Rapid advances in technology – e.g. artificial intelligence, the rise of the world’s largest technological companies, and autonomous driving – are leading to unprecedented changes in politics, society, and economics. At the same time, shock events in politics – e.g. the Brexit, the backlash against globalization, the rise of populism, the pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine – challenge liberal democracies and the global order. Against this background, in the focus group “Disruptions in Politics and Technology”, Carl von Linde Senior Fellow Prof. Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt and her team at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology investigate how disruptions happen in the national, European, and global spheres from an interdisciplinary perspective. 

The main objectives of the project are to: a) provide a typology of disruptions; b) elaborate a theoretical framework to study disruptions from a multidimensional perspective; c) explain how, why and with what consequences political and technological disruptions occur at the national, European and international levels. To study disruptions systematically, Prof. Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt and her team will work together with renowned international political scientists, economists, historians, and engineers. The insights gained from the empirical analysis will enable us to map different patterns of disruptions from a multidisciplinary perspective and to understand what are the consequences of disruptions.