The growing sovereign citizen movement reflects an America that has lost faith in its democratic institutions.
Democracy, Sovereignty, and the Throne Speech That Wasn’t
We have to go back to go forward. Our power to do that is shrinking.
Tolerance Norms Across Countries
Democratic theorists consider respect for pluralism, equality, and inclusion as cornerstones of good democratic citizenship. But what do ordinary citizens belie
Voting with Their Feet: Democratic Backsliding and Market-Minded Migration - Evidence from Israel and Europe
Using a comparative framework, the study examines how variations in political regimes across Israel and Europe shape patterns of international migration. In both contexts, episodes of democratic backsliding serve as quasi-exogenous shocks that reveal the causal link between institutional erosion and outward mobility. In Israel, the origin of democratic backsliding lies in a corruption shock—the criminal indictment of the prime minister—which escalated into an executive–judicial shock as the government launched an anti-democratic judicial overhaul. This confrontation between the executive and judiciary provides a natural experiment for identifying how institutional breakdowns shape migration decisions. In Europe, the origin of democratic backsliding stems from a “Syrian shock”—a massive refugee inflow that strained administrative capacity, polarized politics, and weakened liberal institutions. The resulting governance erosion triggered emigration responses structurally like those observed in Israel. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) estimation, the study identifies causal effects of democratic erosion on migration flows. Across both settings, out-migration emerges as a market-minded response to illiberal regime change—a behavioral signal of sensitivity to policies that features nationalizing industries, restrict free speech, and undermine the rule of law. Together, the Israeli and European experiences demonstrate that illiberal governance functions as a systemic push factor for emigration, beyond standard economic explanations.
How AI Destroys Institutions
Civic institutions—like the rule of law, higher education, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex s
How AI Destroys Institutions
Civic institutions—the rule of law, universities, and a free press—are the backbone of democratic life. They are the mechanisms through which complex societies encourage cooperation and stability, while also adapting to changing circumstances. The real superpower of institutions is their ability to evolve and adapt within a hierarchy
Citizen Participation (@oliverescobar.bsky.social)
Professor of Public Policy and Democratic Innovation | University of Edinburgh | Working on #democracy #participation #deliberation #commons #governance #power #research | RT≠ endorse | Own views | Profile: https://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/staff/oliver-escobar
Citizen Participation (@oliverescobar.bsky.social)
Professor of Public Policy and Democratic Innovation | University of Edinburgh | Working on #democracy #participation #deliberation #commons #governance #power #research | RT≠ endorse | Own views | Profile: https://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/staff/oliver-escobar
Further Back to the Future: Neo-Royalism, the Trump Administration, and the Emerging International System
With the Liberal International Order (LIO) in decline, scholars have focused increasingly on the possible return to a Westphalian great power system marked by sovereigntist claims and balancing among states. The actions of the Trump administration, however, raise a number of significant puzzles for such accounts—the US seems willing to sign deals with traditional adversaries including Russia and China, while targeting long-standing allies like Canada and Denmark. At the same time, transactional politics often serve narrow personalist interests rather than national objectives. In short, a Westphalian lens focused on states and sovereignty may generate intellectual blinders that misreads the emerging international order. To overcome these limitations, we propose an alternative account, which we label neo-royalism. The neo-royalist order centers on an international system structured by a small group of hyper elites, which we term cliques. Such cliques seek to legitimize their authority through appeals to their exceptionalism in order to generate durable material and status hierarchies based on the extraction of financial and cultural tributes. This short paper lays out the key elements of the neo-royalist order, differentiating it from the Westphalian and Liberal International Orders, and applies its insights to better grapple with the emerging system being promoted by the United States under Donald J. Trump. For policymakers and scholars, the neo-royalist approach clarifies recent events in US foreign policy. Theoretically, the field should take contending ideas of international order seriously, and establish a research agenda beyond a backward looking view to the Westphalian moment.
Editor's Notes: Can We Defy Courts While Believing In Rule of Law?
Do our tactics throw out democracy and rule of law while purportedly aiming at saving them?
Civic, Citizen and Grassroots Science: Towards a Transformative Scientific Research Model | Request PDF
Request PDF | On Jan 1, 2013, Jessica McCallum Breen and others published Civic, Citizen and Grassroots Science: Towards a Transformative Scientific Research Model | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
Interoperable Sovereignty: The Democratic Alternative to Digital Authoritarianism
A Democratic Architecture for the Digital Age Digital sovereignty has become a central concern for governments worldwide, yet its meaning remains contested. Too often it is framed as...
The Eye 02: When is sovereignty not sovereign?
As we start to reject reliance on US tech monopolies, Palantir and its allies rush to strip the word "sovereignty" of its meaning
The Citizen Lab - The Citizen Lab
The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary research unit at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, University of Toronto. We apply our collective expertise in the fields of law, computer science, cybersecurity, political science, and social sciences to investigate complex issues of the 21st century. Explore focus areas Get the latest research in […]
How Elon Musk and the Tech Billionaires Hijacked the State and Our Minds
Historian Quinn Slobodian tells Byline Times that Elon Musk's rise tells a deeper story—of fortunes built on state power, and a new politics where humans are treated less as citizens than as systems to be optimised
on #atproto The public will not migrate first, so institutions must create the conditions for that migration. In their view, sovereignty is not a slogan but a staged process of building trustworthy platforms and making them worth using. Really good piece by @nicolashenin.net and @robin.berjon.com
“Digital sovereignty is built in stages, and if the institutions do not take action, the public will not either” - Nicolas Hénin
nicolashenin.leaflet.pub