Invitation: Prof. Alexandros-Andreas Kyrtsis talks about Ambassadors as technological facilitators
Ambassadors as technological facilitators
Monday the 22.11. at 10:30 – online
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One of the recurring subjects of intra-EU negotiations is the shaping of border security technologies by EU-law. This is a largely invisible aspect of EU policy making and governance for which the permanent representatives of EU member states in Brussels play a key role. Procedural trust to experts and administrators, for which the vague heuristics of the latter is a significant factor, facilitate techno-organisational and techno-political processes. In this respect these professional diplomats constitute an epistemic community whose political epistemology influences the performative character of EU law in matters of security and technology. By seeking consensus on the terms of clearance of differences between member-states they function as mediators between experts in border policies, technologists and administrators on the one hand, and political decision makers on the other. In this context, paying attention to this backstage role of ambassadors is a challenge for reflecting on a special kind of technology diplomacy and the institutional and political conditions of its emergence.