EPoS Summer Summit 2026

Accelerating gepolitical and technological developments undermine societal cohesion and are undermining the cohesive development of democratic societies. This talk highlights how geopolitical tensions in the material world have exacerbated and create a tripartite global trading system with Europe being squeezed from both China and the United States in both the physical goods and the services domain. The tensions in the material world of global trade spill into the intangible economy where the pandemic along with (perceived) performative state capacity have highlighted significant deficiencies gaps that have shaped narratives that undermine the idea of shared collective governance. The talk draws on primariy research to characterize these tensions, highlights the observational equivalence of some directions that human development may take under two polar extreme forms of governance: US digital surveillance capitalism vis-a-vis Chinese state digital authoritarianism in the case of breakdown of commitment to cohesive societies. The talk charts a pathway forward for how democratic societies may be able to develop (more) resilient institutions and in the process depoliticise some contentious layers that are core to our present understanding of the functioning of representative democracy that, at the same time, may constitute a core weakness.  

Abstract: In recent years populism, propaganda, manipulation, and authoritarian thinking have started to jeopardize liberal democracy and the open societies. Rational, enlightened thinking appears to be in decline. The underlying causes are tangled, and the appropriate antidotes remain elusive. This lecture explores a phenomenon that has received little attention in current discourse, yet—as I contend—plays a significant role: the ascendancy of false epistemic authorities and the mechanics of their speech acts. In the first part, I propose a taxonomy of false authority, distinguishing between pseudo-authorities, fake-authorities, epistemic charlatans, and epistemic quacks. I then examine the rhetorical strategies they employ to cajole audiences into believing falsehoods.