BOOK REVIEW: Rikap, C. (2026). Digital dependency theory. Sovereignty and development in 21st-century capitalism. Buenos Aires: Caja Negra. 240 p. ISBN 978-987-8272-48-1

Abstract

Cecilia Rikap’s book puts forward a theory of digital dependency to explain the subordinate integration of peripheral economies into 21st-century capitalism, the dynamics of which are no longer determined by nation states but by a handful of intellectual monopolies – led by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google – that control the production and appropriation of knowledge on a global scale. Through five chapters, the author share us that these corporations operate by means of corporate innovation systems that subsume Universities, start-ups, States, and companies worldwide, extracting value without giving up control. The Latin American digital periphery not only imports technology but also exports data and collective knowledge -what Rikap calls ‘twin extractivism’- reproducing the historical logic of underdevelopment in new forms. The analysis in this work reveals a cycle of disqualification accelerated by generative AI, which replaces creative tasks, disciplines workers and deepens inequality. In response to this diagnosis, the final chapter proposes alternative programmatic lines centred on popular digital sovereignty: democratic planning of the technological ecosystem, technological internationalism and public institutions to govern the production of knowledge. The book is a theoretically and analytically grounded work, supported by documentary evidence, which draws on existing evidence to construct a new interpretative framework relevant to rethinking the conditions of possibility for development in a capitalist system increasingly governed by corporations that function both as businesses and as global infrastructures.