It has become increasingly clear that we live in a complex turmoil of global challenges and intertwined crises. Global geopolitical divisions have sharpened from proxy conflicts to an all out war in Europe. Past years of pandemic lockdowns have underscored the vulnerability of interdependent societies. Economic futures are blurred and unpredictable. The world is consciously gambling on environmental sustainability, with odds against us. Meanwhile, rapidly advancing datafication and algorithmically driven information flows reshape the logics of social interaction, practices of legacy institutions, and opinion formation. Intersecting inequalities polarize political debates and create clashing camps both locally and globally. This conjuncture demands us to rethink questions of power, governance, authority and agency. In what ways do governments, corporations, political parties, social movements, and citizens shape the future? What do we know about the dynamics of these trends? How can scholarship make sense of them? What does the future look like?
These questions will be discussed in the 8th Power Conference, which will take place at the University of Helsinki, November 24-26, 2022.