The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley

Schaake, former European Parliament member and one of the architects of early EU digital regulation, makes the case that democratic governments have systematically ceded authority to technology companies — in ways that were neither inevitable nor irreversible, but that now require deliberate political effort to reverse. The "tech coup" of the title is not dramatic but structural: the gradual transfer of regulatory, infrastructural, and communicative power to private actors who are accountable to their shareholders rather than to democratic publics.

The book is strongest on the European regulatory context — the AI Act, the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act — and on the political economy of why these measures were so difficult to achieve and remain contested. For policy advisers and analysts working on the governance of the information environment, Schaake provides both the political diagnosis and a realistic account of the regulatory instruments available to address it.