Digital Democracy: Historical Legal and Normative Transatlantic Perspectives (Half-Term)

The seminar revisits fundamental normative issues at stake: why and how is democracy in need of a public sphere, and which rights and institutions are required to make a public sphere function well? We also examine seminal historical work and recent empirical work on the internet's effects on democracy. It engages in systematic comparisons of the US and Germany, which take fundamentally different approaches to the regulation of the web (especially free speech rules). Lastly, we examine existing laws and recent reform proposals on both sides of the Atlantic.