Democracy is often celebrated for openness, pluralism and contestation, yet these same qualities expose democratic systems to instability, manipulation and escalating threat perceptions. Contemporary democracies must remain open to dissent and difference while also protecting institutions, rights and public order under pressures such as war, pandemics, disinformation, migration shocks, climate stress, technological disruption and economic insecurity. This tension is not a temporary malfunction but a structural paradox of democratic governance.
This special issue invites contributions that examine democracy as a complex, self-referential and adaptive system. Anchored in cybernetics, systems theory and complexity-informed governance research, the issue explores how democratic institutions, organisations, media environments and publics observe, interpret, communicate and respond to threat. It is especially interested in second-order perspectives that move beyond linear cause-and-effect explanations and instead analyse feedback loops, recursive communication, boundary drawing, non-linearity and the unintended consequences of intervention.
The issue seeks to bring into a single conversation literatures that are too often separated: democratic theory, governance and public administration, securitisation and threat studies, organisation studies, communication and media research, information systems and resilience thinking. We welcome conceptual papers, theory-led empirical studies and methodological contributions that illuminate paradoxes such as liberty/security, inclusion/exclusion, transparency/control and stability/change. Contributions may focus on political institutions, public organisations, digital platforms, civil society, education systems, critical infrastructures or cross-sector governance arrangements.
A central objective is to develop a richer systems-theoretical vocabulary for understanding democratic resilience. Rather than treating resilience as mere recovery or adaptation, the issue encourages work that examines how democratic systems learn, re-code threat, preserve legitimacy and reorganise decision making without hollowing out pluralism or normalising exceptionalism.
The special issue is particularly suited to Kybernetes because it foregrounds organised complexity, second-order cybernetics and theory-driven inquiry. By connecting cybernetic reasoning to urgent challenges of democratic governance, the issue seeks to generate intellectually ambitious and practically relevant scholarship for an era of cascading crises.
List of Topic Areas
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Democracy as a self-referential and paradoxical system
- Democratic resilience, backsliding, institutional learning and adaptation
- Securitisation, threat construction, emergency politics and exceptional measures
- Disinformation, AI, digital platforms and democratic communication
- Migration, protest, border governance and inclusion/exclusion dynamics
- War, pandemics, climate stress and economic shocks as coupled crises
- Public administration, critical infrastructures and cross-sector governance
- Multilevel governance, polycentric coordination and state-business-civil society relations
- Formal and methodological innovations, including systems mapping, simulations, network analysis and truth tables
- Normative and design implications for reflexive, resilient and trustworthy democratic governance
Submissions Information
We welcome conceptual papers, theory-led empirical studies and methodological contributions that advance cybernetic and systems-theoretical understandings of democracy, threat and resilience. Multidisciplinary and cross-sector submissions are especially encouraged. This special issue aligns most closely with Emerald’s Fairer society goal and contributes particularly to UN SDGs 10, 11 and 16.
For pre-submission enquiries, please contact Mehmet Recai Uygur (mehmet.uygur@kolegija.lt), copying Eglė Celiešienė (egle.celiesiene@kolegija.lt) and Sami Çoksan (scoksan@uwo.ca).
Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available at: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/kyb
Author guidelines must be strictly followed. Please see: https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/k#jlp_author_guidelines
Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.
Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.
Journal Information: Scopus Journal Q1, H-Index 59
Key Deadlines
Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 01/05/2026
Closing date for manuscripts submission: 31/12/2026
Full papers must be submitted via ScholarOne. Pre-submission enquiries may be sent to mehmet.uygur@kolegija.lt (cc: egle.celiesiene@kolegija.lt; scoksan@uwo.ca).
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