Beaumier Guillaume, Kalomeni Kevin, Campbell-Verduyn Malcolm, Lenglet Marc, Natile Serena, Papin Marielle, Rodima-Taylor Daivi, Silve Arthur, Zhang Falin, 2020, « Global Regulations for a Digital Economy: Between New and Old Challenges », Global Policy, vol. 11, n°4, p. 515-522.

Digital technologies are often described as posing unique challenges for public regulators worldwide. Their fast-pace and technical

nature are viewed as being incompatible with the relatively slow and territorially bounded public regulatory processes. In this

paper, we argue that not all digital technologies pose the same challenges for public regulators. We more precisely maintain that

the digital technologies’ label can be quite misleading as it actually represents a wide variety of technical artifacts. Based on two

dimensions, the level of centralization and (im)material nature, we provide a typology of digital technologies that importantly

highlights how different technical artifacts affect differently local, national, regional and global distributions of power. While

some empower transnational businesses, others can notably reinforce states’ power. By emphasizing this, our typology contributes

to ongoing discussions about the global regulation of a digital economy and helps us identify the various challenges

that it might present for public regulators globally. At the same time, it allows us to reinforce previous claims that these are

importantly, not all new and that they often require us to solve traditional cooperation problems.