GPS Rethinking Democracy

REDEM Update Summer 2023

Summer '23

This semester the Department of Global Political Studies was given full responsibility for the Rethinking Democracy (REDEM) research platform.

It's time to celebrate what's been achieved and thank everyone for giving REDEM a great first semester at GPS. That includes many amazing conversations, inspiring PhDs, REDEM being evaluated as 'Excellent' by external reviewers, and a growing research and teaching environment on AI and democracy.

Global Politics as a tool for rethinking democracy

Participatory workshop @ STORM. April 25th.

Over a third of GPS gathered to develop new ways of thinking about democracy. Colleagues present described it as having given them 'the best conversations with one another in 25 years of working' at Malmö University.

Facilitated by Michael Strange, the session asked the related questions: What was your past view of the future of democracy? What is your present view of the future of democracy?

PhD led workshops

Following a competitive call open to all PhDs at GPS, REDEM supported a series of international workshops with both local and international speakers. One of these included a collaboration with the Gender Studies Research Group at MaU.

Sarah Bodelson - workshop: Thinking through reproductive justice in times of democratic backsliding

Co-organised with the Gender Studies Research Group at Malmö University. 8th May.

With Soledad Quintana Fernández, midwife working with abortions and Nada Amroussia, doctoral student at the Faculty of Health and Society whose research project is tiled ”Sexual and reproductive health equity from policy to practice: experiences of healthcare providers and migrant youth in Southern Sweden”.

Isobel Squire - workshop: How is illiberal democracy navigating gender politics? Moving from backlash to pragmatics in Poland

26th May.

With Weronika Grzebalska, Assistant Professor in Sociology, Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences.

Weronika Grzebalska built upon her work on the surprising gender politics in the defense sector in Poland under populist right-wing governance. Her presentation discussed the shortcomings of the mainstream ‘backlash’ and ‘anti-gender’ literature, and alternative frameworks for addressing illiberal gender politics.

Jess Haynie-Lavelle - workshop: Blockchain & Healthcare Privacy

26th April.

With Petra Müllerová, Lund University.

The seminar-workshop created a space to explore blockchain within health care to engage with the questions: Can dominant blockchain technologies (Proof-of-burn, Practical Byzantine fault tolerance, Proof-of-stake, Proof-of-work) offer safe and secure acess to health information sharing via mobile platforms? How might these interactions reproduce known vulnerabilities within the healthcare system and education on the individual’s health care? A paper on the resulting discussion will be submitted for publication.

AI + Democracy

In collaboration with the Precision Health & Everyday Democracy (PHED) project, REDEM has provided the basis for new research at GPS that brings social science tools to the study of artificial intelligence. That environment helped win over 10MSEK co-financed by WASP-HS in late 2020 to recruit an associate senior lecturer (biträdande lektor) and 2 PhDs focused on the theme 'AI and the everyday political-economy of global health'. Going beyond that, we have a reading group which has already met 20 times to share ideas and debate around some of the most exciting literature in the field.

On top of that, there have been several events focused on participation and AI with a mix of academics, industry, civil society, and government. The sessions are always open to everyone from GPS and there's no need for IT expertise since the core political issues are those very familiar to everyone at GPS. It'd be great to include more colleagues.

If you're interested, please contact Michael Strange.

Note on image: This was created by M Strange via DALL-E using the prompt 'participation and artificial intelligence' and a series of variations. Ask yourself, what visual biases does this image contain?

External evaluators rate REDEM as 'Excellent'

REDEM was originally established as a faculty-level platform where it was reviewed by Dr. Mirca Madianou (Reader in Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London) and Professor Klaus Dingwerth, SEPS - School of Economics and Political Science.

Some of the things the reviewers said:

'The work of REDEM is original, multidisciplinary and international as evidenced through numerous partnerships and research collaborations. REDEM represents a truly multidisciplinary effort combining disciplines across the Social Sciences and Humanities to address some of the most urgent issues of our times. REDEM is a vibrant hub for events (seminars and conferences) as well as a series of research projects that address an original research agenda. In sum, REDEM fulfils the criteria set out by the University at an excellent level. I thus recommend the continuation of the REDEM work'.

'Given the backlash against and challenges to democracy which democratic societies around the world have experienced in the past years, I could hardly think of research topics in the social sciences that are more pressing than “democracy research”. In addition, the need to “rethink democracy” becomes obvious in view of the macro-transformations societies are witnessing (globalization incl. global migration, digitali-zation, climate change, global power shifts, plus a pandemic on top). Concentrating resources at Malmö University to bring together researchers and teachers to reflect upon the challenges associated with “rethinking democracy” therefore seems useful'.

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