"The Networked Leviathan" Book Talk with Paul Gowder

Buffett Book Talk

The Buffett Institute for Global Affairs hosted a book talk with Paul Gowder, author of The Networked Leviathan (Cambridge University Press, 2024), in discussion with Jennifer Forestal, Helen Houlahan Rigali Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago. Governments and consumers expect internet platform companies to regulate their users to prevent fraud, stop misinformation and avoid violence. Yet so far, they’ve failed to do so—with serious consequences. The inability of platforms like Amazon and Meta to govern their users led to the distribution of counterfeit N95s during the pandemic and the exacerbation of violence during the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. Such failures stem from these companies’ inability to manage the complexity of their user bases, products and their own incentives. The Networked Leviathan argues that countries should adapt the institutional tools developed in political science to democratize major platforms, exploring how collaboration between governments, companies and ordinary people could combat rising misinformation, scams and hate speech online.