Postpandemic technopolitical democracies [Research Topic]

COVID-19 has hit citizens dramatically, not only creating a general risk-driven environment encompassing a wide array of economic vulnerabilities but also exposing them to pervasive digital risks, such as biosurveillance, misinformation, and e-democracy algorithmic threats. Over the course of the pandemic, a debate has emerged about the appropriate democratic and technopolitical response when governments use disease surveillance technologies to tackle the spread of COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has inevitably raised the need to resiliently and technopolitically respond to democratic threats that hyper-connected and highly viralised societies produce. In order to shed light on this debate, this Research Topic introduces the term “Postpandemic Technopolitical Democracies” as a way to figure out emerging citizenship regimes, forms, and scales for developing democracy and citizen participation in hyper-connected and highly viralised postpandemic societies. Consequently, it welcomes contributions broadly stemming from political science, critical policy studies, public administration, political geography, social innovation, data science, digital economy, foundational economy, social sciences, and regional studies. Scholars have been focused so far on the bases of discontentment with democracy, related to economic neoliberal emphasis and the lack of participatory mechanisms to improve the democratic wellbeing in Western Societies. What has not been studied as much is: What is the real impact of the postpandemic momentum in democracies, particularly assuming that the pandemic crisis has pervasively exacerbated several intertwined algorithmic and technopolitical crises. This includes the way Big Techs (GAFAM) have been eminently gaining unprecedented power shares by collecting personal data in precarious and highly vulnerable times for pandemic citizens without any democratic accountability. Consequently, in this Research Topic we are concerned with showcasing critically and/or constructively what ‘Postpandemic Technopolitical Democracies’ will look like. What do stakeholders think about alternatives for ‘Postpandemic Technopolitical Democracies’? How could responses at the urban and city-regional levels be articulated? How could we imagine alternative and feasible futures for ‘Postpandemic Technopolitical Democracies’? Contributions to the Research Topic should address, in broad terms, the future of democracies in Western Societies in postpandemic times from the technopolitical perspective. These could include, for example, case-studies, analysis about democracy in general, reflections on democratic governance and techno-politics of data, and future scenarios of political and democratic participation, and expressions of new digital citizenship. We welcome comparative analyses, action research methods-driven projects, and particularly interested in receiving examples and cases-studies. We also hope to see contributions that combine different disciplines, from a transdisciplinary perspective such as political science, data science, social sciences, public administration, urban sociology, digital economy, and regional studies, among many others. Although most successful submission are likely to be cutting-edge and challenging case-studies based on empirical work, theoretical and through-provoking contributions are also welcome if thought provoking and cutting-edge. Regardless of the scientific approach, all submissions should directly address the question of ‘Postpandemic Technopolitical Democracies’