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Drawing on the work of Niklas Luhmann, the paper argues that technology can be viewed as a self-referential system which is autonomous from both human beings and other function systems of society. The paper aims to develop a philosophy of technology from the work of Niklas Luhmann. To achieve this aim, it draws upon the systems-theory work of Jacques Ellul, a philosopher of technology who focuses on the autonomous potential of technological evolution.

The paper draws on the work of Niklas Luhmann and Jacques Ellul to explore the theme of autonomous technology and what this means for our thinking about technological issues in the twenty-first century. Insights from these two thinkers and researchers working in the Luhmannian sociological tradition are applied to remote work.

The sociological approach of Luhmann, coupled with Ellul's insights into the autonomous nature of technology, can help us develop a systems theory of technology which takes seriously its irreducibility to human functions.

The paper contributes to the growing sociological literature that thematizes the Luhmannian approach to technology, helping us better understand this phenomenon and think in new ways about what technological autonomy means.

The paper brings together the work of Luhmann, Ellul and contemporary researchers to advance a new understanding of technology and technological communication.

The purpose of this study is to identify global trends in disruptive technological change and map the social and policy implications, particularly as they relate to the educational ecosystem and main stakeholders across all levels of education.

The authors conducted a two-stage meta-analysis of 1,155 scholarly, peer-reviewed articles. The investigation involves a systematized literature review for data identification and collation adhering to defined selection criteria, and a network analysis to scrutinize data, consolidate information and unveil correlations and patterns from the literature review to produce a set of recommendations.

The study unveiled educational trends related to disruptive technologies and delineated four principal clusters representing how these technologies are transforming the education ecosystem. Additionally, a series of transversal aspects that reveal a societal vulnerability toward future prospects in the realms of ethics, sustainability, resilience, security, and policy were identified.

The findings spotlight an enlarging chasm between industry (and society at large) and conventional education, where many transformations triggered by disruptive technologies remain absent from teaching and learning systems. The study further offers recommendations and envisions potential scenarios, urging stakeholders to respond based on their positions concerning disruptive technologies.

Expanding from the meta-analysis of pertinent literature, this paper offers four collections of curated resources, four mini case studies and four scenarios for policymakers and local communities to consider, enabling them to plot courses for their optimal futures.

This study aims to identify the challenges faced by urban destinations in Spain in the current transitional stage towards a new reality of tourism, caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 and the ongoing global changes in the tourism industry.

An extensive literature review and an analysis of current debates were conducted to identify the different factors that have influenced the recent tourism phenomenon and the development of destinations on a global, regional-national and local-urban scale.

Four main challenges are identified, including the new mobility patterns of the population; information and communication technologies and the digitalisation process in urban and tourism management; sustainability, as a factor of the competitiveness, stability and viability of urban destinations; and governance in urban destinations.

The study’s findings provide valuable insights for urban destination managers to make informed decisions and adapt to the new reality of tourism.

This chapter explores if alternative participatory co-creation approaches have the potential for deploying an emancipatory urbanism that is able to contest the urban dynamics of (digital) capitalism. It does so by focusing on the Barcelona case. Barcelona fully embraced a “smart citizen” approach in 2011 to become a European referent in smart urban strategies. However, in 2015, with the arrival of a new municipal government, Barcelona has situated itself contesting the “smart city” and at the forefront of alternative possibilities with its “technological sovereignty” strategy. This shift aims to remake the smart city agenda for citizens through the advancement of the right to information and guarantees to open, transparent, and participatory decision-making through new digital and platform technologies. The chapter argues, first, that “technological sovereignty” has been instrumental in re-politicizing the notions of (smart) citizenship and technology, deploying initiatives aimed at regaining public control on data and citizens participating in policy-making. Second, Barcelona’s technological sovereignty strategy, though framed as locally and bottom-up, is based on a global comprehension and diagnosis of the global dynamics of digital capitalism. However, sometimes, there still remains an over-optimistic stance concerning digital technology. Thus, for any alternative to the neoliberal smart city, it is necessary to decenter the debate from the technologies themselves or the local, and recognize that any emancipatory strategy is also about acknowledging that technology-led solutions are not autonomous of broader relations of production and complex political economy geographies.

Insofar as the digital layer cannot be detached from the current democratic challenges of the 21st century including neoliberalism, scales, civic engagement and action research-driven co-production methodologies; this chapter advances trends, aftermaths and emancipatory strategies for the post-pandemic technopolitical democracies. Consequently, it suggests a democratic toolbox encompassing four intertwined trends, aftermaths and emancipations including (1) the context characterised by the algorithmic nations, (2) challenges stemming from data sovereignty, (3) mobilisation seen from the digital rights perspective and (4) grassroots innovation embodied through data co-operatives. This chapter elucidates that in the absence of coordinated and interdependent strategies to claim digital rights and data sovereignty by algorithmic nations, on the one hand, Big Tech data-opolies, and on the other hand, the GDPR led by the European Commission might bound (negatively) and expand (positively), respectively, algorithmic nations' capacity to mitigate the negative side effects of the algorithmic disruption in Western democracies.

This chapter develops a conceptual taxonomy of five emerging digital citizenship regimes: (1) the globalised and generalisable regime called pandemic citizenship that clarifies how post-COVID-19 datafication processes have amplified the emergence of four intertwined, non-mutually exclusive and non-generalisable new technopoliticalised and city-regionalised digital citizenship regimes in certain European nation-states’ urban areas; (2) algorithmic citizenship, which is driven by blockchain and has allowed the implementation of an e-Residency programme in Tallinn; (3) liquid citizenship, driven by dataism – the deterministic ideology of big data – and contested through claims for digital rights in Barcelona and Amsterdam; (4) metropolitan citizenship, as revindicated in reaction to Brexit and reshuffled through data co-operatives in Cardiff; and (5) stateless citizenship, driven by devolution and reinvigorated through data sovereignty in Barcelona, Glasgow and Bilbao. This chapter challenges the existing interpretation of how these emerging digital citizenship regimes together are ubiquitously rescaling the associated spaces/practices of European nation-states.

This study aims to define a “technological statecraft” concept to distinguish tech-based measures/sanctions from an array of economic measures ranging from restrictions of rare earth elements and natural gas supplies to asset freezes under the wider portfolio of economic statecraft. This concept is practically intended to reveal the USA’s “logic of choice” in its employment of technology as an efficient instrument to deal with China in the context of the great power rivalry.

This study follows David A. Baldwin’s statecraft definition and conceptualization methodology, which relies on “means” rather than “ends.” In addition to Baldwin and as an incremental contribution to his economic statecraft analysis, this study also combines national political economy with statecraft analysis with a particular focus on the utilization of technological measures against China during the Trump administration.

The US rationale for choosing technology, namely, emerging and foundational technologies, in its rivalry against China is caused at least by two factors: the nature of the external challenge and the characteristics of the US innovation model based largely on radical innovations. To deal with China, the USA practically distinguished the role of advanced technology and followed a grammer of technological statecraft as depicted in the promulgated legal texts during the Trump administration.

Despite a growing volume of literature on economic statecraft and technological competition, studies focusing on countries’ “logic of choice” with regard to why and under what conditions they choose financial, technological or commodity-based sanctions/measures/controls are lacking. Inspired from Baldwin’s account on the “logic of choice” from among alternative statecrafts (i.e. diplomacy, military, economic statecraft, and propaganda). This study will contribute to the literature with a clear lens to demonstrate the “logic of choice” from among a variety of economic statecraft measures in the case of the US technological statecraft toward China.

This chapter elucidates how digital citizenship regimes may be rescaling nation-states. In order to shed light on this phenomenon, the chapter introduces and answers three main research questions to unfold the content of this book as follows: (1) How will nation-states in Europe evolve in the aftermath of the emerging digital citizenship regimes? (2) Against the backdrop of the COVID-19, will the urban age reconfigure the technopolitics of European nation-states through new digital citizenship regimes (Moisio, 2018)? (3) And ultimately, will Europe evolve towards a post-national technopolity from a platform of established nation-states headed for a city-regionalised federal network of nations determined voluntarily and democratically through blockchain (Bauböck & Orgad, 2019; Calzada, 2018a, 2022; Calzada & Bustard, 2022; De Filippi & Lavayssiére, 2020; De Filippi, Mann, & Reijers, 2020; Keating, 2017; Keating, Jordana, Marx, & Wouters, 2019; Orgad & Bauböck, 2018)?

For the past two years the Science Council of Canada has been engaged in a broadly‐based study of Canadian manufacturing industry. The Council sensed along with other institutions, that our industries in the seventies are suffering from numerous maladies only some of which are caused by world recession and other recent economic circumstances. As befits its mandate, a great deal of attention has been paid to the technological component of our industrial difficulties. The Science Council is presently studying policy initiatives appropriate to the creation of a more viable manufacturing base. Sufficient research has been completed to give some broad indications of the conclusions being reached on the nature and causes of our industrial dilemma, and of the type of policy response which the Science Council believes is essential to redirect manufacturing towards viability.