Eric Repetto
PhD Candidate in International Relations, Sciences Po Paris
I am a doctoral researcher in the last year of my PhD, studying sovereignty, digital governance and private actors in IR. Before starting my PhD, I graduated in Politics and International Relations from the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies (Pisa, Italy) and the University of Florence, and I worked as an intern for the EU Parliament’s INGE Committee on Foreign Interferences.
When I’m not working, you can find me civilly complaining about the fate of the world, or nerding about fantasy and Sci-fi (a bit of escapism never hurt anybody).
My research
I am interested both in how digital technologies and firms are governed, and in how they contribute to the construction and change of the international system. In my thesis I focus especially on digital platforms and their role in constructing or contesting both state and EU sovereignty. More broadly, I research digital and AI sovereignty, strategic autonomy, the role of private actors in constructing the international system and the state, and how state governance and economic blocs evolve in reaction to emerging technologies and the transnational actors championing them.
In particular, in my thesis I adopt a discursive and relational perspective. I research how public actors and private digital companies shape each other as distinct subjects on the international stage, and affect the evolution of the discourse of sovereignty through their interactions.
My publications
Published
- Repetto E (2025), “Symbiotic rivals? Writing state sovereignty through its contestation in the struggle between Australia and the digital giants”, European Journal of International Relations, 0(0).
- Repetto E (2025), “Concept “stretching” or concept innovation? A review of the usages of sovereignty in the digital sovereignty literature”, Policy & Internet, 17(3).
- Repetto E (2021), “So far, yet so close: Italian parties’ immigration discourses during the Gentiloni and the first Conte governments”, Interdisciplinary Political Studies, 7(1).
- Repetto E (2021), “Security, risk and enemy construction in political communication: A new framework”, in Delogu, G and Maranesi A (eds.), “Perspectives on Political Communication”, Pavia: Ibis.
- Bressanelli E, Di Palma A, Inglese G, Marini S and Repetto E (2020), “Institutions and foreign interferences”, AFCO Committee of the European Parliament.
Work in progress
- “Which models of geopolitical competition around AI? Exclusion and market lock-in in the creation of AI economic blocs”
- “For a theory of private hegemons: major digital firms, Italian Medieval mercenary companies and their transitions from state challenge to hybrid governance”
- “Decentring sovereignty but keeping the state in: a reframing of the digital sovereignty debate to achieve pluralism in Internet governance”
- “How Big Tech companies legitimise EU sovereignty: insights from the Code of Practice against Disinformation”
Teaching Experience
I have been both a lecturer and a teaching assistant at Sciences Po and at the Université Catholique de Lille, teaching over 100 undergraduate students and 15 graduate students. I have been a lecturer for two conférences de méthodes on “Introduction to Political Science”, lecturer for a course on “EU digital policies”, and TA for a “Wars and International Conflicts” course. I have also been TA for a professional training course for CAR young diplomats at Yaoundé’s International Relations Institute of Cameroon.
Contact information
Sciences Po, Center for International Studies
27 Rue Saint Guillaume, Paris, 75337
eric.repetto[at]sciencespo.fr