Profile
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Laura Bullon-Cassis

Research Fellow, Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy
Affiliate, Centre on Digital Humanities and Multilateralism
Spoken languages
English, French, Spanish
Theme
  • Democracy and Sovereignty
  • Environment and the Anthropocene
  • Technology
  • Global Governance

PROFILE

Dr Laura Bullón-Cassis studies how power gets made legible, and how it gets obscured, inside the institutions built to govern planetary crisis. A media and communication scholar, her research examines how media, technologies, and forms of expertise shape authority, participation, and political possibility, with the climate crisis as her central empirical domain.

From 2027, she will lead The New Stewards: Earth Observation and the Public-Private Reordering of Climate Governance, funded by an SNSF Ambizione grant. The project examines what happens as infrastructures once largely controlled by states become increasingly concentrated in the hands of private technology and space companies, including firms controlled by some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. Focusing on Earth observation, it asks how these shifts are changing who can see, represent, and produce authoritative knowledge about the planet, and what this means for climate governance and public authority.

She holds a PhD in Media, Culture, and Communication from New York University and an MSc in Global Politics and BSc in Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science. As co-lead of the DECODE project on disinformation and media literacy, she works on AI literacy, data infrastructures, and algorithmic mediation in democratic decision-making, and is an Associate Researcher on the AI for Democratic Commons project at Sciences Po’s médialab.

Her first book turns to the symbolic politics of “youth” in UN climate summitry, asking how young people became the communicative face of climate diplomacy and what happens when visibility stands in for political influence. The book draws on extensive ethnographic research across UN climate and sustainable development forums. Alongside her academic work, she reports on multilateral environmental negotiations as a team leader and senior writer for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, covering the IPCC, UN climate conferences, and the High Level Political Forum.

Her work has appeared in Global Perspectives, Societies, the Journal of Youth Studies, Global Policy Journal, NEOS, OpenDemocracy, and The Conversation. She has held visiting fellowships at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, the Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics at George Washington University, the EHESS, and Sciences Po. 

She has taught at New York University, Pratt Institute, the Geneva Graduate Institute, and the University of Geneva, served as Assistant Editor of Public Culture, and was named an Emerging Scholar by Global Perspectives in 2024. Before academia, she worked across the UN system, including with UNEP, UN Habitat, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti, and the United Nations University.

 

SELECTED Publications AND OUTPUTS

 

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2025). Who Gets to Shape Climate Futures? Voice, Representation, and Urban Experimentation at the Paris Climate Academy. Global Perspectives, 6(1), 143126.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L., Lutringer, C., Mexi, M., & Welp, Y. (2025). Democratic innovations for youth: Promises and perceptions of ‘voice’. Societies.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L., & Tchermalykh, N. (2025). Dialogues subversifs: Redéfinir le musée occidental par des interventions performatives. Marges, 40, 23–38.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2024). A game show at the end of the world: The currency of youth in UN climate summitry. Journal of Youth Studies, 27(1), 1–18.
  • Hubacher, M., Bullón-Cassis, L., Duberry, J., & Lutringer, C. (2024). Stories of the Future: Mit Geschichten mögliche Zukünfte erforschen – ein Praxisbericht. POLIS, (14), 27–30.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2021). Beware of Generationalism: The Structural (In)Visibility of BIPOC Youths in Global Climate Summits. NEOS, 13(1).
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2011). Towards ‘Post-Globalization’? G20 Communications during the Global Financial Crisis.UNU-CRIS.

Television, Podcasts, and Op-Eds

  • The New Oligarchs, invited guest expert on Geopolitis (RTS and TV5Monde), international broadcast on technology elites and global governance, 18 May 2025.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2024). 2024: A Year of Reflection, Unrest, and Lessons for Democracy. Global Challenges and Globe, Geneva Graduate Institute.
  • Co-host, Who is Voting in 2024? podcast. Sample episode: France: How is Civil Society Fighting the Rise of the Extreme Right Online? with Sarah Durieux.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2024). Can Young People Still Sway UN Climate COPs? The Conversation (French and English).
  • Duberry, J., Lutringer, C., Bullón-Cassis, L., & Hubacher, M. (2024, May 27). Une gouvernance mondiale de l’IA est-elle possible et si oui, peut-on y intégrer la jeunesse? The Conversation.
  • Podcast episode with Jennifer Telesca (2024). Navigating Environmental Governance Through Ethnographic Ways of Knowing. Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2022). Youth at Climate COPs: An Exercise in (Suboptimal) Planetary Care? Weather Matters,Fall Series.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2020). Why is Youth Embracing ‘Alter-Democracy’? An Interview with Fridays for Future Activist Marie-Claire Graf. Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2020). Democratic Disenchantments: COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and Fridays for Future.Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2015). The UN is Imperfect, but We Need It More Than Ever. OpenDemocracy, 10 December.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L. (2012). When Anti-Globalizers are Pro-Globalizers. The Global Journal, March.

Policy (Selected)

  • Bullón-Cassis, L., Gutierrez, M. (2025). The Frascati Principles: Towards Trusted, Coherent, and Inclusive Environmental Data Systems. UNEP High-Level Expert Group on Environmental Data.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L., Davenport, D., & Mwangi, W. (2024). Summary and Analysis of the Summit of the Future. Earth Negotiations Bulletin, Vol. 3, No. 22.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L., Lutringer, C., & Bellenot, H. (2024). Understanding the Links between Multilateralism and Democracy: Issue Brief on Democracy and Climate. Kofi Annan Foundation.
  • Bullón-Cassis, L., Sharma, A., Jones, J., Leone, F., & Verkuijl, C. (2019). Summary and Analysis of the UN General Assembly Summits. Earth Negotiations Bulletin, Vol. 33, No. 57.