovation (i3/MINES ParisTech) and a Global Fellow at the Internet Governance Lab, American University in Washington, DC.

About the Moderator:

Dr. Derrick L. Cogburn is Professor at American University. He has a joint appointment in the School of International Service where he serves in the Department of Environment, Development & Health; and in the Kogod School of Business where he serves in the Department of Information Technology & Analytics. He also serves at the founding Executive Director of the AU Institute on Disability and Public Policy (IDPP), is Faculty Co-Director of the Internet Governance Lab (IGL), and is Director of COTELCO the Collaboration Laboratory. Dr. Cogburn’s multifaceted research interests are located at the intersection of information technology, global governance, and socio-economic development.