CfP: "China and the Standardization of Digital Technologies" Humboldt University of Berlin 10-11 June 2024

 

Pix credit here

 

I am quite thrilled to pass along a Call for Papers for what is bound to be a fascinating and quite important workshop  "China and the Standardization of Digital Technologies" to take place at  Humboldt University of Berlin, 10-11 June 2024. Great thanks to Daniel Fuchs (Humboldt University of Berlin), Daniel Sprick (University of Cologne), and Marianne von Blomberg (University of Cologne, Zhejiang University, Bern University of Applied Sciences)for organizing this event.

The full CfP follows. Proposal deadline is 8 March 2024.

Call for Papers

China and the Standardization of Digital Technologies

Workshop
Humboldt University of Berlin

10-11 June 2024

Standards are technical documents that are negotiated by providers of products, services and
practices to enable interoperability across different environments. Often barely visible albeit
ubiquitous, they constitute a strong form of self-regulation in markets on the one hand, while
also increasingly being directly mandated by governments to ensure legal compliance on the
other. Standards formalize practices and provide a normative foundation for their predictability and persistence even across national borders, thereby facilitating geopolitical shifts behind the scenes, excluding some actors and including others. Standing out among emerging economies, the Chinese government has recognized the importance of standard-setting early on and invested considerably in building capacity and expertise in standardization over the past 25 years. Today, China’s regulatory framework and practices in digital technologies heavily rely on technical standards. Based on its domestic efforts in standardization and fueled by its economic power, China also succeeded in moving from standard-taker to global standard-maker. Chinese standards, whether through China’s involvement with standard-setting in international bodies such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or through de facto standardization by Chinese firms, increasingly permeate regions beyond China’s borders.

At the same time, standardization by Chinese stakeholders must not only be understood as a
centralized, top-down, state-driven and planned process. Governmentally authorized technical
experts are not the sole contributors in shaping the emergence of new standards, and whether
and how they are implemented depends on the interests and strategies pursued by political,
economic and societal stakeholders. In China like elsewhere, standards development
depends on the input of a wide range of actors along the chain of production, dissemination
and use of a standardized good or service. It is therefore imperative to approach standards
and standardization through a bottom-up perspective, focusing on the dynamics and power
relations that shape the negotiation and application of standards. China’s push for global
leadership in standardization may be predominantly perceived as a hegemonial power grab,
which is facilitated by China’s massive investments through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)
and in many economies of the Global South. Nevertheless, the development and use of
standards is inevitably grounded in and shaped by the respective local context, so that
processes of adaptation and acculturation may heavily influence the global diffusion of
Chinese standards.

Against this background, we are interested in discussing research that focuses on questions
such as:

- What strategies are employed by Chinese stakeholders in setting standards for digital technologies within international standards developing organizations (SDOs)? How do these strategies compare with strategies by stakeholders from the Global North?

- To what extent have Chinese actors been able to promote and implement “de facto” standards for digital technologies beyond international SDOs, and how have Chinese standards been received? How are Chinese standards entangled with, replacing or strengthening existing international, regional and national standards for critical and emerging technologies?

- What processes of learning by Chinese stakeholders can be identified in the course of the setting and implementation of standards?

- What processes of international cooperation and contestation can be identified with regards to the standardization of digital technologies?

- How has China’s national standardization system evolved with regards to the quest of developing standards for digital technologies?

- How can we conceptualize the normative power of Chinese standards for digital
technologies? How are Chinese standards related to other normative orders? What impact do Chinese standards have on procedural and material aspects of legal systems?

- To what extent is China’s growing role in standardization strengthening or weakening marginalized actors within the arena of global standard-setting, such as stakeholders from the Global South and other international civil society representatives?

- How does the perspective of standardization break through the dominant state-market dichotomy in law and the social sciences and helps to re-evaluate domestic and global power shifts?

This interdisciplinary workshop aims at bringing together experts in the field of law, political
sciences, sociology and anthropology for the purpose of bridging a knowledge gap in
understanding the dynamics of China’s rising standards power and the direct or indirect input
of non-state (and non-Chinese) actors in shaping the development and application of
standards for digital technologies.

The workshop will be held at the Institute for Asian and African Studies at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin between 10-11 June 2024. We will circulate the submitted (draft) papers prior to the workshop. Each presenter will also take on the role of discussant for another paper. Following up on the workshop, we aim to publish the presented papers in a special issue of a peer-reviewed journal.

The workshop is co-funded by the German Association for Asian Studies and the European
China Law Studies Association. Limited funds for (train) travel subsidies for early-career
researchers are available; there are no workshop fees.

We invite researchers to submit an abstract (250-300 words and affiliation of the author/s) to
ChinaDigitalStandardsWorkshop@protonmail.com by 8 March 2024, and we will inform you
about acceptance by 16 March 2024. In case your abstract is accepted, we look forward to
receiving a short paper draft of your contribution (around 5000 words) by 24 May 2024. If you have any questions, please also contact us via the same email address.

Daniel Fuchs (Humboldt University of Berlin)
Daniel Sprick (University of Cologne)
Marianne von Blomberg (University of Cologne, Zhejiang University, Bern University of
Applied Sciences)