The Brussels Bubble
Book launch for The Brussels Bubble: Inside the European Union in the Digital Age.
The book provides a political ethnography of the EU’s inner workings - revealing how digital technologies shape the very meaning of diplomacy and European unity.
The doors open at 8:30 with croissants and coffee and the program formally start at 9 with an introduction to the book by Kristin Eggeling and Rebecca Adler-Nissen, followed by a panel discussion by Deputy Prorector for AI, Morten Axel, professor in European Politics, Marlene Wind, Researcher at DIIS, Cecilie Banke, Director for the Think Tank Europa, Lykke Friis. We will end the discussion with a Q&A.
About the book
What happens when European politics goes digital? Behind the scenes in European Union institutions, a quiet transformation is reshaping the way power works. Based on long-term ethnographic research, this book follows diplomats, civil servants, spokespersons, and interpreters through the corridors, meeting rooms, cafés, and smartphone screens of Brussels' European Quarter. Against the backdrop of Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia's war on Ukraine, it reveals how digital technologies have become inseparable from the practice of international politics—reshaping trust, tact, and authority in unexpected ways. Far from a tale of technological revolution, The Brussels Bubble exposes digitalisation as a messy, human negotiation about what diplomacy and Europe itself mean today. Combining vivid narrative with sharp theoretical insight, it offers a rare, inside view of how global governance, technology, and human interaction intertwine at the heart of European power.
