IVR World Congress of the Association of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Istanbul, 28 June-3 July 2026

Special Workshop “Democracy, free speech, disinformation and digital literacy” Chairs: Oscar Pérez de la Fuente, Enrique Armijo

Democracy rests on a single, fragile premise: citizens can access reliable information, debate it freely, and then make reasoned choices. Free speech is therefore not a decorative luxury; it is the circulatory system of self-government. Without it, voters become disconnected from reality, and power flows to whoever controls the loudest megaphone.

Yet the digital age has broken the old filters that once separated signal from noise. In the pre-internet era, professional gatekeepers—editors, broadcasters, and fact-checkers—were imperfect, often biased, and sometimes captured by vested interests, but they operated under legal accountability, reputation costs, and shared norms. Today, any individual or state actor can reach millions instantly, anonymously, and at almost zero marginal cost. The result is an information environment in which deliberate disinformation spreads faster than truth because it is engineered to do so: emotionally charged, identity-affirming, and algorithmically boosted.

This is not an argument for censorship. State or corporate control of speech is the historic fast track to tyranny; the cure is almost always worse than the disease. The 20th century is littered with regimes that promised to “protect democracy” by silencing dissent and ended up destroying both. Once governments or unaccountable tech platforms are granted the power to decide what counts as “disinformation”, that power will inevitably be turned against political minorities, whistle-blowers, and legitimate controversy.

The only sustainable answer is mass digital literacy—taught early, reinforced often, and treated as a core civic duty comparable to jury service or voting itself. Citizens must learn to recognise motivated reasoning in themselves and others, to check primary sources, to distinguish between disagreeable opinion and verifiable falsehood, and to demand transparency from both platforms and officials. Schools that graduate functionally illiterate readers of charts, statistics, and metadata are failing democracy as surely as if they stopped teaching history.

Ultimately, democracy in the digital age will survive not because we found the perfect referee, but because enough citizens refuse to be passive consumers of weaponised narratives. Instead of this, they need to develop skills and habits to learn how to interpret the complexity of today’s world.

Participation and publication:

This workshop is open to those scholars interested in democracy, free speech, disinformation and digital literacy from different perspectives. Please write an email to oscar.perez@uc3m.es with a title and an abstract (300-400 words) of your paper, your affiliation and a short bio by 20 March 2026.  

We expect to publish a good selection of presented papers in a collective book with a prominent publisher, such as Routledge, or in a special issue of a well-indexed Journal.

Link to the IVR World Congress Istanbul 2026 workshop website:

https://ivr2026istanbul.org/special-workshop/sw11-democracy-free-speech-disinformation-and-digital-literacy-oscar-perez-de-la-fuente/

Accepted abtracts:

Digital Sociability and the New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: Democratic Promises, Authoritarian Tendencies

Ricardo Gonçalves

Freie Universität Berlin

The digital transformation is reshaping the public sphere and raising critical questions about the prospects for sustaining and deepening democracy. Recent literature, inspired by the Habermasian conception of the public sphere, argues that this process has inaugurated a new structural transformation, characterized by the proliferation of multiple semi-public and semi-private spaces, fragmented and marked by centrifugal tendencies and dispersion. Much of this scholarship, however, emphasizes the interplay between technological and economic processes and the decline of the traditional media. This work seeks to broaden the debate by connecting the hypothesis of a new structural transformation to recent cultural and sociological diagnoses. Drawing on Andreas Reckwitz’s notion of singularities and Felix Stalder’s concept of digital condition, this article examines how digital transformation reshapes human interaction as well as individual and collective forms of self-expression and social recognition, thereby reconfiguring the public sphere from within, through shifts in the constitution of subjectivities and in the patterns of intersubjectivity. Finally, it argues that by intensifying the tensions between singularization and universalization, and between fragmentation and social cohesion, the contemporary digital condition produces ambivalent political effects, oscillating between democratic promises and increasingly authoritarian tendencies. Such tensions create new obstacles to the construction of horizons of common interests and deliberation – central elements of democracy and its fundamental link with the public sphere.

On epistemic perfectionism

Oscar Pérez de la Fuente

Carlos III University of Madrid

Perfectionism is the view that the State can, or should, promote valuable conceptions of the good life and discourage conceptions that are worthless or bad. The opposite view, liberalism, defends the separation between the right and the good, and the core principle of individual autonomy. However, Raz defends a version of perfectionism compatible with pluralism and autonomy. Virtues, which are habits or dispositions associated with models of excellence within a human practice, have a central role in many perfectionist perspectives.

A relatively unexplored topic, compared to epistemic paternalism, is the notion of epistemic perfectionism. Few philosophical pragmatists have used this term to refer to requirements for democracy, such as dispositions or habits, including dialogue and other epistemic virtues. So, the State should not remain neutral on this; it should ensure that citizens cultivate those epistemic virtues for the success of the democratic process.

In the post-truth era, where disinformation and fake news are easily spread, public institutions should develop some strategies to aid their citizens attain truth from open-mindedness, prudence, impartiality, attentiveness, intellectual humility, and intellectual courage. The well-known arguments of the controversy of perfectionism should be elaborated again from epistemic terms. The Orwellian totalitarian Ministry of Truth is one such excess. However, complete State neutrality from ignorance and epistemic vices of those who decide would make democratic elections more contentious than desirable.

Knowledge for Sale? Research Firms, Consultancy Power, and Democratic Distortion

Alex Saltout

This paper examines the role of private research and expert network firms in shaping public policy outcomes through their close relationship with global consultancy firms and, indirectly, democratic governments. Drawing inspiration from When McKinsey Comes to Town, the research explores how ostensibly neutral data production increasingly operates within market-driven incentive structures that privilege speed, influence, and client alignment over epistemic rigor. The central argument is that democracy is not only challenged at the level of political representation, but also at the epistemic level: when governments outsource knowledge production to consultancies relying on opaque research supply chains, democratic decision-making becomes vulnerable to distorted, selectively framed, or insufficiently verified information. This phenomenon is amplified when policy narratives derived from consultancy reports are further disseminated through digital platforms and social media, acquiring public legitimacy without democratic scrutiny. The paper situates this dynamic within theories of deliberative democracy and democratic accountability, arguing that the privatization of expertise undermines citizens’ capacity to evaluate policy choices meaningfully. Methodologically, the research combines qualitative analysis of consultancy-driven policy cases with insider insights from the expert network industry, highlighting structural risks such as conflicts of interest, regulatory gaps, and the commodification of expertise. Ultimately, the paper asks whether contemporary democracies can remain epistemically resilient when knowledge itself is increasingly intermediated by profit-oriented actors. It concludes by outlining normative and regulatory pathways aimed at restoring transparency, accountability, and democratic control over policy-relevant knowledge production.

The Erosion of Epistemic Trust: The True Danger of Misinformation for Democratic Quality

Ramon Ruiz Ruiz

University of Jaén

The transition from the traditional vertical communication model to a horizontal and multidirectional digital ecosystem has democratized access to information, but it has also facilitated the massive circulation of misinformation. This communication aims to analyze how the impact of fake news transcends the mere manipulation of electoral results to position itself in a deeper dimension: the crisis of epistemic trust among the citizenry.

The study argues that democracy requires not only formal institutions but also a robust deliberative infrastructure based on a shared factual framework. However, the online information frequently fosters cognitive biases, echo chambers, and affective polarization. This environment replaces rational debate with emotional «noise,» giving rise to the phenomenon of post-truth, where objective facts are subordinated to political identity and «tribal epistemologies» are consolidated. In this context, the intermediary role of traditional journalism is bypassed, leaving the public sphere vulnerable to algorithmic manipulation.

The fundamental danger for democratic systems lies in the destruction of epistemic interdependence. Democracy presupposes that citizens are capable of making informed decisions and, crucially, that their fellow citizens are rational interlocutors. When misinformation generates a widespread perception that truth is unattainable or that the «other» has been manipulated, the mutual trust necessary to grant moral legitimacy to laws and collective decisions is broken. This leads to a fragmentation of reality where common ground disappears.

I conclude that the current challenge is eminently epistemological: if consensus on the factual is lost, the citizenry may come to consider not only the result of a specific vote but the democratic system in its totality to be morally unjustified. Therefore, protecting democracy requires a structural reinforcement of the epistemic conditions that make public Reason possible in the digital age.

Digital Literacy as a Republican Virtue: Non-Domination and Epistemic Autonomy

Maria Sagmeister

University of Vienna

Contemporary democracies face a structural tension at the intersection of free speech, disinformation, and digital literacy. While freedom of expression remains a cornerstone of democracy, the digital public sphere – shaped by algorithms, micro-targeting, and orchestrated disinformation – profoundly alters the epistemic conditions under which citizens form political judgments. The central challenge is no longer only whether speech should be restricted, but how democratic societies can secure conditions, under which free speech contributes to, rather than undermines, epistemic autonomy.
This paper argues that addressing disinformation requires the liberal paradigm of free speech with a civic conception of digital literacy. Drawing on Philip Pettit’s theory of freedom as non-domination, it conceptualizes digital literacy as a republican civic virtue. As such, freedom is not merely the absence of interference, but the absence of arbitrary power. In digital environments, such power operates structurally and opaquely: platforms shape our attention, exploit cognitive biases, and steer public discourse. Disinformation thus threatens democracy not only through false content, but through relations of epistemic dependency that impair citizens’ capacity for autonomous judgment. Republican theory offers a framework for understanding this problem because it focuses on contestability and institutional safeguards against domination. Herein, digital literacy describes the facility to critical evaluate sources, the awareness of algorithmic mediation, and the commitment to shared public reasoning. These capacities are not purely private virtues; they depend on institutional conditions such as education, transparency, and participatory forms of oversight that render epistemic power accountable.
By framing digital literacy as a republican civic virtue, the paper bridges debates on free speech and democratic resilience. It shows that protecting freedom of expression and countering disinformation are not opposing goals. Instead, securing free speech in the digital age requires strengthening the epistemic autonomy of citizens.

Law and Technology: Four Free Speech Puzzles

Enrique Armijo

Elon University School of Law

Technological change does not merely introduce new tools; it destabilizes the legal assumptions that structure free speech doctrine. This talk, picking up on several themes raised by the contributions to the forthcoming book Hate Speech, Political Correctness, and “Cancel Culture,” examines four emerging puzzles at the intersection of law, technology, and democratic governance.
First, generative AI challenges foundational First Amendment categories: Who is the “speaker”—developer, user, or model? Should AI-generated outputs receive constitutional protection, and how can law address misinformation risks without collapsing into broad censorship? Second, social media platform immunity presents a structural tension: without immunity, platforms may over-censor; with it, harmful content can spread at scale. Third, growing evidence that social media may harm youth mental health has prompted proposals for age restrictions and bans, and many European countries have taken the lead in imposing such bans, raising difficult questions about minors’ speech rights, parental authority, privacy, and the constitutional limits of paternalism. Finally, legislation such as Canada’s Online News Act, Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code, and mandatory licensing negotiations promulgated by the EU highlight the struggle to fund journalism in digital markets: should platforms be required to compensate news organizations, and does compelled payment distort information flows?
Finally, across these puzzles lies a deeper concern about epistemic authority—who controls speech in AI-mediated environments, who bears responsibility for harms, and how democratic societies can preserve both expressive freedom and the conditions necessary for reliable public knowledge.

Ethical and Institutional Dimensions of Freedom of Speech: From Classical Approaches to the Challenges of the Information Society

Justyna Holocher

Urszula Kosielińska-Grabowska

University of the National Education Commission in Krakow

This paper provides a comprehensive theoretical and legal reflection on the essence of freedom of expression and its foundational role within the democratic system, particularly amidst the contemporary crisis of institutional trust and the phenomenon of information overload. The presentation reconstructs both classical—rooted in the liberal tradition of the «marketplace of ideas»—and modern interpretations of freedom of speech, analyzing its evolving social significance in a digitized public sphere.

A central component of the study is the analysis of the legal limits of expression established by Polish and European standards, notably the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights. Special emphasis is placed on the principle of proportionality and the criterion of democratic necessity as the primary dogmatic foundations for restricting expression to protect competing rights and public interests. The authors examine the complex procedure of balancing freedom of speech against other fundamental values, such as human dignity, the right to privacy, historical memory, and protection against the escalating threat of hate speech.

In response to the workshop’s focus on the digital age, the paper investigates the ethical and institutional guarantees of freedom of speech in an era where traditional gatekeepers have been replaced by algorithmic moderation. We argue that the current information environment requires a shift from purely prohibitive measures toward systemic resilience. By analyzing the «circulatory system» of self-government, the research identifies mechanisms for safeguarding public debate against radical polarization and weaponized disinformation. The ultimate objective is to propose a framework that maintains rigorous standards for the protection of individual rights while addressing the need for digital literacy and institutional transparency. This dual approach aims to preserve the integrity of democratic discourse without resorting to the «fast track to tyranny» often associated with overreaching censorship.

The Illusory Truth Machine: Generative AI, Repeated Exposure, and the Dissolution of Shared Democratic Reality

Dr. Saifuddin Ahmed

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Dr. Kokil Jaidka

National University of Singapore, Singapore

Classical liberal epistemology gave democratic theory a foundational assumption: that rational citizens, when presented with evidence, would converge on truth. Without a shared factual basis, the public sphere cannot sustain reasoned disagreement and instead becomes a domain of mutually irreconcilable claims. The philosophical danger is not merely that citizens may accept falsehoods; democratic publics have always contended with lies. Rather, the deeper problem is that the epistemic relationship between experience and reality is being structurally transformed. When AI-generated content saturates the information environment and algorithmic amplification ensures repeated exposure, the illusory truth effect no longer functions solely as an individual cognitive bias but becomes a systemic epistemic condition. Reality is no longer something citizens access imperfectly through media; it is, in a meaningful sense, produced through repetition. Drawing on cross-national evidence from multiple countries in Asia and the United States, this paper demonstrates that social media news use amplifies, rather than attenuates, illusory truth for synthetic media, thereby challenging the Millian defence of the open marketplace of ideas. More speech does not drive out falsehood; under conditions of algorithmic curation and generative AI, more speech can entrench it. What emerges is a democratic subject whose perception of reality is increasingly constituted by exposure patterns over which they have minimal control and little awareness. This is not the post-truth condition as commonly understood, a deliberate rejection of facts in favour of partisan identification, but something philosophically more troubling: a pre-reflective dissolution of the capacity to distinguish what is encountered from what is true. If repetition becomes a source of credibility, and if AI makes the repetition of fabrication functionally limitless, then the epistemic commons on which democratic deliberation depends does not merely become polluted; it becomes ontologically unstable. The paper concludes that democratic theory must reckon not only with disinformation as a problem of bad actors and insufficient literacy, but also with the possibility that the cognitive architecture of human belief formation is fundamentally mismatched to the informational environment that democracies have allowed to develop, a mismatch that no amount of individual critical thinking can, by itself, resolve. (347 words)

Challenges to Free Speech: Implications for Democracy and the Way Out

Susmita Sen Gupta

The history of human freedom reveals its fragility. Very few generations have lived under civil liberty and rule of law. As freedom of speech is granted by very few states, enjoyment of freedom of speech along with the right to dissent is an extraordinary human achievement. However, the mere fact that a state is governed by elected representatives of the people is no guarantee that basic human rights like freedom of speech will be respected. In fact, even in so called developed democracies, elected representatives have abolished freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

The Indian Constitution has a Chapter on Fundamental Rights which provides certain fundamental freedoms including the freedom of speech. At the same time, there are reasonable restrictions on grounds like defamation, indecency, violation of public morality, contempt of court, challenges to sovereignty and integrity of the state which may lead to curtailment of freedom of speech.

Apart from reasonable restrictions, the ruling dispensation may suppress dissent of any kind by invoking provisions under sedition. All these constitute challenges to freedom of speech even in a democracy. It may be argued that absence of the right to dissent and freedom of speech will lead to degeneration of democracy into an authoritarian regime. 

In view of the above, this research paper examines the ways through which freedom of speech can be protected as a fundamental right. In particular, the role of republican education in dissemination of democratic values to citizens is sought to be explored.

In Part I, the concept of freedom will be discussed briefly. Part II will focus on freedom of speech in the Indian Constitution. Part III will highlight the challenges to freedom of speech in India.  In Part IV, ways and means for protection of free speech will be explored.

How Should We Construct a Theory of Dissent? The Nuances and Reactions of Dissent at the Core of Fundamental Political Rights

Denis Halis

UNESA/Rio de Janeiro

This paper addresses how a theory of dissent can be constructed at the core of fundamental political rights within the contemporary digital environment. It argues that dissent should not be treated as a peripheral or derivative freedom, but as a foundational concept that gives substance to free speech, democratic participation, and the contestation of power. In the digital age, however, the conditions under which dissent operates have been profoundly transformed by the dynamics of disinformation and the fragmentation of the public sphere.

The paper begins from the premise that dissent is an inherently ambivalent and under-theorized concept, often conflated with disagreement, protest, or disruption. This conceptual ambiguity becomes particularly problematic in digital contexts, where the boundaries between legitimate dissent, misinformation, and disinformation are increasingly blurred. As a result, dissenting voices may be either unjustifiably suppressed in the name of combating falsehoods or strategically instrumentalized to amplify misleading or manipulative narratives.

To address this tension, the paper develops a framework centered on the nuances of dissent, emphasizing its multiple forms, motivations, and manifestations across legal and political contexts. In digital environments, dissent ranges from reasoned critique and whistleblowing to more ambiguous forms of contestation that may intersect with misinformation practices. Recognizing these nuances is essential to avoid reductive approaches that either romanticize dissent or dismiss it as inherently suspect.

Equally important are the reactions to dissent, which play a decisive role in shaping its legitimacy and impact. In the context of disinformation, reactions to dissent are often mediated by states, platforms, and publics, raising critical questions about who determines the boundaries between protected expression and harmful content. These reactions may include suppression, amplification, or algorithmic marginalization, each carrying significant implications for democratic deliberation and the protection of political minorities.

The paper argues that any robust theory of dissent in the digital age must be complemented by a commitment to digital literacy as a civic competence. Rather than relying on centralized authorities to arbitrate truth, democratic societies must equip citizens with the skills necessary to critically assess information and engage with dissent in a reflective and informed manner.

By integrating the nuances of dissent with the reactions it generates, this paper offers a framework for understanding dissent as a dynamic and indispensable component of democracy, capable of both sustaining and challenging the conditions of free and informed self-government.

CVs of the IVR workshop’s participants:

 Ricardo Gonçalves

He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institut für Philosophie, Freie Universität Berlin, with an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, and at CEBRAP – Brazilian Center of Analysis and Planning. He holds a PhD in Philosophy and Legal Theory from the University of São Paulo Faculty of Law, where he was awarded a full research scholarship by the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP). He has published papers and book chapters, with a particular focus on critical theory, the public sphere, theories of recognition, the crisis of democracy, normative orders, and multinormativity. 

Oscar Pérez de la Fuente

Associate Professor (accredited as Full Professor) of Philosophy of Law and Political Philosophy at Carlos III University in Madrid, Spain. He has written several books and articles on cultural diversity, human rights and judicial interpretation in specialised scientific journals. Coordinator of the Cultural Pluralism and Minorities Permanent Seminar.

Recent publications:

-Pérez de la Fuente, Oscar, Tsesis,Alexander, Skrzypczak, Jędrzej (eds.), Minorities, Free Speech and the Internet, Routledge, 2023;

-Jedrzej Skrzypczak, Oscar Pérez de la Fuente (eds.), Lessons for Implementing Human Rights from COVID-19. How the Pandemic Has Changed the World, Routledge, 2025;

-Pérez de la Fuente, Oscar, Skrzypczak, Jędrzej (eds.), Bridging the Digital Divide. Perspectives on Inequality and Discrimination in the Digital Age, Palgrave, 2025.

Alex Saltout

He is a PhD candidate in Advanced Human Rights at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He holds multiple postgraduate degrees in Public Administration, International Affairs, and European Law. His research focuses on democracy, expertise, consultancy power, and governance. He has published peer-reviewed articles and policy analyses on expert networks and international decision-making. Professionally, he has worked with global expert network and strategic intelligence firms supporting consultancies and public-sector clients. He regularly contributes to think tanks and academic conferences on governance, security, and democratic accountability.

Ramón Ruiz Ruiz

He is Professor of Philosophy of Law at the University of Jaén. His research focuses on three primary areas: civic republicanism, popular constitutionalism, and human rights. His scholarly contributions include approximately fifty publications, including four specialized monographs.

He has conducted research stays and served as a visiting professor at prestigious international institutions, such as Paris Nanterre University (Paris X), Cardozo School of Law, Harvard University, the University of Oxford, Sapienza University of Rome, the London School of Economics (LSE), and the University of York.

Professor Ruiz Ruiz has participated in numerous research projects, most notably the Consolider Ingenio 2010 «The Time of Rights» macro-project. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator (PI) for the University of Jaén group within the European project «Media Literacy for Democracy». In addition to supervising four PhD theses, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the international peer-reviewed journal The Age of Human Rights Journal.

Maria Sagmeister

She is a legal scholar and postdoctoral researcher at GAIN – Gender: Ambivalent In_Visibilities at the University of Vienna. Her research lies at the intersection of legal philosophy, legal gender studies, and labour law, with a particular focus on autonomy, care work, and structural inequality. She completed her PhD at the University of Vienna with a dissertation on the legal distribution of unpaid care work and is currently pursuing a habilitation project on the philosophical foundations of labour law regulation in private households. She has been a Post-Doc Track Fellow of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of Ars Iuris, and serves on the editorial board of the Austrian law journal juridikum. Her work contributes to contemporary debates on social justice, institutional power, and the normative foundations of democratic autonomy.

Enrique Armijo

Professor of Law, Elon University School of Law

Member, American Law Institute (since 2017)

Affiliated Fellow, Yale Law School Information Society Project

Faculty Affiliate, Center for Information, Technology, & Public Life at UNC-Chapel Hill

Some of his recent publications are:

ARTICLES

“The Right to an Audience” (with Ash Bhagwat), George Washington Law Review

94 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2026) 

“Lies, Counter-lies, and Disinformation in the Marketplace of Ideas”
Indiana Law Journal, 100 Ind. L.J. 193 (2024). Reprinted in the First Amendment Law Handbook, 2025 edition (Rodney Smolla, ed.)

“Speech Courts in Equity”, Iowa Law Review, 110 Iowa L. Rev. Online 139 (2025) (solicited Response)

“Section 230 as Civil Rights Statute”, University of Cincinnati Law Review, 92 Cin. L. Rev. 301 (2023)

Urszula Kosielińska-Grabowska

A legal scholar specializing in the theory and philosophy of law. She is an assistant professor at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow, where she serves as the Chair of the Department of Social Research, Forensic Methods, and Physics. She graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Białystok and completed her doctoral studies within the framework of the Europäisches Graduierten Kolleg (European Graduate College) at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University. She has also served as a visiting researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen.

Her research and scientific publications focus on Scandinavian legal realism, with a particular emphasis on Alf Ross’s legal philosophy, the theory of legislation, the lawmaking process, legal liability, and bioethics (transhumanism and human enhancement). Her key works include the monograph Teoretyczne ujęcie pewności prawa i jej rola w tworzeniu prawa (A Theoretical Approach to Legal Certainty and its Role in Lawmaking), as well as articles such as: Minority Report – Literary Fiction or the Future of Justice: Will Neuroscience Help Solve Criminological Problems?; Ross and Petrażycki on Legal Consciousness and Legal Politics; and Odpowiedzialność udoskonalonego lekarza (The Liability of the Enhanced Physician; co-authored with J. Holocher).

Justyna Holocher

A graduate of the Jagiellonian University (MA in Political Science, 2000; MA in Law, 2003) and of the School of German Law (2003) and the School of Austrian Law (2003). She obtained her PhD in Law from the European Doctoral College in 2009. She is currently a faculty member in the Department of Social Research, Forensic Methods, and Physics at the University of the National Education Commission in Krakow.Her research interests encompass theories of legal argumentation, bioethics, and constitutional law. She is the author of the monographs Juristische Topik: Erfindungs- und Begründungsperspektive and Viehweg, as well as dozens of articles addressing the rule of law and constitutional issues, including: The Political Nature of the Constitutional Review of Normative Acts in the Polish Legal System; The Concept of the Rule of Law in Contemporary Political and Legal Debate; and The Autonomy of Law in Relation to Politics .

Dr. Saifuddin Ahmed

Dr. Saifuddin Ahmed is an Associate Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore). His scholarship focuses on the ways social media platforms shape political perceptions, learning, and participation, particularly in relation to misinformation, deepfakes, and digital political communication. His recent research examines the cognitive and attitudinal effects of public engagement with AI-generated disinformation, with broader attention to how synthetic media and platformed information environments are transforming democratic opinion formation.

Dr. Kokil Jaidka

Dr. Kokil Jaidka is an Associate Professor of Computational Communication at the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a primary appointment in the Department of Communications and New Media and a joint appointment in the NUS Institute of Data Science (IDS). Her research advances the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to understand and improve human communication, with applications in political discourse, digital well-being, and online harms. She specializes in natural language processing, affective computing, and large-scale text analytics.

Susmita Sen Gupta

She is currently serving as Head and senior faculty in the Department of Political Science, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, India. Her specialization is- Indian Politics, Political Economy and Politics of North-East India. Her areas of interest are- nationality politics, politics of regionalism, ethnic politics, politics of pressure groups, radical politics, politics of social forces and so on. She has authored two books and co-edited a book. She has numerous research articles and book chapters on the aforesaid themes. She has attended several national and international seminars and conferences as keynote speaker or plenary speaker.

Denis De Castro Halis

He has over 26 years of experience in teaching postgraduate and undergraduate courses, conducting research, and engaging in university administration across multiple regions, including in the Caribbean (University of the West Indies, Barbados); Asia (particularly Greater China and the University of Macau); Brazil (where he taught at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, UNESA, and other institutions; coordinated research at two institutions; and supervised 10+ PhD and Master’s students); Europe (Denmark, as an External Associate Professor for the Centre for European, Comparative, and Constitutional Legal Studies of the University of Copenhagen); the USA (notably collaborating with the University of California – Santa Cruz under the international project “Global Classroom”); and Mozambique. He holds degrees in Law and Social Sciences, including two PhDs (in Law from UNESA/Rio de Janeiro, and Sociology from the University of Macau/Macau, China), a Master’s in Law and Sociology (UFF), a Postgraduate Course in Contemporary Philosophy (UERJ), a Postgraduate Course in Education (UERJ), a Bachelor’s in Law (UFRJ), and a Bachelor’s in Social Sciences (UERJ). He has also taught Legal Interpretation and Comparative Law courses for Brazilian judges and judiciary officials. His research interests lie at the intersection of law, philosophy, and social sciences.