POSTHUMAN CYBERNETIC DEMOCRACY: RETHINKING LEGAL NORMATIVITY UNDER CONDITIONS OF ALGORITHMIC GOVERNANCE (POSTCYDEM)
A new Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship project, “Posthuman Cybernetic Democracy: Rethinking Legal Normativity under Conditions of Algorithmic Governance” (Project No. 101285405), will be implemented at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences. The postdoctoral research will be carried out by Dr Alesia Zhuk under the supervision of Prof. Dr Monika Žalnieriūtė.
The project aims to investigate how the growing use of autonomous algorithmic systems is transforming the principles of law and democratic governance, notions of responsibility, and decision–making processes. It will examine how systems shaped by human–technology interactions affect legal regulation, with particular attention to ensuring democratic accountability, algorithmic transparency, and the protection of fundamental rights. Drawing on posthumanism, cybernetics, and legal research, the project seeks to develop theoretical, normative, and institutional guidelines to reconcile technological advancement with democratic values and the protection of human rights.
Objectives of the project:
- reconstruct legal normativity through a posthuman and cybernetic lens, interrogating assumptions of autonomy and rational subjectivity;
- analyse how algorithms interact with legal structures via case studies such as COMPAS (US), SyRI (Netherlands), and AI governance in Hesse (Germany);
- develop normative and institutional design principles to ensure democratic accountability, transparency, and protection of fundamental rights in hybrid human–machine systems.
Postdoctoral Fellow: Dr Alesia Zhuk.
Postdoctoral Fellowship Supervisor: Prof. Dr Monika Žalnieriūtė.
Project duration: 2026-10-01 – 2028-09-29.
Project budget: EUR 196 976.16.
The project is funded by the European Union under the Horizon Europe programme through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships.