Explore our knowledge

Ole Willers

Postdoc

Subjects
Digitalisation Artificial intelligence Technology EU Politics Security

Primary research areas

Tech Policy
I work on the polit­ics of di­git­al gov­ernance and reg­u­la­tion, ask­ing how policies are de­veloped across in­ter­plays of pub­lic and private au­thor­ity, and how they shape the or­gan­iz­a­tion of mar­kets. Pre­vi­ous work has in­vest­ig­ated the form­a­tion of AI policies and cy­ber­se­cur­ity gov­ernance struc­tures, amongst oth­ers.
Eco­nom­ic Se­cur­ity
How are con­cerns for se­cur­ity, ef­fi­ciency, and re­si­li­ence bal­anced in the or­gan­iz­a­tion of mar­kets for stra­tegic tech­no­lo­gies? My work in­vest­ig­ates vari­ations across policy re­sponses and seeks to un­der­stand how the trans­ition to­wards eco­nom­ic se­cur­ity is re­shap­ing the European busi­ness con­text.
Di­git­al Risks and Cy­ber­se­cur­ity
My key in­terest is the gov­ernance of cy­ber risks at the in­ter­sec­tion of mar­kets, ex­perts, and polit­ics. Who defines rules, how are re­spons­ib­il­it­ies al­loc­ated, and with what ef­fects?

Bal­an­cing risks and in­nov­at­ive po­ten­tials in di­git­al tech

As digital technologies increasingly permeate all aspects of society, a central question emerges: How can we ensure that their transformative effects serve the common good? 

My research explores the evolving governance of digital technologies and how it shapes—and is shaped by—political and economic dynamics. Against the backdrop of accelerating technological change, I examine efforts to define shared norms and regulatory frameworks that guide the development and use of digital tools in desirable directions. 

Drawing on political economy and economic sociology, I investigate who influences the trajectory of digital governance, how authority is formed and contested, and what implications these dynamics have for the organization of markets. My work pays particular attention to pressing issues such as the governance of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, economic security, and digital sovereignty. 

Analytically, I focus on the interplay between micro-, meso-, and macro-level developments involving both public and private actors. I am especially interested in how authority structures emerge under conditions of uncertainty, and how experts compete or collaborate to shape interpretations and responses to new technological challenges.

Recent research projects

DE­RISK: How Firms nav­ig­ate de-risk­ing re­gimes

Ideas about the glob­al eco­nomy in the West are amidst a paradigm shift. Shared be­liefs in a vir­tu­ous cycle of tight­er eco­nom­ic in­teg­ra­tion, in­creased glob­al prosper­ity, and strengthened com­mon se­cur­ity are in­creas­ingly be­ing re­placed by fears that eco­nom­ic in­ter­de­pend­ence has morph­ed into a tool for pro­jec­tions of power and co­er­cion(Far­rell and New­man 2019). The neo­lib­er­al glob­al or­der is seem­ingly crum­bling(Gerstle 2022), giv­ing way to a new age of “un­peace” where eco­nom­ic in­ter­de­pend­en­cies are un­der­stood as po­ten­tial vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies(Le­onard 2021).In an ef­fort to “de-risk” and pro­tect se­cur­ity-re­lated in­dus­tries and re­duce vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies on rival states, West­ern gov­ern­ments are es­tab­lish­ing ex­port con­trol, in­vest­ment screen­ing, and na­tion­al in­dus­tri­al policy–as re­flec­ted not­ably in the US In­fla­tion Re­duc­tion Act (IRA) and the EU ́s European Eco­nom­ic Se­cur­ity Strategy .How­ever, while the re­turn of the state and the emer­gence of the “Eco­nom­ic Se­cur­ity State”(New­man and Far­rell 2023)is palp­able, the ac­tu­al task of de-risk­ing over­whelm­ingly falls to private firms, whose sup­ply chains, in­vest­ments, and ex­ports are af­fected. The point of de­par­ture for DE­RISK is that des­pite firms ́ im­port­ance, we have very little sys­tem­at­ic know­ledge about how firms be­have in re­sponse to sig­nals and reg­u­la­tion from gov­ern­ments about de-risk­ing.
Link to the page

ADD: Al­gorithms, Data, and Demo­cracy

Al­gorithms, Data & Demo­cracy (the ADD-pro­ject) is a 10-year (2021-2031) in­ter­dis­cip­lin­ary re­search and out­reach pro­ject. The pro­ject aims to ad­vance di­git­al demo­cracy, en­vi­sion­ing a so­ci­ety in which flour­ish­ing or­gan­iz­a­tions, busi­nesses, and demo­crat­ic in­sti­tu­tions are sup­por­ted by di­git­al tech­no­lo­gies and in which tech­no­lo­gic­al de­vel­op­ments are at­tuned to the good of people and plan­et. A so­ci­ety where cit­izens are well-equipped to eval­u­ate the tech­no­lo­gic­al de­vel­op­ments and their in­flu­ence on every­day life and where cit­izens are able to in­flu­ence these de­vel­op­ments through par­ti­cip­a­tion in demo­crat­ic dis­course.

To real­ize this vis­ion, we fo­cus on the in­ter­re­la­tions of so­ci­o­tech­nic­al de­vel­op­ments and re-frame al­gorithms as part of the an­swer to cur­rent con­cerns re­gard­ing the datafic­a­tion of demo­crat­ic so­ci­et­ies. Thus, the ADD-pro­ject ad­dresses one cent­ral con­cern: How may the al­gorithmic or­gan­iz­a­tion of data en­gage, en­light­en, and em­power in­di­vidu­als, or­gan­iz­a­tions, and in­sti­tu­tions in demo­crat­ic­ally le­git­im­ate ways?
Link to Algorithms

Cy­ber­se­cur­ity of Sup­ply Chains

Om­dre­jn­ing­spunk­tet i pro­jek­tet Cy­ber­se­cur­ity in Sup­ply Chains er en kval­it­at­iv ana­lyse be­stående af 25 case­forløb, hvor pro­jek­tet af­dæk­ker små og melle­m­store danske virk­som­heders prak­s­is når det gælder for­syn­ing­skædens cy­ber­risikostyr­ing.
Link to the page

Outside activities

2025 , -

No out­side ac­tit­ivies to re­port