State sovereignty and capitalism's relationship in the digital age. A critical analysis of platform capitalism, collaborative governance, and big data.

The aim of the research is to analyse the relationship between state sovereignty and market capitalism starting from the ‘80s in the western countries, after the advent of the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). In order to do so, the thesis will display a schematic critique of the new forms of platform capitalism, platform urbanism, and big data analysis. The chapters will follow the three power relations between state, market, and citizens, assessing the various problems concerning the use of big data, such as security issues, exploitation, extraction of value, and democratic accountability. Apart from an organic critique, the following research’s main thesis is that the collaborative governance is a new conjunction ring between capitalism and state power, that brought into existence a new market of public service delivery and a sell-out of state political legitimacy. In the first chapter I will outline the historical framework that brought the diffusion of the ICTs, marking out the economical and political changes following the ‘80s. The second chapter will analyse the power relation between State and citizens. Following the two cases of Cambridge Analytica and Edward Snowden, I will discuss the evolution of state security and the riskiness related to big data for the democratic accountability. The third chapter will discuss the platform urbanism and the critiques concerning the Smart cities. With a critical perspective about collaborative governance, I will assert that in the last decades a new market based on the public service delivery has expanded, creating accountability and legitimacy issues for the western democracies. In the fourth and last chapter I will examine the power relation between citizens and the market, discussing the platform capitalism, the gig economy and the new forms of extraction of value related to the use of big data.