Biography
Dr Antoine Sander is a postdoctoral scholar at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR). An empirically minded political theorist, his research focuses on the ways in which communication technology configures democratic politics. Antoine obtained his PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge in 2025. His dissertation – which received the Lisa Smirl prize – sought to rethink the democratic potential of social media through original fieldwork conducted in France. Before coming to Cambridge, Antoine studied at SciencesPo and Columbia University, from which he graduated summa cum laude with a dual B.A. in 2016. He also holds an MPhil from Cambridge (2020). Besides his research, Antoine runs an NGO, which he co-founded, that seeks to transform an abandoned railway line circling Paris – the Petite Ceinture – into a public park.
Research
Antoine is a political theorist researching the way artefacts shape the possibility for democratic politics. His research interests include radical-democratic thought, the political theory of technology, critical media studies, empirical methods in political theory, and the history of 20th century political thought. At CGHR, Antoine uses a historicised approach to the relationship between communication technology and politics to interrogate how authority, power and political contestation are changing in a digital age. The research project on ‘Communication Technology and Contentious Politics,’ on which he collaborates with Professor Sharath Srinivasan, seeks to understand how, from the invention of writing to generative AI, domination and resistance have been articulated through and with communication technologies, with an emphasis on popular politics. Motivating these enquiries is a strong normative purpose: learning from the past, how can we radically rethink civic action and democratic popular sovereignty in our technological present and future?
Publications
- (2025) “Social Media, Democracy, and the Popular Public Sphere”, Constellations 32(2).
- (2022) “Control, Extract, Legitimate: COVID-19 and Digital Techno-opportunism across Africa”, Development & Change 53(6) (with Josh Platzky Miller and Sharath Srinivasan).
Teaching and Supervisions
- Graduate: MPhil seminar on ‘Communication Technology and Contentious Politics’ & dissertation supervision.
- Undergraduate: POL1 (‘The Modern State and its Alternatives’) and POL11 (‘Political Philosophy and the History of Political Thought since c. 1890’).
