[Air-L] Call for abstracts to the Open Panel for the 7th Nordic STS Conference, 11-13 June 2025 in Stockholm with the title: Law enforcement and the formation of the techno-police state in the Nordics

[Marie Eneman]

Dear colleagues,

Welcome to submit an abstract to our Open Panel for the 7th Nordic STS Conference, 11-13 June 2025 in Stockholm with the title:  Law enforcement and the formation of the techno-police state in the Nordics

The Call for abstracts for the 7th Nordic STS Conference, 11-13 June 2025 in Stockholm, is open between 15 January and 1 March.

When you submit your abstract, you need to choose our panel in the list on the panel page. Welcome to submit your abstract via the button/link here: https://www.nordicsts.se/call-for-abstracts/

The format for the abstract: Title max 150 characters and Abstract max 250 words.


Law enforcement and the formation of the techno-police state in the Nordics
The Nordic countries are currently witnessing strong political pressure and willingness to rapidly enact laws and amend existing ones to provide law enforcement and other security forces with new powers to expand their legal arsenal. There is also a pluralization of policing that moves beyond the boundaries of traditional law enforcement agencies, now also delegating responsibility for crime fighting to regions, municipalities and private actors. At the same time, Nordic governments are procuring and deploying advanced police technologies, such as digital platforms, drones, body cameras, facial recognition technologies and so on, to support their operational capacity. Both the new legislations and technologies are politically justified by Nordic states as necessary means in the fight against allegedly increased gang criminality, failed integration of migrant populations, and an increasing geopolitical instability in the region.

Consequently, the deployment of police innovations combined with newly proposed policy and legal frameworks have given the police authorities in the Nordic countries significantly extended mandates that can be described as repressive: the use of facial recognition technologies, designating specific residential areas as ‘vulnerable’ or ‘parallel societies’, the implementation of advanced surveillance apparatuses in ‘vulnerable areas’ and establishing police search zones in demarcated areas, the so-called ghetto laws, and algorithmic profiling are some indicative examples. These techno-political developments in law enforcement are inscribed with high expectations of increased effectiveness in the fight against crime, while on the other hand, they raise serious concerns regarding fundamental democratic rights such as privacy, freedom of movement, freedom of expression, etc. It should also be emphasized that the technologies should not be understood as individual tools related to certain practices, but rather a convergence of earlier discrete technologies into complex digital assemblages that is not under total control of any governmental actor. They are moulded by an intricate interplay between institutional forces that condition how the affordances of the technologies are materialized, which also involve private actors as the private sector develops and provides the major part of digital devices and software applications to be used in police practices.

Against this background, the aim of this open panel is to bring scholars working with and within STS into dialogue with each other to stimulate renewed critical thinking and engagement with the complexity and specificity of issues related to the new techno-police state in the Nordics. We are particularly interested in contributions that address the digitalization of the police, the legalization of digital platforms in law enforcement, media narratives on the deployment of police technologies - legal developments in regard to the Nordic urban environment or a combination of those.

Publication plan
The organizers plan to contact a journal to explore the possibilities to connect a special issue to the panel.

The organizers:

Eneman, Marie - Associate Professor in Informatics at the department of Applied Information Technology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Galis, Vasilis - Professor in STS at the Technologies in Practice section, IT University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lindgren, Simon - Professor in Sociology at the department of Sociology, Umeå University, Sweden

Winter, Katarina - PhD in Sociology at the department of Criminology, Stockholm University, Sweden.


Marie Eneman (Docent/Associate Professor)
University of Gothenburg
Department of Applied IT
417 56 Gothenburg

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