Annual Governance Agora Workshop 2026

The 13th Annual International Workshop on Critical and Alternative Thinking on Governance

Critical and Alternative Governance at the Intersection of (Artificial) Intelligence and Sustainability

ISC Paris, 22-23 June 2026

Organized by

“Double or nothing: Reimagining governance in the age of (A)I”

Chaired by

Chaired by Lotfi Karoui (ISC Paris) and Wafa Khlif (TBS Education – Barcelona)

Context and motivatioN

For over a decade, this international workshop has brought together a community of scholars engaged in critical and alternative approaches on governance, challenging 20th-century paradigms centered on efficiency, growth, and profit maximization. Today, the stakes are higher than ever. Political instability, armed conflicts, and the rapid spread of artificial intelligence across economic, political, and organizational domains have transformed the landscape of governance. From geopolitical risks and algorithmic decision-making to automated management, surveillance infrastructures, and generative systems, the question is no longer whether governance matters but what kind of governance is still possible.

Governance has often been presented as neutral—a technical system detached from politics. History demonstrates the opposite. From colonial enterprises to contemporary wars, corporate power has been closely intertwined with violence, domination, and profit extraction, generating both social unrest and ecological devastation. Denying the political nature of governance is, paradoxically, its most political act: it normalizes destruction as inevitable and safeguards entrenched structures of inequality.

We argue that governance now faces a “double or nothing” moment. Either we collectively rethink governance through the lens of algorithmic systems, or we allow governance itself to be rewritten by them. The rise of AI raises profound and urgent questions: Who governs the governors of algorithms? What forms of accountability are possible in a world where agency is increasingly distributed, opaque, and machine-led?

This workshop calls for a fundamental transformation in governance logic – one that embraces alternative epistemologies and places life, rather than profit, at the core of decision-making. We seek contributions that critically examine how AI and sustainability intersect with governance structures, offering pathways toward more moral, glocal, interconnected, and reflective approaches.

Call for critical contributions

We invite research papers, theoretical essays, empirical studies and practitioners and activists papers that advance critical and alternative thinking on governance at the intersection of AI and sustainability. We particularly welcome contributions that challenge Western-centric frameworks and propose transformative alternatives rooted in diverse epistemological traditions, while also addressing the urgent organizational and institutional dimensions of AI governance.

Key research questions

We encourage critical investigations addressing the challenges of governance with, by, and through AI—that is, how algorithmic systems govern and are governed. We invite contributions under several interrelated themes:

1. Epistemologies and Ontologies

• How does “algorithmic truth” reshape knowledge production, and whose voices are excluded in AI-mediated governance?
• Which alternative epistemologies (Ubuntu, Indigenous, Confucian, feminist, etc.) offer viable frameworks for governing AI beyond Western-centric models?
• In what ways do AI systems reinforce or disrupt existing power relations and epistemic hierarchies?

2. Environmental and Material Dimensions

• What are the hidden ecological and social costs of AI—from mineral extraction to digital waste?
• Does “green extractivism” legitimize AI’s expansion while obscuring its planetary dependencies?
• Can corporate governance frameworks meaningfully tackle AI’s environmental externalities, or do they risk becoming greenwashing mechanisms?

3. Corporate Power and Institutional Capture

• How are boards, audits, and compliance systems adapting (or failing) to the complex challenges AI introduces into oversight, accountability, and strategy?
• Does AI governance strengthen genuine accountability within organizations, or does it risk creating new forms of technological capture that limit transparency, stakeholder input, and democratic oversight?
• How do board dynamics, composition, and decision-making processes influence how organizations identify, assess, and respond to AI-related risks and opportunities?
• What new forms of executive control or board–management alignment are emerging as organizations integrate AI into governance and operations?
• How can boards build the capabilities, information flows, and governance structures needed to ensure ethical, transparent, and inclusive decision-making in AI-mediated contexts?

4. Agency, Accountability, and Justice

• Who bears responsibility when AI systems take consequential decisions, and how can accountability be shared across human–machine assemblages?
• How can governance models address the mismatch between fast-evolving AI capabilities and slow institutional responses?
• To what extent do current AI governance frameworks reproduce colonial dynamics and marginalize Global South perspectives?

5. Alternatives, Resistance, and Transformation

• What forms of resistance—social movements, commons-based governance, Indigenous practices—challenge dominant AI governance models?
• How can cooperative and community-driven approaches inspire alternative AI futures?
• Can governance evolve beyond shareholder primacy to embed ecological responsibility and intergenerational equity?

Submission Guidelines

We encourage submissions in diverse formats that challenge conventional academic boundaries:

• Research papers and extended abstracts (2,000-8,000 words): Empirical studies, theoretical analyses, or comparative case studies
• Critical essays (3,000-4,000 words): Provocative theoretical pieces, manifestos, or position papers
• Practice notes (1,500-3,000 words): Reflections on alternative governance experiments, activist insights, or practitioner perspectives

Format: Papers should embrace interdisciplinary approaches, welcoming contributions from diverse methodological traditions including ethnography, participatory action research, speculative design, and activist scholarship.

Target audience: PhD students, established scholars, independent researchers, activists, and practitioners working across governance, technology, sustainability, organizational theory, and critical management studies.

Important Information

Submission deadline: April 05 2026

Notification of acceptance: April 30 2026

Workshop dates: June 22-23 2026

Location: ISC Paris

Selected papers and essays will be considered for publication in an edited volume.

Contact: [email protected]

Scientific Committee

REFERENCES

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Binns, R. (2018). Fairness in machine learning: Lessons from political philosophy. Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency, 149-159.

Crawford, K. (2021). Atlas of AI: Power, politics, and the planetary costs of artificial intelligence. Yale University Press.

Ekbia, H. R., & Nardi, B. A. (2017). Heteromation, and Other Stories of Computing and Capitalism. MIT Press.

de Sousa Santos, B. (2015). Epistemologies of the South: Justice against epistemicide. Routledge.

de Sousa Santos, B. (2024). The epistemologies of the South and the future of the university. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 58(2-3), 166-188.

Eubanks, V. (2018). Automating inequality: How high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor. St. Martin’s Press.

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Mökander, J., Sheth, M., Gersbro-Sundler, M., Blomgren, P., & Floridi, L. (2024). Challenges and best practices in corporate AI governance: Lessons from the biopharmaceutical industry. arXiv preprint. https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.05339

Pasquale, F. (2015). The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information. Harvard University Press.

Paul, J. (2022). Can critical policy studies outsmart AI? A research agenda on artificial intelligence and public policy. Critical Policy Studies [preprint]. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.24983.04001

Rodhain, F. (2019). La nouvelle religion du numérique. Le numérique est-il écologique? EMS Editions Management & Société et Libre & Solidaire.

Swyngedouw, E. (2009). The antinomies of the postpolitical city: In search of a democratic politics of environmental production. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33(3), 601-620.

Zaidan, E. (2024). AI governance in a complex and rapidly changing world. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03560-x

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For further information, please contact: [email protected]

Submissions should be sent to: [email protected]