B.L. Hoeksema (Bernd) LLM MA

What is the impact of digital issues such as automated profiling and algorithmic decision-making on the freedom, autonomy and identity of individuals? Is online manipulation a threat to democratic institutions and processes? Can we expect citizens to be civil in an online reality?
Neo-republicanism, with a rich concept of freedom that explicitly depends on structural power, comprehensive accounts of democratic institutions and a historic connection with civic virtue, seems particularly well-equipped to contribute to our understanding of questions like these and could also offer normative justification for our responses.

In my PhD-research I aim to investigate how developments in the digital sphere alter public and private relations of power and how this affects the (republican) liberties of citizens, who may be subjected increasingly to arbitrary (digital) power. Continuing in the neo-republican tradition, I then aim to develop an account of digital citizenship, which, apart from meeting the challenges to freedom, also contributes convincingly to debates related to justice, legitimacy and democracy.