PANEL 16 /// CONTEMPORARY NORMATIVE AND
ETHICAL CHALLENGES OF DEMOCRACIES
CONVENOR: SANDRA KRÖGER (UNIVERSITY OF EXETER)
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to s[email protected]
Contemporary democracies struggle with a range of ethical and normative challenges, some of which are long-standing, others are newer. These can be institutional and relate to how democratic and inclusive societies and their electoral systems and political bodies are; they can be ideational and relate to the apparent exhaustion of the standard liberal conception of democracy which seems to have lost traction for parts of the populace worldwide; they can be ethical and relate to modes of conduct of political leaders and office-holders as well as citizens; they can be ethical and address how contemporary forms of governance and governing reinforce historical structures of discrimination and inequality; or they can relate to how digital technology and infrastructure reinforce old problems of governance and create new forms of domination and inequality, to name but a few. This panel addresses some of the related challenges. It looks at 1) the democratic justification of elections that enable us more successfully to distinguish democratic from aristocratic elections in theory and practice than is possible at the moment; 2) the integrity of leaders in democratic societies and how to evaluate it comparatively; 3) the privatization of democracy by means of privately created algorithms entering the spheres of public will formation and implementation, leading to new forms of domination and the hollowing of popular sovereignty; and 4) the ethical challenges algorithms pose for the enjoyment of fundamental rights in terms of accountability, privacy, non-discrimination and responsibility attribution.
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to s[email protected]
Contemporary democracies struggle with a range of ethical and normative challenges, some of which are long-standing, others are newer. These can be institutional and relate to how democratic and inclusive societies and their electoral systems and political bodies are; they can be ideational and relate to the apparent exhaustion of the standard liberal conception of democracy which seems to have lost traction for parts of the populace worldwide; they can be ethical and relate to modes of conduct of political leaders and office-holders as well as citizens; they can be ethical and address how contemporary forms of governance and governing reinforce historical structures of discrimination and inequality; or they can relate to how digital technology and infrastructure reinforce old problems of governance and create new forms of domination and inequality, to name but a few. This panel addresses some of the related challenges. It looks at 1) the democratic justification of elections that enable us more successfully to distinguish democratic from aristocratic elections in theory and practice than is possible at the moment; 2) the integrity of leaders in democratic societies and how to evaluate it comparatively; 3) the privatization of democracy by means of privately created algorithms entering the spheres of public will formation and implementation, leading to new forms of domination and the hollowing of popular sovereignty; and 4) the ethical challenges algorithms pose for the enjoyment of fundamental rights in terms of accountability, privacy, non-discrimination and responsibility attribution.
