PhD researcher Erin Jones's reflection on their time at The Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) in Bordeaux, France
24 September 2026
The Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) held its annual conference in Bordeaux from 1-4 this July, centered on the overarching theme, “Fighting Divisions: Conflict and Power in a Post Globalization Order.” As part of the mini-conference, “Imperial Coercion, Superpower Tension, and Patterns of Resistance: Global Responses to U.S. Unilateralism,” I presented my forthcoming paper, “Tech Billionaires in Outer Space: Global Governance after Starlink in the Ukraine War.” The research zooms in on the use of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet constellation as critical infrastructure during the Ukraine-Russia war to examine how the ambiguous balance of power between the US government and big tech corporations impacts multilateral consensus-building. My presentation highlighted how the high-profile political authority exercised by heads of multinational technological companies generates international distrust, securitization, and strategic decoupling. Ultimately, I argue, these trends have impeded multilateral consensus-building on the global governance of Earth’s orbit.
Broadly, the mini-conference explored how the US’s intensifying use of economic coercion to preserve its declining hegemony is reshaping the post-globalization order, and what responses, adaptations, and realignments this escalation has invoked. Mapping new modes of coercion and resistance, the mini-conference covered three core themes: (i) economic dependency and patterns of resistance in peripheral contexts; (ii) economic warfare, regulatory instruments and great-power competition; and (iii) technology, strategic resources and regional configurations in the Global South. My fellow panelists came from eleven countries on five continents. Sixteen papers explored different empirical instances across the world. Among those, Benjamin Bürbaumer presented on the rise of infrastructure chokepoints as sites of control in international politics—dovetailing with my PlanetStewards work on how private control over critical space-based infrastructure can drive strategic decoupling and securitization. Revealing the limits of unilateral pressure in his case study on Brazilian resistance to US trade coercion, Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos offered an important reminder of middle power agency beyond the US-China great power competition framing. Rosano-Grange’s examination of the contradictions of European “strategic autonomy” amid ongoing economic integration with US capital also raised questions relevant to my work with PlanetStewards, as the EU pushes for “technological sovereignty” in its space sector.
Next year, I will join as an organizer of the mini-conference for SASE’s 2027 conference in Glasgow, entitled “Rebuilding Foundations and Hope: Creative Reconstruction in a Moment of Disruption.” I look forward to exchanging ideas about concrete reconstruction efforts around the world geared toward renewing democracy and international cooperation in an era of systems collapse.