PostCyDem · Posthuman Cybernetic Democracy: Rethinking Legal Normativity under Conditions of Algorithmic Governance
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2026-10-01 → 2028-09-30
- EU contribution
- €196,976
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF
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Project objective
The Posthuman Cybernetic Democracy (PostCyDem) project tackles a pressing challenge: integrating autonomous algorithmic systems into legal and democratic governance. As AI increasingly mediates decisions in welfare, policing, and the judiciary, traditional legal systems—rooted in human agency and rationality—face opaque, adaptive technologies that challenge conventional notions of justice, responsibility, and rights. Current legal frameworks struggle to address the distributed and non-human nature of algorithmic decision-making.PostCyDem pursues three interrelated objectives: (1) reconstruct legal normativity through a posthuman and cybernetic lens, interrogating assumptions of autonomy and rational subjectivity; (2) analyse how algorithms interact with legal structures via case studies such as COMPAS (US), SyRI (Netherlands), and AI governance in Hesse (Germany); and (3) develop normative and institutional design principles to ensure democratic accountability, transparency, and protection of fundamental rights in hybrid human–machine systems. The project combines conceptual analysis, comparative law, and critical discourse analysis, integrating insights from posthumanism, cybernetics, and Science and Technology Studies.For the fellow, this project will be a critical inflection point, providing structured, high-quality training and international mobility to support a long-term academic career. The fellowship will provide hands-on experience in research management and grant writing, expand the fellow’s international professional network, and enhance communication and leadership skills. By offering a new framework for legal reasoning, PostCyDem will provide crucial intellectual foundations for European policy on trustworthy AI, helping to reconcile technological advancement with democratic values. This timely and ambitious research will contribute to a more just and inclusive legal system that can accommodate the challenges of algorithmic governance.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- LIETUVOS SOCIALINIU MOKSLU CENTRAS · VILNIUSCoordinatorLithuania
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union