Do you frown at people who sneeze in their hand instead of in a tissue? Would you be prepared to punish that person by frowning at him or her, showing you dislike the behaviour? In that case you are a

Venue: Medelhavsmuseet, Fredsgatan 2 i Stockholm. We will be in Hörsalen, which is just behind Bagdad Café which will be open until 19.00. Register here > Abandoning its age-old doctrine of military n

In this panel discussion, we will bring ethical, political and historical perspectives to the table, and ask experts in democratic theory, international relations, and security policy to help us get t

Pp. 315-336 in The Benefit of Broad Horizons: Intellectual and Institutional Preconditions for a Global Social Science, edited by Hans Joas and Barbro Klein. Leiden: Brill.

Philosophy & Technology 34: 1383–1408 Abstract The introduction of self-driving vehicles gives rise to a large number of ethical issues that go beyond the common, extremely narrow, focus on improbabl

Professor of Social and Political Theory, European University Institute. ABSTRACT Liberal democratic citizenship has been shaped by the legacies of Athens (democracy) and Rome (legal rights) but operate between individuals and states. In a Westphalian world, citizenship has both instrumental and identity value. Enhanced opportunities and interests in mobility rights strengthen instrumental interests in multiple citizenship among immigrants, among populations in less developed countries, and among wealthy elites. The latter two trends potentially undermine a genuine link norm and, if they prevail, might replace the Westphalian allocation of citizenship with a global market. New digital technologies create a second challenge to Westphalian citizenship. As has argued, digital identities could provide a global legal persona for all human beings independently of their nationality, and blockchain technologies could enable the formation of non-territorial political communities providing governance services to their members independently of states. Both the instrumental uses of citizenship for geographic mobility and technologies that create substitutes for territorial citizenship are not merely relevant as current trends. They are also advocated and defended normatively as responses to the global injustice of the birthright lottery. I will challenge this idea and argue that liberal democracies should not be conceived as voluntary associations whose membership is freely chosen, but as communities of destiny among people who have been thrown together by history and their circumstances of life. How these foundations of democratic community can be maintained in the context of rising mobility and the digital revolution remains an open question.

The Institute for Futures Studies now has a blog named Framtider (Futures), a name it has inherited from a magazine that was previously published by the Institute. On this blog you will find posts on

Ann-Sofie Isaksson

I am a researcher in development economics, based at the Institute for Futures Studies (IFFS) and at the University of Gothenburg. My research interests and empirical work cover a broad range of issue

The Swedish pension reform of the 1990s is here studied from a power-political perspective focusing on the Social Democratic Party. Despite a strong heritage in the “income security principle”, guidel

Venue: Institute for Futures Studies, Holländargatan 13 in Stockholm Research seminar with Ann-Sofie Isaksson, researcher in development economics, based at the Institute for Futures Studies (IFFS) and