splinternet – Neopolitique

The Growing Political Importance of Global Data Infrastructure

August 27, 2025 • by MIchael Baker • 0 Comments

For centuries, the physical infrastructure of global power was anchored in tangible trade routes, maritime shipping lanes, telegraph lines, and state-backed energy grids. Governments maintained sovereign order by policing and protecting the physical channels through which wealth and communication flowed. In the 21st-century network society, that Westphalian geography has been entirely recast. Global data infrastructure…

Geopolitics

Why Digital Infrastructure Matters to Global Politics

August 20, 2025 • by MIchael Baker • 0 Comments

For centuries, global political power was determined by geography, physical borders, and the tangible instruments of statecraft. Governments projected power across oceans, defended territory with standing armies, and secured economic dominance through shipping lanes, factories, and physical resource extraction. In the 21st-century network society, that Westphalian calculus has been fundamentally re-engineered. Digital infrastructure is no…

Analysis

How Digital Infrastructure Has Become a Political Issue

July 18, 2025 • by MIchael Baker • 0 Comments

For decades, physical infrastructure—roads, railways, power grids, and telephone lines—was treated as a neutral matter of engineering and economics. Governments funded or regulated these systems to ensure public utility, while citizens viewed them as background plumbing that quietly enabled modern life. In the 21st-century digital ecosystem, that era of infrastructural neutrality has completely vanished. Digital…

Geopolitics

The Changing Geography of Political and Technological Power

February 21, 2025 • by MIchael Baker • 0 Comments

For centuries, the geography of power was anchored to the physical earth. Nations commanded influence through landmass, military might, maritime trade routes, and sovereign control over territorial borders. A country’s geopolitical weight was visible on a physical map: measured in square miles, factory outputs, and troop deployments. The 21st century has completely redrawn this cartography.…

Geopolitics

How Digital Borders Are Emerging in a Connected World

February 11, 2025 • by MIchael Baker • 0 Comments

For the first few decades of the digital age, the foundational promise of the internet was borderless. Enthusiasts and architects envisioned a frictionless global village where data, ideas, and communication traversed oceans and national boundaries instantaneously, rendering traditional geographic checkpoints obsolete. Today, that vision has been systematically dismantled. The unified global web is fracturing into…

Geopolitics

The Political Geography of the Internet

February 6, 2025 • by MIchael Baker • 0 Comments

For centuries, geography was defined by the physical earth—mountains, rivers, oceans, and borders drawn on paper maps. Sovereignty was absolute within a defined territory, and power was exercised through physical control over land, trade routes, and military positions. The emergence of the digital network fundamentally disrupted this traditional framework. Today, we live within a political…