Blockchain Papers

Peter Ayolov

This article develops the concept of the “Manufacture of Deviance* 2.0” as an extension of the economic model proposed in The Economic Policy of Online Media: Manufacture of Dissent. It argues that the transition from traditional mass media to decentralised digital platforms has produced not simply a transformation in the distribution of violent imagery, but a new economic relationship between attention, taboo and atrocity. Traditional broadcast media developed institutional and ethical mechanisms intended to restrict representations of real torture, mutilation and death. The online attention economy partially reverses this logic: what is forbidden, disturbing, transgressive or difficult to access can acquire additional informational value precisely because of its exceptional character. As audiences become saturated with conventional news, entertainment and political controversy, increasingly extreme material can compete successfully for the scarce resource of human attention. Violence consequently becomes capable of generating multiple currencies simultaneously: advertising value, subscriptions, donations and cryptocurrency, but also views, followers, notoriety, group membership, prestige and social recognition. The article traces a genealogy from the spectacle of public punishment and execution, through the controversial appearance of uncensored atrocity footage on traditional television, to gore communities, extremist propaganda, cartel execution videos, closed social-media groups and contemporary networks of digitally performed vigilantism. Particular attention is given to the evolution of so-called “pedophile hunter” subcultures associated with Maxim “Tesak” Martsinkevich and Occupy Pedophilia, in which humiliation and violence could be transformed into reproducible performances possessing recognisable scripts, symbols and gestures. Rather than assuming the existence of a single organisation commissioning such violence, the article proposes a more disturbing possibility: networked media can reproduce violent behaviour without central command because attention, imitation, belonging and social currency themselves operate as incentives. Against this background, the article examines the 2026 Youth Hill case in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, involving teenagers accused of participating in the fatal assault and humiliation of a 37-year-old man after he had allegedly been lured to a meeting. The case is treated cautiously, distinguishing established information, prosecutorial allegations and media reporting from the broader theoretical interpretation developed here. It nevertheless provides a disturbing case through which to investigate the migration of violent spectacle from the screen into physical behaviour and its subsequent return to the screen as content. The article argues that this process resembles, in technologically transformed form, the public scaffold: the condemned sinner, the righteous crowd, ritual humiliation and spectacular punishment return within a global digital square in which spectators can simultaneously watch, judge, distribute and reward the spectacle. The Manufacture of Deviance 2.0 therefore describes a potentially advanced stage of the attention economy: not merely the monetisation of disagreement and outrage, but the conversion of transgression, cruelty and ultimately human suffering into communicative value.

Vladimir Pacheco Cueva, Hagen Schulz-Forberg

In this episode of Global Governance Beyond Neoliberalism, we talk to Vladimir Pacheco Cueva, Associate Professor in the Department of Global Studies at Aarhus University. Drawing on research in political economy and social policy, with a particular focus on Latin America, Cueva takes us through one of the most striking economic experiments of recent years: El Salvador’s adoption of Bitcoin under President Nayib Bukele. Together with our host, Hagen Schulz-Forberg, the two explore what this unprecedented crypto-project means for governance, development, financial sovereignty, and everyday life in a country marked by political disruptions and environmental fragility. From the promises of innovation to the risks of deepening inequality, Cueva helps us understand how El Salvador’s Bitcoin project fits into longer histories of neoliberal reform and what its trajectory might reveal about the future of post-neoliberal politics across the region.

Saadman Ahmed

No abstract is available for this record.

Didi Kuo

Abstract This chapter traces the development of a politics industry, and its contribution to the nationalization of campaigns and partisan polarization, with a focus on the United States. It looks at communications and campaign technologies as well as deregulation of campaign finance in the nineteen-nineties and early eighties. As parties have invested more resources in the data game of campaigns, they have outsourced many other functions---including mobilization, representation, and interest articulation---to non-party groups, which weakens the ability of parties to govern effectively. This chapter also provides a recent history of campaign finance, and explains how the decentralization of campaign finance makes it harder for parties to manage insurgent candidates.

Tobias Boos

In 2021, President Nayib Bukele introduced Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador. This paper examines the relationship between right-wing populism and Bitcoin. Through textual and visual analyses, the paper shows how Bukele weaves the promises and techno-utopian ideology surrounding Bitcoin into classic populist narratives. Adopting Bitcoin adds the promise of technology-driven development and the realization of a techno-utopia to the populist narrative template, allowing Bukele to construct a populist myth of himself as a tech-savvy visionary. This brand of crypto-populism represents a novel addition to the right-wing populist repertoire, capitalizing on the promises of an ongoing digital revolution.

Noortje Marres

Sociologists have long argued that explanation, as a form of knowledge, has serious limitations when it comes to understanding society. The case against explanation is one of the field's founding ideas, it is literally a foundational idea. It was by rejecting causalist forms of explanation that had been developed in the natural sciences that 19th century scholars and activists that we today call sociologists succeeded in articulating a distinctive realm of reality with relative autonomy from the state, the economy and the family: society (Wagner, 2000). Key to their achievement was the argument that the phenomenon of society is fundamentally different from nature. Scientists at the time expected nature to obey eternally valid laws, but society has a number of features that challenge this assumption. Social actors formulate norms and rules to justify their actions and to make sense of social reality. This means that norms and rules themselves may play an active role in the transformation of social reality. Society, in other words, is marked by reflexivity. Of course, a lot has happened since the 19th century and this very notably includes unrelenting efforts by social scientists to create forms of explanation that are capable of taking reflexivity into account. Yet problems with explanation have continued to make themselves felt in the social sciences and humanities. The problem, in a nutshell, is that explanation sets up the relation between social science and its object, society, in terms of representation, but the relation between knowledge about society and social reality is fundamentally an interactive one: the creation of knowledge about society far more often than not involves intervention in society. The creation of social scientific knowledge can rarely, if ever, by considered a purely representational affair. This obtains for practically all forms of knowledge about society - and as we shall see, about nature as well - but it causes specific problems for the explanation of social phenomena. Let me give an example from contemporary social science, broadly defined. Some years ago computational social scientists published research that showed that the high levels of political polarization that can be observed among communities on Facebook cannot be explained by the role of social media algorithms in the promotion of content. As they put it: “individual choices, more than algorithms, limit exposure to attitude-challenging content” (Bakshy et al., 2015, p. 1131). Such a claim asks us to accept a number of assumptions, most notably, that it is possible to disentangle the influence of individual user choices on news consumption on Facebook from the influence of platform settings such as the structure of news feeds.1 This assumption may or may not ultimately be methodologically convincing. But in grounding its main finding in this distinction, this study distracts attention from a more fundamental phenomenon: that “choice” in online platform settings is socio-technically constituted in a highly distinctive way, involving clicks on links that are dynamically served up by the platform based on social network analysis, among others. This type of “choice” presents a very different form of action as compared to say, choosing what article to read in a paper newspaper. However, and this is the key point, affirming such ontological complexity would no doubt be seen as reducing the “strength” of the explanation offered. As the recently deceased constructivist sociologist Aaron Cicourel (1964) pointed out many decades ago, to draw attention to the participation of the underlying apparatus of social research - in this case, Facebook data categories such as “clicks” and “friends” - in the construction of social reality is to challenge the representational understanding of social science in general and of explanatory social science in particular. Explanation requires the relation between social categories and social reality to be stable and one-way (unidirectional): it requires that social scientific categories first and foremost refer back to social reality. When the apparatus of social research is shown to interfere in the realities it purports to measure, it is clear that this does not quite obtain. A persistent problem with explanation, then, is that its validity seems to depend on the bracketing, externalising or trivialising of dynamics of reflexivity. If the proponents of the idea that “social science is explanation, or it is nothing” would get their way, and social science indeed would offer only explanations, and nothing else, this would surely end up restricting our capacity to interrogate the manifold ways in which social categories interact with social realities. However, most people who are interested and/or trained in sociology are well aware of the phenomenon of reflexivity, of the power of social categories to shape social reality. So why do so many sociologists today favour explanation over other, more open-ended forms of knowledge, like ethnographic description and theory-driven interpretation, methodologies which have been specifically designed to enable interrogation of the interactive relations between social categories and social realities (Krause, 2016)? I would like to argue here that there is another layer to this phenomenon of interactivity, one that has less to do with how norms, categories and methods shape reality, and more with how social science achieves what Norbert Elias (2011) called adequacy to social reality. For me, there is a danger that lurks in the commitment to “explanation” that is related but different from the problem that it legitimates or encourages indifference to reflexivity, the danger namely that it distracts from a key task and purpose of social science: articulation. The slogan “explanation or nothing” makes me think of a remark by the German media scholar Erhard Schüttpelz who once reminded me that “all of our concepts are going downhill all of the time.” At the time, we were speaking about the concept of “media bias,” and the ways in which understandings of such bias developed in the 1970s are no longer adequate, though still highly relevant, to today's digital society with its algorithmic organisation of content, where frames are consolidated through post-discursive, automated, processes of selective circulation. I continue to find Schüttpelz comment helpful more generally speaking, as it draws attention to a brute fact that deeply affects the relation between the social sciences and society, which is that the world, society, is continously changing, and this changing world continuously renders our existing vocabularies, and forms of explanation, deficient. In other words, we should expect our existing social theories to be losing their adequacy to our present social reality. Schüttpelz slogan reminds us that many of the phenomena that it is our job to understand are invisible or badly named, and are difficult to even observe let alone measure. Take the example of the security state, which in its current technological form - which is marked by the deployment of a data-intensive apparatus of monitoring and control - developed in the post-war period, from the 1960s onwards. As the French sociologist Dominique Linhardt (2008) has shown, the very observability of the security state during this period was dependent on targetted interventions in society: it partly depended on the interventions of militants such as the Rote Armee Fraktion in Germany and Provo in the Netherlands whose demonstrations brought the police out onto the streets for all to see. It was these interventions that rendered the phenomeon of the security state publicly visible, putting the repressive apparatus of the state monitoring activists onto the front pages of newspapers. But the observability of this type of information-based security state also depended on the invention of a new kind of sociology, which had to rework its concepts of power, in order to be able to demonstrate the significance of the technological security apparatus to the structuring of wider societal relations between population and state during this period. The point is, in a case like this, it is clear that both a phenomenon in society - the security state - and the categories we use to understand this and associated phenomena - state power - underwent transformation during that relevant period. This is not a context in which “explanation” works very well. To “explain” the security state requires the very phenomenon to be observable and identifiable in the first place, and a lot of work has to be done before we get to that point: the work of articulation. If we go along with Erhard Schüttpelz and recognise that events in the world render our ways of knowing deficient all the time, then it is clear that our work as sociologists must be re-constructive, we will need to be able to revise and rethink our categories, so we remain capable of naming phenomena in the world adequately, so that we can make them count. To give another example from my own field: when in the 1980s feminist technology studies developed the notion of “invisible labour” through fieldwork studies in workplaces like airports and offices (Star, 1991; Suchman, 1996), they transformed the wider concept and understanding of innovation. At the time, innovation was a restrictive notion - and it still is - which allocates a disproportionate amount of agency to the engineers who create technology, while defining the rest of us, workers and consumers, as more or less passive “users.” Feminist studies of invisible labour in technology-mediated work used ethnographic description to demonstrate how often female workers accomplished tasks - performing flight checks, copying documents - that were later acribed to the smooth running of “technology.” It was these descriptions of invisible labour that allowed this phenomenon to be named and defined. Only then could the work begin of incoporating sensibility to unrecognised work into the social study of innovation and its “apparatus of explanation,” and gain the efficacy it has today, for example, in the form of a critical exposé of the invisible labelling that workers in Kenya, India and other countries perform, so that “generative AI” can do well at image recognition (Catanzariti et al., 2021). To emphasise articulation as a key task and purpose of social inquiry is certainly not to imply that explanation is without value. Finding ways to measure the prevalence of invisible labour in society so as to be able to demonstrate its existence, explain its workings, and connect its persistence with wider underlying dynamics in the technological economy, is crucial. The problem, that is, is not with explanation as such, it is with the “or nothing” bit in the slogan above. The adequacy of our explanations to the world is dependent on the prior work of articulation, and it is this dependency that is at risk of being disregarded when it is suggested that explanation is all we need. An important part of the task of social science is to develop vocabularies, formulate categories, cultivate sensibilities, so as to render ever-changing phenomena in society observable, explorable, and communicatable. To name, to formulate, to label, takes us halfway to understanding. It is to draw what Alfred Schutz (1970) calls the “isohypses of relevance,” enabling some entites, some dimensions to stand out, to gain traction, in our engagement with the world, while submerging others. This is the work of articulation, as opposed to explanation. Without it, our explanatory apparatus will not just keep going down hill. Its adequacy will eventually be lost. There is an odd irony in the suggestion that sociologists should today consider putting all their eggs in the basket of “explanation.” We are living at a time in which the natural sciences are finally beginning to come to terms with the interactivity of science, as they grapple with the Anthropocene. Today, more and more colleagues in the natural and technical sciences are gripped by the realization that science has intervened in and indeed harmed and damaged the world in ways to which scientific epistemology previously rendered scientists blind. Representationalism places on science the methodological requirement to regard as external to the scientific mission - which is to represent reality - how its apparatus of representation impacts the world. Representationalism is part of what enabled scientists to cultivate indifference to how their work transformed the world physically, socially, materially, environmentally: think of the stress experienced by lab animals and lab technicians (Friese & Latimer, 2019); the PFAS molecules which are today found in ground and sea water, and known to cause cancer, and which for decades were represented in terms their qualities of “water-proofing” and “stick-resistance” (for carpets). There is a more complex story to be told here about the relation between science and innovation, but the problem is similar to the problem of methodologically ordained dis-interest in socio-technical complexity that I mentioned in the introduction. Damaging effects produced by the apparatus of scientific research on the world used to be referred to as “unintended consequences,” but they are today understood by an increasing number of natural scientists as a siginificant factor in the degradation of nature, animal and human life. Isn't it odd that at the very time that scientists are beginning to recognise interactivities between science and the natural and social world, we are debating whether the primary role of the social sciences is to represent the world? Why? Why would a sociologist today accept that “explanation” is the only serious game in science, at a time when the sciences themselves are finally waking up to the manifold problems with “explanation” as a scientific framework? Granted, one of the benefits of “explanation” is that it has a strong “theory of change” associated with it. Explanation offers us a tight, sequential relation between knowledge and action, whereby the representation of an underlying reality creates the basis for transformative intervention in society, for social change. By comparison, a theory of knowledge that puts articulation centre stage offers a far more contingent, multi-factored and messy view of how change happens in the world, and it requires an openness of inquiry to engage and continually attune understanding to a changing social world. My sense is that it is the strength and simplicity of the associated theory of change that the methodological paradigm of “explanation” promises, that explains much of its attractiveness to sociologists today. Perhaps it can be seen, too, as a response to the utterly restrictive expectations that are placed today on the social sciences. Explanation is able to offer knowledge of long-term processes and enduring underlying causes, which is badly needed in the face of muliplying social, environmental and political crises. It offers a robust alternative to the instrumental conception of social research, which is increasingly imposed on us by state and industry, and which requires that social science delivers on short-term policy needs and value for money, and which can seem to value knowledge of society only to the extent that it is able to produce demonstrable changes in behaviour and bottom-lines (Kelly & McGoey, 2018). However, precisely at this moment, when the social sciences face challenges from multiple fronts - from short-termist expectations of impact, to policy-makers endearement with behavioural science as provider of readily applicable solutions, and the eagerness of some computational scientists to serve as the go-to provider of “social explanations” - it is important that we don't feel pressured to retreat into the narrow methodological frame of “explaination” and to risk inadvertingly reasserting a false hierarchy between explaination and articulation. There is a vital difference between an instrumental social science whose value and legitimacy primarily derive from its ability to service short-term policy needs, and a sociology capable of affirming interactivity between social science and the social world. This difference needs to be urgently clarified, if we are to avoid sleepwalking into a future of shrinking sociological repertoires, and importantly, if we are to get better at engaging, informing and indeed leading the debate that is finally getting underway across the sciences, about what it means to affirm interactivity between knowledge and its objects, not only ethically and politically, but methodologically speaking. To sum up, my real disagreement today is with the “or nothing” element in the idea that social science is explanation or it is nothing. I don't have a problem at all with explanation as a form of social knowledge taking its rightful place among other forms of knowledge in the social sciences. I have a problem with the suggestion that explanation is superior to these other forms, and that other ways of knowing society need to make way for it. My problem is with the hubris of a social science that assumes that the work of articulation, of making phenomena perceptible, can be economised on. It cannot. Explanation depends on articulation: we can only posit and define phenomena and their underlying causes once the struggle to name, to make count - the struggle for the existence of a category - has been fought. The apparatus of explanation that we all rely on - the categories, standards, measures and data formats that together constitute the apparatus of social science - is always at risk of perpetuating outdated, inadequate categories. To the extent that "explanation" assumes that the work of articulation - what matters? how to name this? - can be taken for granted, it risks to become complicit in eroding conditions for articulation. The “or nothing” in the above motion wrongly implies that the renewal of our vocabularies, concepts and methods is of secondary importance. I would therefore like to turn the proposition around. “Social science is reflexive or it is nothing.” Sociology has impressive analytic and methodological resources at its disposal for creating knowledge under conditions of interactivity, and it is this capacity that should be celebrated and requires our endorsement, not just for the sake of advancing the social sciences but all sciences. Social studies of science and technology have shown how interactivity does not just operate on the plane of categorization, but also through indicators, infrastructures and indeed the world, as measures from GPD to the social media “clicks” and the have to the of realities in their affirming such interactivity effects does not making explanation the there are forms of explanation that the changing relations between social reality and the of social reality as their object, as in the work of Norbert Elias In sociological studies of how Elias a of explanation in which change in the explained partly by the dynamics of the I is that our categories, the apparatus that we rely on to render social phenomena and can be understood as a part of these As sociologists have pointed out since at the what and are relevant to the - and - of a social phenomenon is partly at in the of its articulation. is that this to our our categories and the measures that social science on. too, partly depend on and cannot be taken for to and for helpful and to the other in the “Social science is explanation, or it is nothing” for their This debate place online on

Seongcheol Kim

The term “movement party” has gained widespread currency in the social sciences in recent years, finding extensive application to political parties ranging from the radical left (Della Porta et al., 2017) to the far right (Caiani & Císař, 2019; Pirro & Castelli Gattinara, 2018). Unlike with other academic buzzwords such as “populism,” however, there is also a notable lack of readily identifiable and competing theoretical paradigms that have made systematic attempts at conceptualizing the term—a problem that Kitschelt (2006, p. 278) already pointed out with his arguably first such attempt, noting that “movement party” lacks well-defined status as “a formal concept with a specific terminological content.” Since then, an influential strand of scholarship building on Kitschelt's work has emerged around what might be termed an interactive-mobilizational approach, for which the primary definitional criterion for being a “movement party” is a hybridity of mobilizational repertoires in the electoral-institutional and protest arenas giving rise to a loosely formalized interactive balance between movement and party orientations (hence the proposed syntagma “interactive-mobilizational”). As will be argued in the following, while this approach has succeeded in spawning a wide range of applications across distinct party types (from anti-austerity to far-right), the definitional focus on protest activity concedes insufficient attention to the organizational dimension and renders the concept of movement parties more or less reducible to what Borbáth and Hutter (2021) have referred to as “protesting parties.” In recognizing both the merits and limitations of this literature, this paper proposes an alternative discursive-organizational approach, drawing on the author's previous work based on the post-foundational discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe (2001[1985]) to conceptualize movement parties as a distinct form of political organization: one that is predicated on horizontal integration of autonomously organized movement actors as the basic decision-making agents and constituent subjects within the party. From this perspective, I go on to examine three examples of movement parties of the radical left, center, and far right, respectively: the CUP (Candidatures d'Unitat Popular) in Catalonia, the (now defunct) Együtt in Hungary, and the Right Sector in Ukraine. All three examples vividly illustrate the inherent organizational precarity (and, in some instances, ephemerality) of the movement party form, but also the willingness of these actors to maintain a movement party structure in high-stakes institutional contexts and their ability to exert recognizable political weight within these settings. The discursive-organizational approach presented here draws on an expanded framework of post-foundational discourse theory in which political organization is understood as a performative extension of discursive constructions of collective identities (hence the syntagma “discursive-organizational”). As I will argue, movement parties are characterized internally by a privileging of a certain type of relation—namely, horizontal coordinative links between autonomously operating movement actors who maintain a dual identity as representatives of the party and of their respective movements—in contrast to what I call Volksparteien of a new type (VNTs) such as Podemos and France Insoumise, which are characterized by vertical plebiscitary links between a centralized unitary leadership and a broad, undifferentiated popular base (e.g., via leadership-initiated referenda open to anyone registered online). As such, movement parties and VNTs can be considered paradigmatic opposites along the horizontal/vertical spectrum; movement parties tend to display a networked or coalitional structure, featuring “assemblies,” “platforms,” and joint executive organs bringing together representatives of distinct movements that remain organizationally separate and autonomous—in the language of social movement theory, as contentious claims-making actors in their own right—while pooling their decision-making input within the party. In this vein, the discursive-organizational approach can contribute to an awareness of the inherently precarious, tension-laden, and often transient nature of the movement party phenomenon—as already recognized by Kitschelt (2006)—while also going beyond the latter's interactive-mobilizational approach to develop an understanding of the organizational specificity of the movement party form. In the following, the paper proceeds in three main steps: first, an overview of the interactive-mobilizational approach, from Kitschelt's foundational work to more recent contributions; second, a presentation of the discursive-organizational approach, featuring conceptual reflections in conjunction with empirical an of the three movement parties of the radical left, center, and far right in by a The empirical is of an the to a of organizational distinct movement party as as notable examples of their or conceptual and empirical a for a the of which are in the Kitschelt's on a foundational for what has an interactive-mobilizational strand of on movement parties (e.g., & Císař, 2019; Porta et al., Pirro & Castelli Gattinara, 2018). 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The as in the previous is that an interactive-mobilizational the hybridity of mobilizational repertoires as the of movement parties while the organizational dimension a discursive-organizational approach, by the of movement parties is understood in an organizational being reducible to protest that the party is organized as a horizontal of movement who maintain a dual within the party and their respective movements formalized for such as and collective leadership From this perspective, parties such as France Insoumise, the or as a unitary party in are movement but the VNTs characterized by a privileging of a vertical of plebiscitary links to a centralized here that this between movement parties and as the one between and a of and As and and in form or in a of a horizontal of (e.g., a of the radical to be in their as with their own within party The between horizontal and vertical is a but of can the other to develop and also on the other (e.g., a within a party the of via the of a in their is also that parties from a movement party to a or to both in an to the of both of the first be in from a of radical to a unitary party of and around to the popular will by and the the of more recent parties of this also & & that also to for the for the party in of the of horizontal and vertical can be in for and in the such as with from the movement as the discursive-organizational approach presented here a more understanding of “movement in the interactive-mobilizational literature, the is to to what Kitschelt already recognized as the inherently tension-laden, and often transient nature of the movement party drawing on a theoretical framework in an awareness of the but between and the approach here can contribute to a understanding of these and in to a of the organizational dimension in movement parties from other party types as VNTs as proposed to be is the ability of this approach to across contexts and party right movement for be from a discursive-organizational as will be in the empirical that is in the such as and can be in a formal of radical their theoretical such as and for & to distinct of organizational that can be on the far right in to the radical left or the In the following, I three such of movement parties of the left, center, and right for and as a for a CUP in Catalonia, Együtt in Hungary, and the Right Sector in Ukraine. The have for their and in of their and in a wide in of or and organizational renders to out a of the movement party from the radical left to the to the far right, as a for also on the of The CUP has an within the in with at the from to while Együtt in and the Right Sector in and has in and and in the of the The that are of a the on a overview of organizational distinct movement party as in these own as as notable examples of their or I from the conceptual of here (e.g., of and for the of a the empirical will be the understanding of and as The d'Unitat CUP or to the as the as a of for radical in to a and of at the The CUP have organizational in a of networked social and radical left to a as an within in of already the CUP gained in and in the and in at the for the first in of the and three in the The CUP their to in the with a joint and of the and in a for the in which to a of high-stakes that will be in the CUP have with and institutional weight and for a in the In the the CUP in for the first and in the new The organizational structure the of a movement of a of at the of across the that autonomously with the of anyone who the to in the decision-making can an by with a and the right to and in the decision-making of the as as the of CUP at a which in the as a collective leadership of the party d'Unitat The CUP are characterized by a structure d'Unitat p. the the in which are organized and is in in specific and movement also the CUP as a a of together in to their decision-making The of in contrast to what has as the in parties such as The basic decision-making and constituent within a movement party CUP is the organized in the registered in leadership-initiated dimension to the movement party structure is the in which the political that the expanded CUP in the are and in the joint work d'Unitat a of horizontal organizationally distinct and but movement The high-stakes in on display to the the movement party at an by the the for the bringing together the and the by emerged on as the with of the the for a to a and the The and to the as in the in in in with by with at the of the the CUP the on the to a of the of the which on and of and to a of for on this the to on in of the lack of a for in the the of in in with and for new a between the CUP and on as a As these the CUP to their movement party as a political in a high-stakes of with less the and the on the a in the of the in on the made by CUP their decision-making at the of the of the party. with the of this decision-making the party arguably main with an alternative to as and a that go on to the with from the in the of the the CUP and a by the the CUP as a paradigmatic of a movement party to the and that such a be to in institutional but also as as the willingness of the party to maintain a movement party structure with an of in a such as the in The CUP to the and institutional weight that a movement party with organizational can to The Együtt for in in a joint of three the for and the and The for a joint of the with a for the with a in of the In the of a the from of and the of the to the of the and the Együtt as a of a via from The of the three as the in this with being across of and a for by a who with the an and protest the by the and the a for and the of that together from both of the the from the and the the as a that parties and as a for a joint for the this to the already a the that the three the of the a political party in The party structure to that of a movement party as based on a of horizontal between the three constituent with own within the new party and being at the leadership and and a collective leadership of the party maintain their organizational and but in the of the new political via the three by to a party is this coalitional or coordinative between contentious actors from remain and separate in their own right while pooling their decision-making input via organized within the to a distinct movement party in this with the performative to a broad, of a of movement actors the party to the party Együtt a with for party by who a the between the being by a featuring the from both in to as joint the the a by the and bringing together the main parties and of the three of the by to Együtt and one to The a joint of own in the within Hungary, of the and one three other parties between and the lack of in beyond the however, the Együtt and of a around In of as a unitary party the three constituent and with as and the to the party In this Együtt movement party of and collective leadership to the three The party a within the of the and one in the leadership in In Együtt a and of a movement one a a in a and a certain institutional weight in the within a in and for the far the The party movement party structure this of the of a party and by actors from as the of a also succeeded in an with the as an extension of horizontal at the leadership but to this to other The movement party of Együtt to an with the party in in a of with the and The Right Sector is the of the three recognizable of a movement party in with leadership The in in the of the in gained in (and, with in and of from and to the competing the for of with In the following, the in on the Right networked in conjunction with in the with as a political party in the of an movement party of the far right and in the of by the leadership of The Right Sector emerged as an of such as and of as as (hence the to the of the of the protest in a display of at the of which the of The Right Sector but also with the by of with other for from p. the on that the willingness for Right of in that of the party on a as of with political to the for the Right Sector p. In this the Right Sector on the of an movement to the in the of what a activity as based on and as to the of the to the leadership to the three main parties and and their the In this the Right Sector in from which to from protest and from in (e.g., in the of the The Right Sector organizational in in to the out of the of a and willingness to in between and and in the of and the of the Right Sector as a political party in a in with (from as party and for the in this that and the Right political and be in the new as by a the Right organization from this is to is to here a certain movement party of horizontal organizationally distinct movements at the of the political in with the of and his performative as a with at his who at will for the and as a for political on the the of Right Sector as a party characterized by by to the certain an of a on and the of or the to the in which in with on the of the from other political and such as the that the in the The Right as a movement party with weight within the in of such as the to the or and left the Right Sector the of the with in and the that in the of his as party the of this first of the Right in which presented as an extension of the on the and as a certain political weight from the with of and as with on the to which the party as a for movement actors of the far the however, predicated on the coalitional nature of the Right movement party in a pooling together of in this vein, as a of the that the the Right ability to his as this the Right Sector the party in the of with less in the a in the in that the Right Sector less of the In the and which in for and his party of the the Right Sector the and together with other but these in both and the Right Sector is to be with own the in the of on is a of attention for for the the to which of and the have paper presented an discursive-organizational approach to the and of “movement from a of the concept as understood in what I to as the interactive-mobilizational The of the discursive-organizational approach is to to a understanding of movement parties as inherently to and often transient already recognized by Kitschelt in his foundational work on the to a understanding of the organizational dimension that is but left as a range of within the interactive-mobilizational I a of a movement party as a form of party organization the horizontal integration of autonomously organized movement actors as the basic decision-making agents and constituent subjects within the as in networked or coalitional with or for movements as as a collective leadership of the party as a parties in this can be understood as a paradigmatic of which a is the often characterized as a “movement party” the horizontal/vertical the discursive-organizational approach a more and understanding of movement the examples here of and the Right Sector illustrate the wide range of political and contexts in which movement parties from this can from the radical left to the to the far All three for their illustrate a movement party at the to movement or contentious actors from around these be on an the of or an via organizational of horizontal movement actors who are within the party in their movement such as their own as as joint executive organs bringing together constituent this horizontal in a of with vividly in the of the Right Sector as an movement three here to the willingness of the actors in to maintain their movement party in high-stakes institutional such as the in Catalonia, in Hungary, and the in Ukraine. All three to the political that movement party with their can this is to specific by or as in the of Együtt and the Right or in a more as is out to be the with the The CUP in that movement parties can also maintain as and actors across of or parties the between the three can also be in to the of with the of collective leadership in with the movement party in contrast to the Right on leadership or of the movement party of and collective a for a drawing and building on the discursive-organizational approach presented here for empirical work across a wide range of As a discursive-organizational approach can contribute to of in movement party and go within the organizational of political The or between the horizontal of movement parties on the one and institutional or on the other be in three here and is for the of organizational from a movement party in in the of rise in own the of also of movement parties will a for from a discursive-organizational perspective, in to protest such as the movements of the or more social movements and such as the In this vein, the presented here also be to the and of movement parties in to their is a for which the paper might as a conceptual and empirical a discursive-organizational strand of within the The work for this by the and between and the of the of the I to as as at the the of and the for their and organized by is a at the of and at the of

Kolja Möller

In the established landscape of research in the social sciences, populism is seen as a type of politics that chiefly revolves around the distinction between the “people” and the “elite”.1 Within this, different forms of populism can be distinguished—ranging from right-wing and authoritarian to liberal-centrist and religious varieties. In the camp of the political left, populism is often cast as essentially a democratic endeavor. Drawing on a conception of inclusive peoplehood, which is not opposed to other vulnerable social groups “below” but solely to the “elite above”, many authors emphasize that it is crucial to pursue a populist strategy in order to overcome existing hegemonies, democratic deficits, ossifications, and class-rule (Grattan, 2016; Howse, 2019; Kempf, 2020; McCormick, 2001; Mouffe, 2018). Throughout the past few decades, the landscape of research on left populism has grown considerably. Various studies have investigated the history of anti-establishment popular movements of the 19th century, such as the Narodniki in Russia or the American Populist Party (Canovan, 1981; Kazin, 1995). Further, research has also looked at how, from the 1990s, anti-neoliberal alliances in Latin America had their momentum, entered governmental office, and established a far-reaching renewal of constitutional orders (Linera, 2014; Weyland, 2013). And in particular, in the last decade, the rejuvenation of left politics in Europe and the United States has often relied on populist approaches (Katsambekis & Kioupkiolis, 2019). Taking a more systematic stance, theories of radical democracy have sought to demonstrate that politics in modern societies is structured around the embodiment of the “people” as an empty signifier. From this perspective, it is not by accident that left varieties of populism can be recurrently observed; their persistence reflects that politics is, at its heart, not only concerned with policy-issues but with “constructing the people” (Laclau, 2014). Thus, populism may not be episodic, accidental, or a specific ideology that brings the vital interests of ordinary people to the fore. Rather, it must be seen as a generalizable discursive strategy—in the words of Ernesto Laclau: the “royal road”—when it comes to the strive for political power (Laclau, 2005, p. 67).2 In recent years, a neo-Machiavellian strand of research has emerged that is not so much concerned with the discursive construction of peoplehood, instead focusing on the materiality of social power. Drawing inspiration from the political philosophy of Early Modernity and Niccolò Machiavelli's insights on the exercise of political rule, these approaches assume that societies are constantly split between the “plebian” people and the ruling elites (McCormick, 2001; Vergara, 2020a). Against this backdrop, populism amounts to a plebian politics that “springs from the politicization of wealth inequality in reaction to systemic corruption and the immiseration of the masses, an attempt to balance the scales of social and political power between the ruling elite and the popular sectors” (Vergara, 2020a, p. 238). However, the historical balance sheet of left populisms remains ambivalent. Though recurring attempts to change society through mobilizing the people against the elite can be observed, they have often revealed self-defeating dynamics:3 the collapse into authoritarian government once populism is in power, the inability to account for how complex modern societies actually operate by adhering to an all-too simple people/elite binary distinction; and the arising incapacity to identify reasons for political failure and success apart from stressing that popular mobilizations played a key role (when successful) or were diluted (when unsuccessful). In the current debate on left-populism, however, a broader camp of anti-populist critiques mainly advances objections from a normative angle (Arato, 2016; Cohen, 2019; Urbinati, 2019; Müller, 2014). It is argued that populist forms of politics are, in principle, incompatible with central achievements of liberal democracy, such as pluralism, the separation of powers, or parliamentary representation. They seem to be unavoidably entangled in authoritarian politics and, therefore, in need of being rejected as a course of political action. This article aims to move beyond the rigidified divide between appraisals and rejections of left populism by shifting the field of inquiry: instead of investigating the relation of populism and the political as such or evaluating whether populism is compatible with principles of liberal democracy, it conducts a reconstruction of discussions in the broadly conceived camp of European Social Democracy in the “long 19th century” (Hobsbawm). Thereby, it focuses on how the leading intellectuals of this political current were reflecting on the practical potentials and limitations of a politics that is centered on the popular will. As emphasized by contemporary discourse theoretical approaches to the study of populism, politics in modern societies largely revolves around the role of the people and the conflicts that surround its articulation.4 Therefore, a wide range of people-centered politics can be identified—popular, populist or folky. While the article echoes the definition of populism as people-centered politics that opposes the elites, it stresses not only its inevitability but also its limitations. It scrutinizes populism's internal pitfalls and how it reacts to the contradictions and problems inherent to the structure of the given societal order. Thereby, the article aims at circumventing a transhistorical per se perspective and at a closer examination of the respective social circumstances. The ambition is not to provide an encompassing investigation of the whole theoretical landscape of social democracy, but to look for how some of the leading intellectuals grappled with the problems of a people-centered politics in the light of practical experiences in political struggle. It will be argued that we can identify an intellectual trajectory that dealt with the question of whether a politics that is centered on the popular will as opposed to the elites is able to incite social transformation and collective learning processes or, to the contrary, thwarts them. Admittedly, one should not overlook that there are severe differences between the social democratic mass parties of the 19th century and the contemporary disorganized party landscape. However, the article encourages an investigation that overcomes the juxtaposition of left populisms and other variants of progressive politics such as social movement politics (Arato & Cohen, 2021) or class-politics (Seferiades, 2019). Drawing on the recent work of the historian Christina Morina, European Social Democracy is understood in the following as a broader social movement that extended from the mid-19th century to the First World War (Morina, 2022).5 It was characterized by the advent of new forms of political organization, most notably trade unions and social democratic mass parties. Despite severe internal conflicts, it was driven by a shared approach to history and society that was drawn from the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The defining feature of European Social Democracy was located in a specific mode of social inquiry. As stressed by Morina, activists and intellectuals may have engaged in controversies around a whole set of issues. They all assumed, however, that modern societies take part in the course of historical evolution and that a sound type of political action must be derived from a comprehensive inquiry that clarifies the scopes for social transformation at a given historical moment. The common denominator that constituted coherence within the movement was the that societies a historical as and that a conception of political action must to the problems and contradictions inherent in this to Morina, the not in a perspective, but in the to the They leading intellectuals and activists of European Social from work a of to the and not a in the only to was actually a study of the (Morina, p. 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This was largely to the of the political that was to take and it to overcome In from the problems of by of a on the one it should overcome the through a as the it should overcome the through an on collective learning The was not only the of but also of the of and Thereby, the for a a populism that should not only simple or but should also society and the to the the contradictions and societal of modern society are take on collective learning processes was It beyond the of this article to provide a comprehensive account of the relation of populism, and collective learning However, some of account must be has political approaches from the that social as such with society and rejected it in all its a perspective, and instead of mass in of the inquiry is, from the constituted and of social are seen as in a it through into social or through a sound perspective on the social to the of the of social European Social which was concerned with a more of modern it has in this that processes can in a progressive and that must be overcome from within the internal contradictions of social not solely through a on the social the that there can be many and movement may not be to social the conception the of the collective learning as it to of action that may to be in many Thereby, populism of the to learning of are in order to the with the of and the into mass the can collapse into a the learning is from the In light of the against the of a that must be It remains to or more complex of The of learning is as is not the of mass of populism have to on a more mode of inquiry that the of a perspective, but not of from the a is that to the of social of constantly the of movement a must be in order to populist approaches seem for social transformation in a given or the of left populism or per it is to with more of left populisms in as as in contemporary and whether they incite or collective learning whether they to or whether they from past to and as as to the for on of this It is within the of the research by the for and and by is of at the of of

Michael J. Carpenter, Benjamin Perrier

In the context of neoliberalism and its consequences for the economy and for democracy, this article offers a distinct framing of the political nature of the French “Yellow Vests” ( Gilets Jaunes ) movement. Fundamentally, the movement should be understood as a popular and radically democratic response to the growing social inequalities of top-down austerity governance. The movement, which began in 2018, was spontaneous, autonomous, and decentralized, made up primarily of loosely connected citizen networks and popular committees not bound by political affiliation, social class, or age group. Responding to the neoliberal policies of the government of President Emmanuel Macron, symbolized by an unpopular fuel tax, the Yellow Vests quickly developed into a wide-ranging movement with diverse forms of action and organization. Despite a carrot-and-stick response from the government, the movement continues to the present, though its impact was greatest in the first year, which is the focus of this paper. Difficult to classify, we understand the Yellow Vests as an instantiation of “popular politics”, or an atypical social movement, primarily defined by and significant for its ardent anti-austerity and pro-democracy positions. The movement is only misleadingly labeled populist or associated with populism; there is a collective intellectual awakening of political consciousness, with participants and supporters articulating their structural dispossession and setting out to strengthen their common good through collective action and more direct democracy, not through party politics or existing institutions, nor through charismatic leadership or other forms of centralized or top-down politics. The Yellow Vests therefore signify the prospect of democratizing democracy, or re-democratizing democracy, in the face of the legitimacy deficits of neoliberal governance.

Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen, Klaus H. Goetz

The COVID-19 pandemic that hit Europe in early 2020 radically reshaped the political agenda at all levels of Europe's multi-level system within a matter of weeks. It continued to overshadow all other public concerns throughout 2021. The single most important development that distinguished the second year of the pandemic from the first was that, from early 2021, COVID-19 vaccines became widely available and were rolled out throughout Europe. Early hopes that vaccination might offer full protection against infection were soon dashed. However, the availability of vaccines propelled governments to reorient policy from strict containment to approaches that meant ‘learning to live with the virus’. This shift was not linear. Partly driven by the emergence of new COVID-19 ‘variants of interest and concern’, policy changes and reversals were frequent. But during 2021, restrictions on individual and civil liberties justified on public health grounds became complemented by the reliance on vaccination as the chief means to combat the pandemic. Vaccination meant that public policies became increasingly differentiated between the (fully) vaccinated and the non-vaccinated (for details, see Hale et al., 2022), often provoking intensive protest. The year 2021 was also when the full political and institutional implications of the pandemic became ever more apparent, as the long-term nature of the fight against COVID-19, with its ever-changing variants, sunk in, economic and social costs escalated, and initial emergency measures at EU and national levels became routinized, normalized and, in some instances, institutionalized. Throughout 2021, political scientists continued to engage intensively with the fast-moving pandemic-related policy, institutional and political developments, building on an early wave of empirical work conducted in the first weeks and months of the pandemic (for a review, see Goetz and Martinsen, 2021). Empirical inquiry into this post-vaccine phase of COVID-related governance is still very much ongoing. At the risk of over-accentuating shifts in research foci, one can discern several trends that partly reflect the post-vaccine reality. Initial work in public policy was strongly focused on public health. The diversification of policies from public health to those addressing the economic and social fallout of the pandemic has been reflected in work that seeks to trace the wider scope of policy responses triggered by the pandemic. An early focus on how regional, national, EU and multi-level institutions shaped political and policy responses has become complemented by work that seeks to understand how Europe's multi-level architecture is being reshaped. In writing on pandemic politics, contestation of, and protests against, public measures designed to contain the pandemic have emerged as important themes. Following an initial ‘rally round the flag’ effect and evidence of high public trust in public policy-makers, system support seems to have become strained (Bor et al., 2021). This review focuses on the intertwined multi-level and democratic implications of the pandemic, as it progressed into its second year, and on political science scholarship that has sought to describe, explain and make sense of policy, institutional and political responses and consequences. Given its transboundary nature, it was clear from the outset that the pandemic called for co-ordination across regional, national, EU and international levels. The inadequacy of existing European multi-level institutions to respond effectively was readily apparent from the onset of the pandemic and there were calls for rapid far-reaching reforms, for example in the form of a European health union. Academic observers have taken different views on both the extent to which the pandemic has changed the institutional balance and power relations between the EU and its member states and on its democratic implications. Disagreements are evident between crisis accounts that suggest an incremental ‘failing forward’ logic of integration, on the one hand, and studies of European ‘emergency politics’, on the other. The ‘failing forward’ argument regards crisis-driven institutional change in the EU multi-level system as inherently insufficient to provide rapid and effective functional responses (Jones et al., 2016, 2021). EU institutions tend to be little prepared when faced with sudden crises due to the thresholds of intergovernmental bargaining. When a crisis hits, the incompleteness of previous institutional responses becomes apparent. Member states are forced to the negotiation table to re-examine existing institutions, but disagreements prevent more than lowest common denominator outcomes. Thus, ‘failing forward’ is a repetitive, incremental institutional response. By contrast, ‘emergency politics’ accounts see the institutional impact of crises as more profound, albeit in highly problematic ways (Kreuder-Sonnen and White, 2022; White, 2019, 2022). When major challenges arise, urgency can be cultivated, exploited and made to serve political ends (Kreuder-Sonnen and White, 2022, p. 954). Politics of ‘the last resort’ may propel – or force – actors into unprecedented agreements, and put normal rules of procedure and ordinary decision-making on hold. It sets aside usual democratic processes and controls (Schmidt, 2022). Decisions taken in the emergency mode are consequential, since they are capable of creating novel and lasting institutional outcomes. In particular, European emergency politics shift power from the national to the supranational level. Next to multi-level shifts, emergency accounts also engage directly with the democratic implications of this mode of policy-making: emergencies empower ‘technical executives’ and experts at the expense of democratically elected actors (Kreuder-Sonnen and White, 2022, p. 956; Schmidt, 2022, p. 980; White, 2019, p. 2). In the following, we first address major developments along the vertical and horizontal axes of the multi-level system, before turning to key democratic challenges of post-vaccine politics, focused on democratic performance, democratic quality and democratic support. Much research on the institutional impact of the pandemic on the EU has concentrated on the domains of health and the economy (see, for example, Becker and Gehring, 2022; De la Porte and Heins, 2022; De la Porte and Jensen, 2021; Deruelle and Engeli, 2021; Fabbrini, 2022; Forman and Mossialos, 2021; Rhodes, 2021). In both domains, we see vertical institutional shifts of powers and responsibilities towards the EU, with the Commission taking centre stage. Whereas 2020 was the year of game-changing decisions, such as the agreement on the Next Generation EU funds, and of novel EU powers, in 2021 the decisions had to be implemented and the new powers used, while executive action at all levels became exposed to intense public scrutiny and contestation. When struck by the pandemic, the EU's weak capabilities, dispersed authority and limited budget in health security stood out (Forman and Mossialos, 2021). With catastrophic health news beginning to emerge first in Italian Bergamo, followed soon by fears that the US would monopolize coronavirus remedies and that member states would outcompete one another in the race for vaccines, the need for a pan-European response was soon acknowledged (Becker and Gehring, 2022; Deutsch and Wheaton, 2021). In retrospect, the decision-making speed is notable. Already in June 2020, the European Commission was endowed with the novel power of collective vaccine procurement and member states had approved a supranational vaccine plan (Becker and Gehring, 2022; Rhodes, 2021). On 21 December 2020, the Commission and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) authorized the first COVID-19 vaccine. Throughout 2021, another four vaccine authorizations followed suit. On 6 May 2021, the Commission presented its COVID-19 therapeutics strategy to complement the vaccine strategy and to deal with the long-term effects of the infection. Also in 2021, the Commission developed the EU Digital COVID Certificate, which entered into force by 1 July and became interoperational across EU borders. Given that member states had traditionally guarded their health sovereignty closely, this upshift in EU powers is notable and demonstrates that under emergency rule, a recalibration of political authority can occur rapidly and on a scale that would previously have been considered highly improbable (Tesche, 2022; Vollaard et al., 2016; Vollaard and Martinsen, 2017). However, as a concomitant, the Commission also came under increasing scrutiny for its actions. Soon after the major decision to let the Commission directly purchase vaccines and the provision of a considerable budget to do so, the Commission's abilities became subject to severe criticism. The objection was that the inexperienced Commission had chosen the wrong strategy, aiming for lower prices rather than speedy delivery of vaccines and thus fell behind the US and the UK. Also, at the end of 2020, the EMA was fiercely criticized for being too slow in the approval of COVID-19 vaccines. On 2 December 2020, the UK approved the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, followed shortly after by the US and Canada. EMA's approval came just three weeks later, but the Commission and the agency had already lost the game for public approval. Their claim to carry out a more thorough authorization procedure did not resonate in the midst of public critique (Deutsch and Wheaton, 2021). The following year became no easier. Early 2021 was marked by severe supply shortages and delays in delivery (Becker and Gehring, 2022). Again, the Commission was subject to condemnation, this time for not having secured enough vaccines and for unfair distribution between its member states (De Gruyter, 2021; Deutsch and Wheaton, 2021). In the spring of 2021, there was public criticism of severe production problems and of the relatively slow vaccine roll-out in the EU, which fell notably behind the US, the UK and Israel. By May 2021, the EU had apparently caught up. The Commission had set up a vaccine procurement task force, funded in part by a new BioNTech/Pfizer production site in Germany, and it had secured 1.8 billion doses of vaccine from the same company (Cokelaere, 2021; De Gruyter, 2021; Rhodes, 2021). Only a year later, problems of supply had turned into problems of demand. The European Commission had now secured 4.2 billion doses of vaccine. After an informal meeting of health ministers on 18 May 2022, officials from a number of EU countries prepared a letter asking the European Commission to redraw its existing coronavirus vaccine procurement agreements and to allow member states to take up only the vaccine doses they actually needed (Martuscelli, 2022). In economic policies, too, the pandemic implied considerable vertical institutional dynamics, centralizing more powers around the European Commission. For the first time, the European executive was endowed with the power to borrow money on the financial markets and to transfer funds to member states (Fabbrini, 2022). In this regard, the European Council meeting in July 2020 is noted as a turning point at which the EU heads of state and government agreed on the Next Generation EU (NGEU) recovery plan as part of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) (Hillion, 2021). The early negotiations in March and April 2020 of the recovery plan were, however, ripe with political disagreements (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021; Ferrera et al., 2021). De la Porte and Jensen three which under normal would have a deal or turned it into a lowest common denominator emerged on the member states as to financial support to member states be only or by a of and with came to support the and the – the and – also came to the of and to was on the of The Commission and the of member states to to from the and the to and the of and strongly negotiations were with a policy member states between those that to to be to and and those that emergency recovery to be (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021). severe the was agreed The deal considerable changes in the EU vertical institutional balance (Becker and Gehring, 2022). It with the of no common and an of (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021). to it the EU's to and new institutions as a crisis response. than ‘failing Europe's multi-level has forward’ 2021, p. In particular, the Commission has new political and institutional to borrow on the markets on of the EU all the up to billion (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021, p. major shift by are new of The European Council agreed on a to its common in part the system and new a new a and a (Fabbrini, 2022, p. On December 2021, the Commission of three new in of the effects on EU economic governance that the policy measures by the EU to address the economic of COVID-19 were a for the European and a major between the economic and the of and as such a in the of European (Fabbrini, 2022, p. Whereas since its had on a between a policy with the European at its and a economic policy at the state the for the first time endowed the EU with its powers (Fabbrini, 2022, p. The key of – the and – was by the European and the Council on 18 December The a of billion in and available to support and by EU 1 only has the Commission been to borrow but it is also in of its and of and the member recovery and to the June 2021 the Commission its first of national recovery and the extent to which the national the of and social the Commission to the of and throughout 2021, due to The plan was only on 1 June 2022, the plan is still at the time of writing 2022). By 2021, and became the first countries to a under the 2 countries followed soon all an initial of their were to be authorized by the on the of the and in the national recovery and The Commission's executive is as it has unprecedented financial means to or member Next to vertical institutional shifts, the multi-level system has also been reshaped by new horizontal institutional dynamics, national intergovernmental the European EU experts and the European the of the pandemic, a new EU health governance architecture has to take In this take centre stage. that become increasingly important institutions for European at the expense of supranational institutions, most notably the Commission et al., However, rather than institutional are new horizontal by and and between the and health The European for and came to a in the pandemic and Engeli, 2021). Deruelle and that COVID-19 became a functional for the which changed its from risk to a of risk This co-ordination in with the intergovernmental in the Council of the and with the Commission. than a power between the institutions, the that the of the have been to the the institutions have to when co-ordination in the and Engeli, 2021, p. Thus, the intergovernmental of national has had to and with both the Commission and the The EMA became another in EU in it is one of the more EU health institutions with its to EU approval to new and Mossialos, The agency was thus for the COVID-19 vaccines. for the first time, this (Schmidt, its to was and by the as experts centre in national did the EMA with the Commission's had to respond to political and public to its The the US and the EU in a political vaccine race on would be first to to the vaccine. At a on 21 December 2020, the approval of the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, the EMA its approval three weeks behind the UK called the a while that the had not been public the last EMA has the intense taking in the public some for a approval. were that development was too of interest at EMA have and been by the of the evidence and After the first BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine approval on 21 December 2020, the authorization of vaccines followed at a rapid On 6 2021, the Commission that the vaccine had been authorized on the of EMA's and quality The vaccines developed by and followed on March and December 2021, The year 2021 thus became when the Commission and EMA vaccine authorization at unprecedented The of did however, the from criticism. EMA's too, had a to and in The became in the vaccine processes of the COVID-19 vaccine 2022; et al., 2022). of the vaccine were up after some of In 2021, disagreements between the EMA and national became more and EMA that the vaccine was to that the of the vaccine for most (Deutsch et al., 2021). However, national increasingly the vaccine, its and, by the of EMA and its to the the European Commission towards a European In 2020, several were for EMA as as for the The EMA was approved in At the time of writing 2022), negotiations are between the member states and the European on the the most important European by the Commission was the of a new the and At the was to a new European agency to as a to the US and However, for those aiming for a the of was of an became a within the European for and It became in a of member states had changed from a considerable of EU health to more or of such a transfer of powers 2021). It is that was by means of a Commission by 2021. The European was thus in In the horizontal institutional in health are by the EU and experts as the new of actors in EU crisis At the same time, we see disagreements between supranational and national The European by contrast, in the In economic policy, too, horizontal and disagreements came to the in around the (De la Porte and Jensen, 2021; 2022). out that the crisis a around the which to (Tesche, 2022, p. The of emergency politics thus only be for in the of crisis but in of consequences. to the Council decision on the the and the horizontal institutional have been On the one hand, the Council decision marked a turning the Commission in the of the COVID-19 recovery On the the and heads of government had to some extent in the Council a the Council on the and more Council when the Commission the (Hillion, 2021, p. 2). after the European Council agreement on the and the in July 2020, the political in the European against the intergovernmental deal and to the budget the became and more The European and the Council a on the budget in 2020, only to be by from and the a was and the budget in December However, soon and continued the the The member states before the of of the European that the the put the of the on hold. On 2022, the its 6 in the the from and and the for the Commission to the to democratic governance became apparent very early on during the pandemic and have concerns and research and around three major can European with the the pandemic a in and democratic and can trust and support of, or in of, the measures taken to combat the pandemic and its economic and social is at in democratic performance, democratic quality and democratic support. The most scholarship on three increasingly their empirical For example, between restrictions on liberties and public et suggest that the pandemic an for the to individual 2). from Germany, and the they that COVID-19 had a on restrictions on civil liberties ‘the that the impact of trust the a key for the of civil liberties was with of civil 2). et on performance, trust and across European that both levels of social and political trust and in trust – notably between government and – are in in in European as a key The of European multi-level would be to with the pandemic – and how they would be to – the of the challenges was on states were not to the of restrictions on that the pandemic to for and to empirical work that democratic countries to have a COVID-19 2022), that we be of that democratic be to the from the we do not between the of and COVID-19 et al., 2021, p. However, most research has focused on across to explain both in policy responses and policy outcomes. In with approaches in public policy, political and and their are to For example, of in national have been to make a and 2021; and 2022), et that between policy and political trust national responses and is in for in outcomes. in responses to the pandemic, politics have also been to Thus, et they the of to the pandemic and to be a of the responses of both and The of responses a of democratic quality has much public and 2021, the with democratic and civil and individual liberties has been in some European countries by public to regards democratic the on ‘emergency politics’ and its effects on democratic quality the pandemic, as noted of ‘emergency politics’ have been to the to the pandemic as another of a by now of executive and by empirical work has to a more et have a countries and and of democratic for emergency measures across that countries have in at some of democratic since the beginning of the pandemic. more common in such are also in democratic also however, that weak and of democratic be of as take of the to and In has in particular, on and 2022), evidence of democratic throughout 2021. of and democratic trust and support of Much initial work on focused on responses and trust in ‘rally round the flag’ that an in trust in was in some European but was in et al., 2021; and 2021). research a differentiated and, in some For example, et evidence that to a marked in democratic system support as the pandemic on from and the US, they a of system support in all four countries throughout their also that ‘the to system support is more at that system support may not the of the pandemic When the COVID-19 pandemic hit it set in a of slow in system and as the crisis rather than to a key Thus, et suggest that and different democratic for democratic support. This with the of and on from the UK from 2020 and 2021, they evidence of a between levels of COVID-related and and lower of government and trust in of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on European multi-level be and and institutional changes take time to their full implications become only apparent and, empirical research on how multi-level has and been reshaped the pandemic is still very much in This three developments stood out in 2021. at the of the European the decisions taken in 2020 that far-reaching new powers and to the EU and, the were put to in 2021, as the and was rolled out and as the European executive emerged as the authority in vaccine authorization and It became clear that, in important the EU had from it to the pandemic. the post-vaccine phase of pandemic governance meant that, at national some of the measures taken to contain the of the to be albeit et al., 2022). At the same time, had as such as the of or the to carry vaccination and became the of thus to emerge in a a to individual and liberties and ways of and an that of the public health measures to combat COVID-19 would be to for the evidence is still accounts suggest that the effects on may and be more than might have at In this the of in the to on the pandemic has become For example, has that, in the of the pandemic and a development that did not the as by it its ever of the in the April In the of to from the pandemic and to do very in the for The pandemic in 2021 may not have new in European but it may out to have and political

Mathijs van de Sande

In 2011 and the ensuing years, the world witnessed a global wave of various “occupy movements,” from the Spanish 15-M and the Greek anti-austerity protests of 2011 to Occupy Wall Street (OWS), and from the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul to Nuit Debout in Paris. Inspired by the Arab Spring earlier that year—and by the iconic image of an occupied Tahrir Square in particular—protesters in different parts of the world took possession of public spaces in order to oppose the austerity measures of their governments, to challenge the power of financial industries and economic elites, and to voice their widely shared experience of a democratic deficit. I emphasize from the outset that there are many, and often very substantial, demographic, cultural, economic, and political differences among these various occupy movements and among the contexts in which they intervened. There is thus no particular reason to assume, as some enthusiastic commentators suggested at the time, that they were all exponents of a single global movement (Hardt & Negri, 2012; Mason, 2011). But it is also clear, on the other hand, that they often expressed a strong sense of solidarity with each other, and referred to each another as important sources of inspiration (Graeber, 2013, p. 237). Notwithstanding the many differences between these movements, they did share at least a number of important points in common. What, then, did these movements have in common—next to the obvious but important fact that they all involved the occupation of public space (Harvey, 2012, pp. 161–162)? First, in most cases conventional political organizations or institutions played a minor role, if any, in these mass mobilizations. None was spearheaded by established political parties or politicians (Tormey, 2015, p. 8) and they often had a strikingly diverse composition (Juris, 2012, p. 265). Most categorically refused to negotiate or even engage with any representative institutions or public bodies (Klein, 2011). One possible explanation for this, second, is that many of these movements had strong horizontalist aspirations (Sitrin, 2012) and advocated direct or participatory forms of politics, organization and decision-making. Finally, not only did they propose an alternative view of democracy, but they also put it in practice: a significant aspect of their shared repertoire was that these movements sought to prefigure a radical form of democracy (Bray, 2013, p. 190; Douzinas, 2013, pp. 158–160; Hardt & Negri, 2017, pp. 274–275; Maeckelbergh, 2016; Pickerill & Krinsky, 2012; Smucker, 2014; Van de Sande, 2013; Yates, 2015). By organizing in general assemblies and spokes-councils, for example, they tried to realize, in the here and now, the kind of radical social change that they aspired to bring about on the long term (Graeber, 2013). These movements’ refusal to engage with existing parties and institutions, their horizontalist or direct democratic aspirations, and their attempt to prefigure these ideals in their general assemblies and consensual decision-making procedures, have all contributed to the widespread idea that they were opposed to any form of political representation. Indeed, many prominent political philosophers and social movement theorists have promoted this view of recent occupy movements. My claim, however, is that this reading is too quick. Not only is it far from certain that all these movements dismissed political representation tout court, but upon closer inspection it becomes clear that both in their rhetoric and practical organization they employed various forms of representation and of making representative claims. In fact, these movements also played a significant representative on their own part, which remains undertheorized in the current debate. What concepts of representation are implied here? And what lessons for democracy, strategy, and social movement politics may we derive from them? To answer these questions and to shift the academic debate on these occupy movements, I reconstruct two concepts of representation that can be encountered in the practices and rhetoric of occupy movements such as OWS and the 15-M movement. I focus on one concept of representation in particular that I think is the key to an adequate understanding of contemporary social movements, but that is not sufficiently theorized in the existing literature on these movements: namely, the idea of synecdochal representation, where one of the constituent parts stands for a larger whole. To address these questions I make the following argumentative steps. In Section 2, I briefly review the contemporary academic debate on occupy movements and their relation to political representation. Should the statements and practices of movements such as OWS indeed be regarded as a rejection of representation, as both their critics and advocates claim, or is their repertoire with at least some forms of In Section I to the academic literature on political representation and it is far from obvious what representation from on representation, I two different of representation, which are both representation as on the one hand, and representation as or larger on the In Section I these to the politics of recent occupy movements, and both are as as in their practices and In Section I the concept of representation as on a particular form of representation that I think is the key to understanding of recent occupy movements and their representative role, but that remains undertheorized in the current namely, synecdochal representation. I to the of employed this concept at various in but a of concept of synecdochal representation and political I it in the of recent occupy movements in Section the of the occupy movements in 2011 and the following years, their and the among and is to these movements or their and or to their of representative democracy in current My is if we are to and this and political we to a and of representation and the political that it may the of movements as Occupy Wall Street is an in we can no make as we for change in the power and we can no to their we are a of what democracy this to one another to is a to and the that direct we the power p. many of the statements and by these occupy movements, is to various to many political philosophers and social movement it that OWS representative to the image of democracy a direct or participatory form of democracy, which is with representative democracy in current One may to this that the for a radical or participatory form of democracy was expressed even in their to prefigure such in 2013, p. p. with consensual decision-making and forms of public (Bray, 2013; 2012; and alternative also to their own to in the occupy with of 2015, p. and pp. & 2013). In these movements tried to their of a democratic in the here and de Sande, 2013, p. is what democracy another prominent by these occupy movements, thus can be referred to the forms and practices that these movements the as OWS it in their their occupied as a in all the it in the and even are not as of political but as of a general rejection of the of representation. & p. here is that representative democracy is an categorically the from in the political (Hardt & Negri, pp. p. democracy, on the other hand, a horizontalist of organization and a rejection of democracy and the of that such of (Sitrin, 2012, p. also Mason, p. horizontalist or that the occupy movements expressed in both their practices and rhetoric is thus not in with political the two are this is shared by some of these movements’ most prominent for example, that their to engage with any representative institutions or a of the as a of a of and by pp. a their horizontalist aspirations a understanding of in general p. also pp. that a democracy political are the of and representative p. What these movements to is the fact that are no to the representative institutions and I with these critics that it is and to democratic on a rejection of all representative p. I not think that recent occupy movements such as OWS and the categorically any form of political I that their political repertoire was of making all forms of representative claims. are we to make sense of these movements’ practices and such as are the is what democracy or even at least some concept of political representation 2015, p. In the of this I a concepts of representation that I think are to these movements. But briefly on the various and of What is we at the term is employed both in academic and political it may that it and in of these various of the term representation are but their and are very p. these various two different that can be as a to that in other p. 2013, pp. pp. In and for example, representation may be as or What is in this is the particular relation in which a particular representative it a a or a or even in to this form of representation as idea of or the idea of of or in the and the idea of as a on in with the of p. representation as for an this is not the in any a certain of is to as the of political representation on the of a representative and to the or of a particular or that both and at a certain from the In the of representative as a representative be to one the other p. concept of representation is for in understanding of representative all the also have a term as or is in the in for a or or a of can be to other or larger to such forms of representation as not a or a it to what a representative an understanding of what a representative it a an or a it be to p. Spanish or were the in many recent occupy to this representation, and to both concepts of both as for and in the academic debate on political representation the two to be both at a and a practical there are important to a between these forms of representation. the most significant between representation as for and representation as for is that the often an and a certain of between the representative and the In the of the thus be the is to the as in the on the other hand, a often to to make it by their it is not in p. is a is to not to an that be or bring that did not as to is not a of to or to what it stands and what to a be as to as p. of in other is a that also the of certain or that which is in a relation of representation not this relation as There is no or the particular or that representation as for that there is an and can be in a or representation as a for that the not it is the of a representative or relation pp. the political of representation as for is that representation as for is of no political theorists of political representation, such as and have that representation as for an important in the of political and p. that making of or of what is to be is a aspect of political By a particular image of or what they to this or not that this no is a But the political in the of making of p. representation as for is an pp. p. any representative is of own in that it be in a particular in it and the other the of and from such of as for thus can be as a of & p. is a political one may there is a between various possible To one or be at the of to put it in and any representation to is to the of to the of to a & p. then, did the practices of recent occupy movements such as the and OWS indeed of any form of political many of their advocates and critics And if can these various forms of political representation as for and for be in their rhetoric and we have the of recent occupy movements is often as of a of political representation tout & p. Hardt & Negri, 2012, pp. 2013, pp. 2015, p. is clear that these movements were of representative democracy in current But that we have between different forms of political representation, we may their politics indeed a rejection of all forms of One important of the politics of these occupy movements, to is that both in their rhetoric and practices they sought to representative democracy with a direct or of general forms of and horizontalist decision-making are to a of what democracy be (Graeber, 2013, p. may that these movements were at least very of representation as idea that some may be to and in But if we at both their rhetoric and their these movements to have a understanding of representation as for example, the OWS at the of Section this a between democracy and representative democracy as we it it also for their to the p. the that there are to for or on of the in a or sufficiently democratic OWS a for in this in of the OWS p. that both political parties in the the we the are of the it that these occupy movements often employed various forms of political representation in example, a the occupation of general was as the most important of decision-making by a (Bray, 2013). be by from each was among the of each and each had a to voice only the (Graeber, 2013, p. to these were not in the sense they the of the (Bray, 2013, p. But it be to that or an is a form of representation as for that an and a very of forms of representation are by no with organization or even decision-making. and radical democratic theorists have that radical democracy various forms of or 2015, p. pp. p. pp. the of forms of very to the of and 2012, p. 2014; Smucker, 2017, pp. is not such can be to an but they can be and These movements’ with and participatory forms of organization may have to a different idea of democracy, but this a of representation as What is many of these movements’ have to engage with conventional forms of politics their had to an One obvious is the Spanish which in the of the 15-M movement and had at both the and the & pp. and this to an was no a 2015, pp. is that even some involved with the 15-M movement have to an particular at the In the Spanish for example, took in the of a public which in the of & as as (Graeber, also pp. are representative in the is to of political to of and thus a direct 2017, p. widespread that the politics of these movements the very of representation thus to be & p. closer inspection it that many forms of representation as for were employed by these movements. that their radical democratic practices and be as a for and direct and participatory representation to the current of the 2017, p. there is also a to be not only did these movements’ and organization certain forms of representation as but in some they also an important representative in their own such as OWS and the did not or to any or to or make on of a larger of But they did as political in at least some To this, however, we to to the second, concept of representation that I namely, representation as or politics of a social movement any form of representation is and an important not only a or to the but also derive a sense of and from the most may any form of representation, not that their own or their stands for recent occupy movements were no to to the OWS the is of representative democracy in current But the also that the p. And this the in political least that the this stands for a and not in the of in Park 2015, p. can be of other prominent movement such as are the and a strong representative that to a larger of and not to are at the of 2015, p. practices of these occupy movements implied a representative the general alternative decision-making and all for My claim, is that the particular form of political representation, is in the and rhetoric of these occupy movements. representation as this form of representation is not with their radical democratic aspirations or as many social movement theorists and political philosophers In fact, I that it is it is implied in their direct democratic In the of this I to a particular concept of representation as for that is at namely, a synecdochal concept of representation. I this particular form of representation is key to an understanding of the recent occupy movements. as for a representation as of or of all other or larger as this form of representation also a political is of in the of representation as for is a where a representative to or and on of the representation as for is a a movement from to and a one from representative to p. also p. is also a political in order to any and thus at the of & pp. of political representation, often to this concept of representation as a for 2013, p. In of political representation, on the image of the a form of that other such as and the differences between and to are established & p. this of an in of representation p. a of the to this are this concept can be to the representative and practices of recent occupy movements, we thus to reconstruct the often of the in of representation. But what the it is from other of such as the and the and it is in a of political representation. may be regarded as a of 2015, p. we by between and the is on or the of a example, in radical it is to to as is a the in not to relation between and is on or of their of this is or is is that are In on the other hand, the relation between the and the be by a particular are Wall Street or the as to the financial or to a particular of the In both cases there is a direct and relation between is as the of financial the in the but the term as a not this a relation in that it is on a But there is one in a synecdochal relation the is a of the larger that it a such as have to or the of as a to are of a and are a of their an to the between and p. are on But this also that representation can be established only as a or relation p. it is on many different can be to a single To to the many not from the may be to the of There is no particular reason the between the and to such an established in and have the But the fact is in order to as a had to these other possible and thus had to as the only or most for the to be it is one among many is very different for the as we have is on a that as a in a relation is to the that it and the relation between thus for with a of politics what the or can be in to the the of a not on to other possible it remains a far as is however, this also that the only a for and In a of a particular representation of upon the of as a representation of as a whole. own and an p. and of a social that remains an pp. with however, is that they are on one of many possible and that the of one relation not at the of we was the with thus the that is to a political representation pp. To a to some of p. p. is where the of the becomes a particular to this de the as of the that an between and p. p. from this the is not a of the it a between these other in that it a relation between and that is particular that upon the p. to or for a larger is the only that this p. & p. to as a synecdochal on to be as the only at the most obvious and representation. synecdochal representation the of a pp. an image of the for by a concept of the that be or even possible p. but that as the of this and thus to it as far as is this is the of the forms the for understanding of political it one representative or relation can a larger at the time, it p. 2015, pp. these and not as are as two different of this in a have a particular shared or can be and in own they a their p. their is by the long as this remains an it not to a But that this is only one among many different claims. that of other or have also this may to the of a social their shared experience of or their with the in and a sense of which is by a shared understanding or of the which as p. of a social not only these but to a different of their to the of a larger of in which all the in of their to what we an p. Notwithstanding the differences between these and their particular or their shared experience of and their the of a social to a or between these various and of however, to in a particular a of these various not be representation of an only possible if a particular own also as a the as a p. also pp. By of public or for example, one particular to the thus for a of or First, the of the two of and a certain between is the of the in this they to be the of at a and a of in the of a the term becomes the of a it no the of an be in all and becomes the of a social only is the of that in a pp. What we is a particular or to for a at the in to What this however, is that the of a also the of or claims. here not only the or of an but a a particular of or other and and a view of these be In it to for a political then, can concept of synecdochal representation to the politics of recent occupation is far from obvious to in this both p. and have these movements for their refusal to engage with representative My claim, however, is that their be employed in an of these very movements and their practices & p. In the I a of these movements established such synecdochal both and have of occupy movements such as OWS and the Spanish 15-M I that their can be employed to a understanding of these movements and their political repertoire p. concept of the in can to the forms of political representation that were implied in these movements’ practices and a on example, of is that of are the was by in in which that only of a of the and that it of the on contributed to the of the idea that be between a and a (Graeber, 2013, p. this of from the of by a that their of or and were all by the the these were all of many different and the suggested that all these had important in common. in a single or all the all the this idea of the that they a the I in the also suggested a representative is representative for what we all are of the obvious differences between In this the and the idea of a what and an between various and on the of a and experience that they all to have in common. shared which be in of or to a of and thus to a p. is the of occupation in these movements’ One shared by many of these movements is that the public in the sense of a and in the sense of a public In all parts of the world public spaces and are and this in many to the of an and concept of occupation of public space was not a but in one or the other, the occupied space was also often at 2015, p. it is no that the occupation of space played such an important for various movements the which all space as public occupied what is and the of to and as a 2015, p. Gezi Park was occupied in of the to to the of and of to another example, is not only only a from Wall but it is also a public space that the of this is a widespread and the occupation of a single very to the the of public But it a of the of public space in of in and to a for as a in for a whole. In this the that stands for is a on the one hand, on the other, a with the 2012, p. a that direct democratic decision-making and horizontalist were to a or at the very least a of and what a be (Graeber, 2013, p. also p. pp. not that these movements or to direct democratic decision-making we have their repertoire often various forms of representation as But the is by with alternative forms of organization and these movements did to their for a participatory and form of democracy we have in general and other by these movements, a larger of and is not that the synecdochal form of representation as an for these practices larger p. of their of representative democracy in current the practices of movements are In other the in which their practices and for a social or or occupation of public the of decision-making and the of a synecdochal they were representative and such as is what democracy are the or these with a particular synecdochal and is the of these statements that these to for larger a particular concept of democracy, a of the or the What is the and of political representation in the repertoire of occupy movements, such as OWS and the 15-M the of these movements in 2011 this a of debate among political theorists and social movement advocates and critics of these movements have that their horizontalist aspirations, their radical democratic rhetoric and their all a rejection of political representation I if we to these movements’ of political representation we be to various and representation as for on the one hand, and representation as for on the often an and some of between the representative and the as on the other hand, is a form of representation in which the a particular the of representation. I that both forms of representation were in fact employed by these occupy movements: representation as for can be encountered in their of and as on the other hand, can be in the these movements a idea of they for and what they aspired to in the of such synecdochal can be in their practices on the one occupation of public the general in their rhetoric and is what democracy are the the to these movements’ and practices as of political representation is the these to that representation as for not any the of representative be and And a synecdochal form of representation, in which a to for a larger sufficiently to and may it or even forms of Finally, if the politics of recent occupy movements indeed of many forms of political representation, their of representative democracy in current be To if not a direct or participatory form of democracy, did these movements their and practices indeed as a for and direct and participatory 2017, p. what this alternative view of democracy in the of these movements, many of these questions to be One a of these however, is that we the that various forms of representation played in these movements’ politics and we be to lessons from their on the of democracy and social movement de is in at are radical democratic political representation, and contemporary movements.

Yoan Hermstrüwer

Should political elections be implemented on the blockchain? Blockchain evangelists have argued that they should. This article sheds light on the potential of blockchain voting procedures and the legal constraints they need to accommodate. In a first step, I discuss potential “democracy benefits” of distributed ledger technology and the legal framework ordering the use of electronic voting systems in general. Comparing U.S. and German constitutional law, I then distill specific normative principles guiding the use of blockchain voting systems. In a second step, I analyze the technical, economic, and normative limitations of blockchain voting procedures. I show that major limitations result from the rules and incentives set by different consensus mechanisms. Moreover, it is not clear whether blockchain technology provides sufficient safeguards to ensure identity verification, the secrecy of ballots, and the verification that ballots are cast as intended, recorded as cast, and counted as recorded. Building on principles from constitutional law, I contend that blockchain technology does not provide sufficient safeguards to satisfy the requirements of democratic voting procedures – at least not in the near future.

Yoan Hermstrüwer

Should political elections be implemented using blockchain technology? Blockchain evangelists have argued that it should. This article sheds light on the potential of blockchain voting procedures and the legal constraints that need to be accommodated. I first identify the upsides of the distributed ledger technology and the normative principles guiding electronic voting systems. Specifically, I elucidate some of the major normative constraints for blockchain voting systems in a transatlantic comparison of U.S. and German constitutional law. I then discuss the technological, economic and normative limitations of blockchain voting procedures. On the one hand, these limitations result from the rules and incentives set by different consensus mechanisms. On the other hand, it is far from clear whether blockchain technology provides sufficient safeguards to ensure identity verification, the secrecy of ballots, and a verification that ballots are cast as intended, recorded as cast, and counted as recorded. Building on principles from constitutional law, I contend that blockchain technology may not provide sufficient safeguards to satisfy the requirements of democratic voting procedures, at least not in the near future.

Ian Klaus

No abstract is available for this record.

Jean‐Philippe Vergne, Gautam Swain

Bitcoin is difficult to categorize and indeed has been associated with 112 different labels in the British media (e.g., “private money,” “commodity”) – most of which poorly describe bitcoin. Specifically, our analyses of 674 media articles, focusing on the relationship between labeling and categorization, identify classification inconsistencies at three levels: within clusters of labels, between labels and categories, and between category attributes. These inconsistencies hamper categorization based on attribute similarity, audience goals, and causal models, respectively. We identify four factors that nurture this categorical anarchy and conclude with a call for research on the socioeconomic revolution heralded by blockchain technology.

David Golumbia

No abstract is available for this record.

David L. Mills, David L. Mills

This chapter is for mathematicians, specifically number theory enthusiasts. It presents several identity schemes with which Alice and Bob, and sometimes Cathy and Denise, can prove to each other that both have a secret group key previously received from a trusted host by secure means. We need to be really sneaky; not only is the secret never revealed, but an interceptor cannot cryptanalyze it by overhearing the protocol interchange, even if overhearing the exchange many times. In the sneakiest schemes, Bob and the girls do not even know the secret group key itself; these schemes are called zero-knowledge proofs.