Politics, Power, and Information Systems

The axiom of this cumulative dissertation is that Information Systems (IS) have politics. In IS research, then, the political is conceived as a process of getting commitment or, a site of contestation where (networks of) actors exert power as positional advantage. Consequently, power are the imperceptible and ethereal forces that orchestrate the trajectory of development, implementation, and eventual implications of IS. Those forces, weather consciously or subconsciously, will inevitably steer that trajectory towards certain directions, thereby displaying a predilection for specific outcomes over others.

Building on this axiom, over the course of nine research papers, questions of politics and power in three Domains of study are considered: (I) the governance of decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs), (II) the making of metaverse's, and (III) the construction of self-sovereign identity (SSI) models. The first three papers use empirical interpretivist approaches to assess the distribution of decision making power in DAOs – pervasive in Decentralised Finance. The fourth paper considers alternatives to the shortcomings of financial regulation applicable to these. The next two papers follow historical methods to study metaverse(s) as "in-the-making''. Their respective contributions are a typology of prioritised concepts and a philosophical intervention rooted in postmodernist thought. The last three papers are of interpretivist nature, and deal with the construction of SSI in public sector contexts. Two of these adopt social constructivist theory and propose a theoretical extension that accounts for the role of institutions in the development of IS considered as socially ambiguous and technically malleable. The last paper revisits SSI's historical milestones and formulates timely design requirements.

The implications of this dissertation's findings are intricately tied to the specific Domains under examination. However, in large, all three provide support to the observation that the value of studying politics and power is in its contribution to greater understanding of both, the implementations and implications of IS. At last, two distinct avenues for further research emerge. These promise a comprehensive exploration of the intricate interplay between politics, power, and IS.