On the boundaries of digital markets

This chapter offers a conceptual framework for analyzing market boundaries, using the EU’s Digital Single Market strategy as an example. It builds on recent work in sociology, geography and political theory to explain how market boundaries are drawn—politically, discursively and institutionally. A vital insight from the social science of markets is to always consider the messiness and friction built into markets. In other words, we must think of markets as social spaces constituted by history, politics and culture rather than abstract spaces constituted by exchange. This involves paying attention to how official market boundaries interact with—and inevitably conflict with—consumer preferences, practices, activities and institutions that may or may not respect those boundaries. The effect of this thought experiment is to pluralize the idea of “the market” by acknowledging that there are, in fact, many different kinds of markets. More to the point, each market comprises a palimpsest of layers that interact in complex ways.