RAHEL SÜSS

DEMOCRATIC FUTURES  ↑

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What are we actually talking about when we talk about democracy today? The entire complexity of this question is revealed in the current hype surrounding democracy. Yet, while global technology companies willingly monitor our future in the name of democracy and authoritarian groups lament the loss of a national future, movements such as Fridays for Future and Open-Source advocate for a plurality of futures. They also emphasize that the future of democracy can only belong to a culture of democratic experimentation.

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EXPERIMENTAL DEMOCRACY  ↑

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This project unfolds a new paradigm of democracy that updates democratic politics for the era of digitization. I identify the threat to democracy in a technocratic experimental society that, with its vision of a fully predictable future, avoids politics at its core. From this central thesis, I develop a model of experimental democracy as a future-opening democracy. Such a framework responds to a narrow understanding of democracy in most liberal theories and shifts the focus from freedom to its mode of enactment, namely liberation.

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In the Sinneswandel podcast, I present key ideas of the project in conversation with Oliver Nachtwey.

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COLLECTIVE AGENCY  ↑

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Why, despite ongoing crises, do fundamental transformation projects fail to exert significant influence? How can agency be more precisely understood in the dynamic between power and resistance? The concept of collective agency is often ambiguously employed and necessitates clarification. To achieve this, the three pertinent schools of thought—critical psychology by Klaus Holzkamp, Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony, and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's radical democracy theory—are explored.

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DIGITAL DEMOCRACY  ↑

Democracy and new digital technologies are twin objects of deep, though ambivalent attachment in the contemporary liberal imagination. What, then, is “digital democracy”? My current research project explores two central questions: (1) How have liberal ideas shaped and limited the way we think of both democracy and digitalisation? (2) What might a radical democratic conception of both terms involve? I begin from the assumption that democracy lives not as a lofty abstraction but through its material forms: and ours is a digital age. In speaking of digital democracy, then, I argue that we must understand each term through the other. Liberals imagine digital technology through their understanding of democracy, and increasingly understand democracy through their encounter with technology. My claim is that when liberals imagine digital technologies as democratic, they obscure forms of power that constitute those technologies, in their ownership, design, and control. Therefore, we must ask the question: How might a radical alternative to liberalism understand both democracy and digitalisation differently, and use the encounter with each to reshape our understanding of both?

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THE POLITICS OF PROVOCATION  ↑

A vibrant democracy depends on a politics of provocation, challenging the notion that democracy is a static concept and instead embracing it as a dynamic process. This perspective diverges from the liberal belief that political power primarily operates through fair procedures aimed at rational problem-solving. Yet, to prevent democracy from becoming overly rational and focused on public – and more recently, algorithmic – reasoning, we need to reassess this premise. Overlooking the fact that democracy's openness stems not only from norms but also from ongoing questioning of its boundaries, we must recognize that binding democracy to future-opening action transforms it into more than just a tool for problem-solving; it becomes a practice of problematization. Consequently, democratic societies must continually generate new political agendas to address societal exclusions and explore previously overlooked alternatives. This requires seeing social norms as adaptable and questioning their assumed naturalness. In this context, a politics of provocation highlights the importance of fair procedures that ensure inclusion and influence in political decisions, but also the necessity for mechanisms to organize democratic and collective power.

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"ENGAGED LITERATURE"  ↑

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I founded and co-edited the international journal engagée for political and philosophical interventions. The title of the journal was inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre's concept of littérature engagée (en: engaged literature). engagée was an independent journal and project situated at the intersection of politics, philosophy, and art. Until 2022 the journal operated from London, Vienna, and Berlin. The project placed particular emphasis on addressing current political issues, disseminating critical analyses, and presenting theoretically informed interventions. Over the course of its tenure, we released ten issues and published one book. Additionally, we organized more than ten events, ranging from discussion rounds to performances and installations, held in cities such as London, Rome, Berlin, and Vienna. I also took on the responsibility for the design aspect of the project.

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