By now, we are familiar with the weekly news stories about tech companies messing up; from algorithms that amplify hate speech to unscrupulous data-harvesting companies which seem impossible to halt. According to Jamie Susskind, these problems are the result of a systemic failure of governance.
In his first book, ‘Future Politics’, Susskind examined how political debate is being reshaped by the powerful digital systems that increasingly control our lives. With ‘The Digital Republic: On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century’ (Bloomsbury, ISBN 9781526625489, £25), he proposes a framework for governance better equipped for holding these powerful actors to account.
To do so, Susskind draws on the concept of republicanism – not as it is commonly discussed in the UK or the US, but in the classical sense of the word. To be a republican is to oppose social structures that enable groups to hold and exercise unaccountable power (domination) over others; not...