For the majority of history, the character of politics was evident in the forms of power. It was the king on the throne, the emperor in the palace, the dictator running the state, or the ruling class commanding the army and bureaucracy. No matter the construction of the state, designations of sovereignty were known. Jean Bodin’s definition of sovereignty as “supreme authority over a territory” was indicative of this framework.

Democracy was one of the most significant events to occur in the history of political thought. While previously power was in the hands of individuals or ruling classes, with democracy sovereignty resided with the people. Legitimacy began to reside with popular will, and the vote was the means of expressing sovereignty. Rousseau famously stated that “the sovereign has no other name than the people.”

In contrast, a new development is in process that is less about a new political system and more about a new locus of influence. Control over the data, the algorithms, the means of information, and the processing systems makes it possible to control the information environment in which citizens form their beliefs and opinions and in which they make their decisions.

This is the riddle of Algorithmocracy.

Rather than only asking who has the power to govern, we are now asking who has the power to control the systems through which people see, make sense of, and act upon the world.

Algorithms don’t produce legal frameworks or regulations, mobilize the army, or manage a country. However, algorithms create the content we see, engage with, and, ultimately, ignore. Algorithms influence our decisions and our behavior without even giving us answers. In fact, a seemingly passive algorithm is enough to dictate what we see.

Nate Persily from Stanford holds that large technology companies have the most power over their respective information ecosystems since the pre Reformation Catholic church. While the reference point might sound strange, Persily points out an important dimension of modern structural power. Contemporary structural power does not deal with the power over the information flow. Rather, it is about the power over information visibility, position, repetition, and dissemination.

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