Anu Bradford wins the 2024 Stein Rokkan Prize with her ‘path-breaking’ book

The jury of the 2024 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research found Anu Bradford’s Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology (Oxford University Press, 2023) to be a path-breaking book that addresses one of the major challenges of our time – the regulation of the digital economy.

The Stein Rokkan Prize in Comparative Social Science Research is awarded annually for a substantial and original contribution to the field. The prize was established in memory of Stein Rokkan, a pioneer of comparative political and social science research, renowned for his groundbreaking work on the nation-state and democracy.

A brilliant researcher and a professor at the University of Bergen where he spent most of his career, Rokkan was also President of the International Social Science Council (ISSC), and one of ECPR's founders. It is a joint prize by the International Science Council (ISC), the University of Bergen and ECPR.

From our jury

Drawing extensively on her legal background, Bradford charts in detail the major regulatory developments in China, the US, and the EU, and discusses their economic, social and political implications.

We learn how each of the three polities organises the regulation of the digital economy around, respectively, the state, the market, or the digital rights of its citizens.

The regulatory developments are analysed in their full cultural and social complexity, placing this book at the cutting edge of contemporary social science. The author shows how these models often come into conflict with one another both horizontally (between governments) and vertically (tech companies versus their governments). 

Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology poses important questions about which model may dominate the regulation of the digital economy in the future.

This bold and provocative book compels us to reflect on these challenges that will shape global politics in the decades to come.

 Read the full laudation.

About the author

Anu Bradford is Henry L. Moses Professor of Law and International Organizations at Columbia Law School. She is also a director for Columbia’s European Legal Studies Center and a Senior Scholar at Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia Business School.

Bradford’s scholarship focuses on European Union law, digital regulation, international trade law, and comparative and international antitrust law. She earned her SJD and LLM degrees from Harvard Law School after completing a law degree at the University of Helsinki.

Bradford is the author of The Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World (Oxford University Press 2020), named one of the Best Books of 2020 by the Foreign Affairs Magazine. Her most recent book Digital Empires: The Global Battle to Regulate Technology was published by Oxford University Press in September 2023, and was recognised as one of the Best Books of 2023 by the Financial Times.

In her own words

Given Stein Rokkan’s own path-breaking work on the nation state and democracy, this is a distinctly meaningful recognition for me. I am truly honoured and deeply grateful for this prize.

Anu Bradford, Columbia Law School

The jury members

• Amy Verdun University of Victoria (Chair)
• Kristin Strømsnes University of Bergen
• Marta Arretche University of São Paulo
• Amy G. Mazur Washington State University
• Dimiter Toshkov Leiden University

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Keywords: Comparative Politics, Comparative Perspective