Today’s state-run digital public infrastructure, in general, and decision-making tools that conform to governance stacks in particular, enable an unprecedented centralization of power and promise real-time management across vast distances. These tools cater to public officials at a time of government austerity and risk becoming tools for foreign powers to micro-manage internal affairs. In this essay, I argue that the embrace of foreign governance stacks by Global Majority countries strengthens the odds of a return to imperialistic governance practices. A scenario in which a small number of capital cities manage vaster territories and populations through real-time automation technologies.

To make this case, I expand on the work of Harold Innis, who stated:

“The effective government of large areas depends to a very important extent on the efficiency of communication. The concepts of time and space reflect the significance of media to civilization. Media that emphasize time are those that are durable in character, such as parchment, clay, and stone. The heavy materials are suited to the development of architecture and sculpture. Media that emphasize space are apt to be less durable and light in character, such as papyrus and paper. The latter are suited to wide areas in administration and trade.” (Innis, 2022, Chapter 9).

A not improbable scenario is that in which highly indebted countries are required to adopt certain technologies that allow the central creditor countries not just to monitor economic performance, policy, and budget expenditure (powers they have, to some extent, accessed over these past years with the internet) but to manage economic policy in real-time, at a distance. This creates new forms of onshoring governance, unleashing the risk that it becomes a path for the emergence of new empires.

This risk is unleashed through the convergence of two key elements: the return of the state as a key actor and the advances in automation technology, which create expectations for real-time governance by states.

The end of neoliberal governance and the return of the state

Tectonic plates have shifted, weakening the US’s position internationally and its small-state neoliberal stance locally.

Internationally, these plates have moved slowly for the past couple of years: China’s trade partnerships expanded to the point where it is the main trading partner for most South American and Asian countries, and the emergence of BRICS allowed middle powers to coordinate around a narrative that multipolarity was both desirable and emerging. These geopolitical trends have accelerated in the past months, with the Trump administration pushing an “America First” agenda on a world that is barely coming out of the pandemic-induced economic crisis.

Meanwhile, the failure of several US administrations to deal with stagnant growth and rampant inequality has damaged its image internally and externally. Combined, these forces created space for an ideological shift beyond the neoliberalism and laissez-faire policies that dominated most of the world since the 1980s and shaped the early development of the internet. Illustrating this shift, the US government itself recently implemented universal tariffs and increased government involvement in the private sector, taking seats on the corporate boards of chipmaker Intel as well as mining and steel companies. At the 2026 World Economic Forum, Trump’s US Secretary of Commerce stated, “globalization is a failed policy”. This comes years after the US started signaling this position by blocking the operations of Huawei in the US and slowly forcing the sale of TikTok’s US operation to allies of the Trump administration, among other policies that countered the previously dominant free market narrative.

This combination of local and international shifts has resulted in a “return of the state” scenario that challenges free trade while repositioning the state as a key player in the arena of technological development and adoption.

Exporting digital sovereignty: A spectrum of responses

Governance stacks increasingly incorporate autonomous capabilities: systems that are expected to process payments, verify identities, and allocate resources with minimal human oversight. Automating government processes and systems has proven difficult, in part because it often faces resistance from the officials expected to embrace it. However, regardless of whether automation achieves the stated goals, its implementation allows for further centralization of decision-making power among a few technical managers and away from distributed bureaucracies.

Governments are adopting digital governance technologies for different (and sometimes contradictory) reasons. The US Department of State’s 2026-2030 Action Plan, for example, explicitly states, “Protecting U.S. technology will not guarantee industry dominance if we do not also export our technologies abroad in place of adversaries”. Similarly, the White House AI Action Plan actively promotes the export of technology standards as a way to ensure US dominance in the years to come: “The United States is in a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence (AI). Whoever has the largest AI ecosystem will set global AI standards and reap broad economic and military benefits”.

Countries that develop governance technologies domestically then seek to export them, both to recoup development costs and to establish interoperable standards that amplify their geopolitical influence.

These tech-export policies are not exclusive to the US. Countries that develop governance technologies domestically then seek to export them, both to recoup development costs and to establish interoperable standards that amplify their geopolitical influence. As with other data-heavy systems, having a large user base allows the systems to adapt faster, but also helps create a broader ecosystem of interoperable services. Governments have strong incentives to promote the global adoption of their approaches to structuring personal data, processing government payments, and identifying social needs.

India, for example, has been exporting the “India Stack” set of open source technologies, with African, Middle-Eastern, and Caribbean countries participating in conversations to adopt it. Some analysts see this as part of a broader soft-power agenda that advances Modi’s desire to “turn India into a vishwaguru, or ‘teacher to the world’”.

Meanwhile, on the one hand, the Norwegian Cooperation Agency is supporting the adoption of open source programs for government service delivery. The narrative is that governments are trying to ensure there is an open ecosystem within which they can operate and interoperate with the systems of other countries. On the other hand, the ministries of the Danish government, along with other local EU governments, are increasingly moving away from corporate US software and adopting EU equivalents and open-source alternatives, signaling a growing distrust towards the US and its leading companies.

As technology allows governments to increase the reach and granularity of connection with the public, it also opens the door to abuses of power to take place at an unprecedented scale and speed.

At a local level, the return of the state and the digital transformation of government offer an opportunity to rejuvenate the relationship between the people and their governments. However, this transformation also allows for power to become more consolidated within governments, as the bureaucrats lose autonomy and discretion. As technology allows governments to increase the reach and granularity of connection with the public, it also opens the door to abuses of power to take place at an unprecedented scale and speed.

There are a variety of intersecting interests on the side of exporters and importers of these technologies. The way such centralized power is exercised is surely debated and contested by a wide variety of actors in central countries. However, the centralization creates vulnerabilities in peripheral countries that can be exploited by such central actors when geopolitical pressure intensifies.

The risk: Governance onshoring as enabling a new wave of imperialism

In the geopolitical realm, the combination of these elements suggests that these new government stacks can also allow the onshoring of governance by central powers. The export of these administrative tools allows for a relocation of decision-making capacity from domestic institutions to external technological systems designed or managed in foreign capitals. This would seriously undermine or neutralize the autonomy of local/elected officials.

The upcoming risk is that these elements become combined: that parts of the analog policymaking processes are given away to central powers as new digital governance stacks are adopted.

Consider two forms of existing control: First, the traditional. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) often delivers loans conditional on the implementation of structural adjustment plans designed in Washington. Second, a more recent form of control: the remote “cutting” of access to key corporate services to pressure adversaries. For example, the International Criminal Court prosecutor was reportedly blocked from accessing their email after being sanctioned by the US, and Iranians got locked out of GitHub following sanctions on Iran.

The upcoming risk is that these elements become combined: that parts of the analog policymaking processes are given away to central powers as new digital governance stacks are adopted.

Strategies for tech non-alignment

If big power competition will center on controlling network chokepoints, smaller powers need to develop strategies aimed at neutralizing, splitting, and circumventing those chokepoints. This rationale extends to the design and adoption of digital governance stacks, where the task of identifying such chokepoints has barely begun.

On the one hand, we need politicians to engage the public to ensure that the adoption of technology does not reduce the ability of the government to be responsive to its people. On the other hand, we need to ensure that technology diffuses power so that people can remain in control of the government.

This agenda will require passing legislation to establish standards regarding the characteristics of governance technologies, including, for example, algorithmic transparency, mechanisms for local oversight and regular evaluation, and public hearings to discuss impacts on power relations. It also requires small and medium-sized countries to start coordinating procurement and technical standards to protect their autonomy. This can and should be part of how we promote democratic resilience in the 21st century. It is also an agenda around which the Non-Aligned Movement should organize: collectively securing political autonomy in an age of rapid governance automation. Without this coordination, the ongoing embrace of digital governance stacks taking place this decade risks becoming the administrative infrastructure of the digital empires that will emerge over the next decade. Where power becomes highly concentrated in the hands of fewer players operating in fewer capitals and responsive to an ever-narrowing set of interests.