The Systemic Paradox of Democracy: Cybernetics, Threat and Resilience in Complex Governance

Editors

  • Mehmet Recai Uygur, Kaunas University of Technology
  • Eglė Celiešienė, Kaunas University of Technology
  • Sami Çoksan, Western University

Description

This special issue examines democracy through a systems-theoretical lens, addressing the structural tension between democratic openness and the need to manage threats to institutions and public order. The editors invite contributions that apply cybernetics and complexity theory to understand how democratic systems observe, communicate about and respond to various pressures including war, pandemics, disinformation, migration and technological disruption.

The issue seeks to integrate perspectives from multiple fields including democratic theory, governance, securitisation studies, media research and resilience thinking. It particularly welcomes work that moves beyond linear explanations to analyse feedback loops, recursive processes and unintended consequences of governance interventions, examining paradoxes such as liberty versus security and inclusion versus exclusion.

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Potential topics

  • Democracy as a self-referential and paradoxical system
  • Democratic resilience, backsliding, institutional learning and adaptation
  • Securitisation, threat construction, emergency politics and exceptional measures
  • Disinformation, AI, digital platforms and democratic communication
  • Migration, protest, border governance and inclusion/exclusion dynamics
  • War, pandemics, climate stress and economic shocks as coupled crises
  • Public administration, critical infrastructures and cross-sector governance
  • Multilevel governance, polycentric coordination and state-business-civil society relations
  • Formal and methodological innovations, including systems mapping, simulations, network analysis and truth tables
  • Normative and design implications for reflexive, resilient and trustworthy democratic governance