Interests
Economic Sociology, Political Sociology, Global/Transnational Sociology, Science and Technology Studies, Social Theory
My research is motivated by an interest in the way digital technologies shape social processes and phenomena, as well as the basic concepts and categories—the state, the citizen, the person—that we use to grasp these processes and phenomena. It is developed in three streams.
The first is the subject of my dissertation, The Cybernetic State: Digital Statecraft in the EU, India, and Singapore. I show that in each of these cases, the state is being reimagined and reorganized along computational lines. These transformations have consequences for the theory and practice of statecraft and citizenship, but more fundamentally, they illuminate diverging visions of Modernity and changing understandings of what it means to be human.
My second stream of research deals with theories of markets. In a 2026 Sociological Theory article, I show that economic sociology and heterodox economics are converging on a computational understanding of markets. Closer dialogue between these fields could lead to the development of a grander project: a “natural history of markets.” This will be the topic of my second monograph.
My third stream of research concerns ideologies of postliberalism and computation. In a 2026 Theory, Culture & Society article, I consider the thought of Curtis Yarvin, an influential right-wing intellectual, who uses computational ideas to diagnose what he views as the pathological features of the contemporary world. In light of this fact, I suggest that many political movements identified as “populist” are better characterized as “postliberal.”
Peer-Reviewed Articles
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James Rosenberg. 2026. “Steps Toward an Ecology of Markets: Markets as evolving computational algorithms.” Sociological Theory 44.1, pp. 52-79. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/07352751251390470
- James Rosenberg. 2026. “Reactionary Bricolage: Curtis Yarvin and Postliberalism” Theory, Culture & Society: https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764251407509
Public Writing
- “A theorist of American authoritarianism.” Eurozine, February 4, 2026. Available: https://www.eurozine.com/a-theorist-of-american-authoritarianism/
- “Curtis Yarvin: Postliberalism with Computational Characteristics.” IWMpost 136. Available: https://www.iwm.at/publication/iwmpost-article/curtis-yarvin-postliberalism-with-computational-characteristics