Theresa Reinold: “Some big tech are now exercising state-like powers by shaping borders, providing critical military infrastructure, and influencing public opinion”

Are powerful multinational corporations changing world order as we know it? Are private actors about to replace states in the exercise of core sovereign privileges? And if so, is that a good thing? 

A game changer in the war in Ukraine, for instance - which this week went into its fifth year - is Starlink, a private satellite internet provider that has proven critical to the survival of the Ukrainian state. Should we thus welcome the involvement of private corporations in warfighting – an activity that has long been considered to be a core business of sovereign states? Or does the quasi-sovereign role of global tech companies lead to a dangerous erosion of the Westphalian order, which has been in place for almost four centuries (1)?

Theresa Reinold, Assistant professor at EDHEC, took the time to address these issues in a recent interview.

When you call some tech firms “quasi-sovereigns,” is that a rhetorical flourish, or an accurate description of today’s power shift?

Theresa Reinold: It’s a description of a very concrete power shift that we’re witnessing nowadays. Sovereignty, as traditionally understood, has two core dimensions: control over territory (internal dimension) and political independence (external dimension). 

Some multinational tech firms have accumulated capabilities that touch both dimensions. Of course, they don’t replace states – for now. But they increasingly perform functions that are actually core sovereign prerogatives: they shape borders and territory, they provide (and have the power to with) critical military infrastructure that could tip the balance in favor or against the survival of a sovereign state, and they shape public opinion and thus influence the outcome of elections.

Historically, the closest parallel is the British East India Company—a private actor exercising state-like powers (2). What used to be a historical anomaly is now resurfacing in digital form.

Your first example is… maps. How can Google Maps and other producers of digital  maps have anything to do with sovereignty?

Theresa Reinold: Good question. Territory is a hallmark of sovereignty, and maps – even though many people believe them to depict territory and borders in an “objective” fashion – are actually never neutral: maps merely provide one vision of the world, meaning the mapmaker’s vision of the world. They thus stabilise a particularistic worldview. 

In the Westphalian imagination, states long dominated cartography (1). Today, however, map-making has passed into the hands of big tech firms whose apps are a pre-installed feature in billions of cellphones. This means that for a large share of humanity, Google Maps and its competitors have become the ultimate arbiter who decides “where the border lies”. These firms therefore sometimes find themselves in the middle of territorial disputes. 

In order to avoid political backlash platforms often “customise” borders: they display territory according to the wishes of local governments and users. While this may be rational from a business point of view because it allows these companies to continue operating in multiple markets), yet it is politically explosive because it normalises and legitimises grave breaches of international law - including armed aggression because it presents illegally altered borders as “the new normal” to billions of app users.

Your second domain is warfighting. What does the Starlink–Ukraine story tell us?

Theresa Reinold: It reveals a strategic vulnerability: a state can become dependent on a privately owned system for vital military functions (3) — secure communications, drone coordination, intelligence sharing, even targeting support.

Starlink gave Ukraine warfighting capabilities it otherwise would not have had. So in that sense Starlink is vital to the survival of the Ukranian state. However, this dependence also transfers quasi-sovereign privileges to a non-elected private actor. Ongoing controversies about where the service is available, under what conditions, and how it can be restricted show how a private infrastructure can become a geopolitical “switch.” Recent media coverage has underscored how operationally consequential such decisions can be on the ground.

On political independence, why is TikTok a particularly telling example?

Theresa Reinold: Because sovereignty is not only about physical borders; it’s also about the capacity to avoid external interference. Political independence is at the heart of sovereignty. A platform that collects vast amounts of data and ranks content through opaque recommendation systems has a huge influence on how people think and act, and this is key to political outcomes.

TikTok belongs to the Chinese company Bytedance, and thus its operations have to be seen in the context of the US-China geopolitical rivalry. The US government has long pushed for the sale of TikTok’s US operations to US investors. The deal finally went through a few weeks ago – a good opportunity to reflect on the geopolitical relevance of social media more generally and TikTok specifically.

In TikTok’s case, US authorities have framed the risk as twofold: data access and algorithmic influence - i.e., the possibility that a rival power could shape what citizens see, believe, and mobilise around. The issue has been prominent enough to fuel proposals and negotiations around ownership structures and control mechanisms. Analyses in The New York Times (4) and Le Monde (5) capture the underlying logic well: control over a major platform is increasingly treated as a sovereign asset, closer to critical infrastructure than to an ordinary consumer product.

If tech firms are taking on quasi-sovereign roles, how can states, especially in Europe, respond?

Theresa Reinold: First, accept that the response cannot be purely technical. You need a combination of industrial capacity, rules, and geopolitical strategy.

Second, identify and reduce specific critical dependencies: cloud, connectivity, identity systems, mapping, content distribution, and the ability to audit high-impact algorithms.

Third, and this is essential, focus on accountability. Platforms can have sovereign-like effects, but they are not subject to the same democratic obligations. That calls for stronger transparency requirements, auditability (including algorithmic audits where appropriate), clearer liability regimes, and realistic enforcement tools—while remaining lucid about cross-border power and extraterritorial reach.

Further reading

• Reinold, T. (2012) Sovereignty and the responsibility to protect: The power of norms and the norms of the powerful (London: Routledge).
• Fratini, S., Hine, E., Novelli, C. et al. (2024) Digital Sovereignty: A Descriptive Analysis and a Critical Evaluation of Existing Models. DISO 3, 59
• Abels, J. (2024), Private infrastructure in geopolitical conflicts: the case of Starlink and the war in Ukraine, European Journal of International Relations
• Cristiano F., Monsees L. (2025), Beyond the Ban: TikTok and the Politics of Digital Sovereignty in the EU and US, Politics and Governance

References

(1) Westphalian System (2006), Rainer Grote. Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law - https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e1500

(2) East India Company. Starting as a monopolistic trading body, the company became involved in politics and acted as an agent of British imperialism in India from the early 18th century to the mid-19th century - https://www.britannica.com/topic/East-India-Company

(3) How Elon Musk’s satellites have saved Ukraine and changed warfare (The Economist, 01/05/2023) - https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/01/05/how-elon-musks-satellites-have-saved-ukraine-and-changed-warfare

(4) Who Owns TikTok in the U.S Now ? (The New York Times, 26/01,2026) - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/business/media/tiktok-investors-oracle-mgx-silver-lake-bytedance.html

(5) En ciblant TikTok, Trump cherche à consolider la souveraineté informationnelle américaine (Le Monde, 10/18/2025) - https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2025/10/18/en-ciblant-tiktok-trump-cherche-a-consolider-la-souverainete-informationnelle-americaine_6648031_3232.html