[Commlist] CFP: Workshop on the politics of GenAI governance

Klara Matusewicz (University of Manchester), Robert Gorwa (WZB Berlin), 
and João C. Magalhães are putting together a two-day workshop on 'The 
Politics of GenAI Governance' at Mancept 2026 in Manchester, September 2–4.

See the CfA below and, if you’re interested, please send a *500-word 
abstract by May 21* to (joao.magalhaes /at/ manchester.ac.uk) 
<mailto:(joao.magalhaes /at/ manchester.ac.uk)>.

Full details of Mancept 2026 here: 
https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/activities/mancept-workshops-2026/ 
<https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/activities/mancept-workshops-2026/>


—

*The politics of GenAI governance*

The governance of GenAI is often framed as a computational task (how can 
code and data ensure that AI systems reliably do what designers want 
them to do?), an abstract normative question (which norms should AI 
systems behave in accordance with?), or a narrowly legal challenge (how 
can different regulatory bodies define, codify, and enforce these norms, 
in computational and institutional terms?). Yet it is also, obviously 
and perhaps centrally, a political problem: which actors, representing 
whose interests, have less or more power and legitimacy to influence the 
mechanisms whereby GenAI is governed into being? Who’s set to benefit 
and lose from these processes?

The need for perspectives rooted in political theory is made 
increasingly urgent by two trends in how GenAI governance is defined. 
First, the discourse about what governance means and what constitutes 
success is rapidly consolidating around a narrow set of actors and 
understandings. As it is often spurred by private companies which 
operate with limited public oversight, this kind of discourse and its 
related proposals call for an inquiry into the rights, responsibilities, 
and ideologies that underpin them, particularly as the datasets and 
training used for governing GenAI have previously resulted in bias, 
exclusion and the reinforcement of existing systems of oppression. 
Second, governance proposals aspire to a global scope, implicitly 
advancing claims about universal values. Such disregard for pluralism 
raises questions about legitimacy, and concerns about the associated 
asymmetries in geopolitical power. Importantly, these trends unfold amid 
a historical crisis of liberal democracy.

As GenAI becomes increasingly embedded in everyday life, its governance 
is no longer just about preventing reward hacking during training or the 
hypothetical, potentially catastrophic consequences of mis-specified 
goals. It is about institutionalising quotidian norms and inequities, 
thus encoding particular visions of social order into what is quickly 
becoming a pervasive, all-purpose sort of infrastructure.

To truly understand and intervene in the governance of GenAI, we need 
first treat it as a collective and contested political practice. This 
workshop addresses this urgent task by inviting contributions that 
grapple with the visible and covert disagreement, authorities, and 
rationalities that shape the emergence of GenAI under conditions of 
extreme uncertainty.

In particular, we welcome scholars working on topics related, but not 
limited, to the following guiding questions:

 1. How should we conceptualise GenAI governance as a form of power, and
    in which ways does it differ (or not) from previous control systems?
 2. How does GenAI governance intersect with theories and the current
    realities of democracy and authoritarianism?
 3. Can traditional approaches explain the political economy of GenAI?
 4. In what ways do existing GenAI governance proposals implicitly rely
    on contested political assumptions (e.g. moral realism, liberal
    individualism, etc)?
 5. To what extent and how should GenAI governance be democratised?


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