Anyone who wants to influence the future of the digital landscape must understand the diversity of normative forces. In a chapter of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Constitutionalism, Matthias C. Kettemann and Anna Sophia Tiedeke explore digital constitutionalism from the perspective of various normativities. These are the diverse rules, values, and organizing principles that shape the digital space. The authors encourage the critical development of constitutional theories in the digital age.
Starting with a brief historical overview of constitutionalism, the article discusses three central problems that continue to influence thinking about digital constitutional orders today: 1. Rigidity due to the transfer of concepts without context, 2. The mixing of description, analysis, and concept, and 3. The exclusionary effects of normative assumptions.
The two authors trace the roots of these problems to a remarkable silence on fundamental assumptions about law and normativity in the digital space. Given the profound diversity and plurality of digital normative systems, this reticence is no longer tenable.
Rather than relying on simple solutions, the article suggests viewing digital constitutionalism as an area of study focusing on the development of meta-norms between various normative systems. This could lead to new, productive approaches to questions of power and legitimate authority in digital spaces.
Kettemann, Matthias C; Tiedeke, Anna Sophia (2025): Normativities, Normative Orders, and Pluralism. In Giovanni De Gregorio (ed.), Oreste Pollicino (ed.), Peggy Valcke (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Digital Constitutionalism. Oxford: OUP. https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/58210/chapter-abstract/504137157?redirectedFrom=fulltext