At Post-X we don’t research for the sake of researching. We research to discover how it can be done instead: real progress towards a fair, equal and just society. For us, research serves the X: it exposes what holds us back, and it points the way to what comes next.
Every piece of research begins with the same question: what does this change do to power? Who decides, who gets a say, who wins, who loses? And we look at who is structurally on the wrong side of that distribution. Power and inequality belong together. That’s our second thread, and we set it out separately further down.
Our research agenda consists of three lenses, with future-proof-democracy as the underlying thread.
Post-reality
Main question: how do we give shape to cohesion, trust and accountability in a new way, in a reality that is becoming ever more artificial?
Post-reality doesn’t mean we’re trying to hold on to an old, shared reality. That ship has sailed. The question is how we learn to deal with the virtual and the artificial. Which new forms of connection, trust and responsibility belong here. Resilience is what matters, not nostalgia.
Sub-questions:
- What influence do virtual experiences have on democratic processes, such as public debate and elections?
- How do tech companies and their algorithms shape how we see the world?
- How can we hold the power of tech companies to account?
- What new institutions, processes and skills do people need to claim and protect their rights in virtual environments?
Ongoing initiatives: HEIO, AnsCheckt, the local resilience approach, the polarisation teaching pack.
Post-capitalism
Main question: how do we distribute value without exploitation and oppression?
An economy built on endless growth and enrichment harms us all. We’re looking for other ways of valuing things: for an economy in which value is distributed fairly, the damage to the planet counts, and no one is exploited or oppressed for someone else’s profit.
Sub-questions:
- How do we free sustainable organisations from the pressure to maximise profit?
- How do we make a new economic paradigm so appealing that everyone wants it?
- How do we use the mechanisms of capitalism to speed up the transition?
Ongoing initiative: Integral, our work on a model for a cooperative economy.
Post-tyranny
Main question: how do we build technology and infrastructure that we own and govern ourselves, so that power doesn’t shift to whoever runs the infrastructure?
Whoever runs your infrastructure has power over you. That’s why we research how we can build free, open alternatives that we own together, and how we can free people from today’s oppressive systems.
Sub-questions:
- How does a cooperative cloud and infrastructure model work in practice?
- How do you make switching easy enough that people actually do it?
- How do we use mesh networks for radically independent communication?
- How do you avoid trading one monopoly for another?
Ongoing initiatives: Vrije Cloud, MeshMedia.
Future-proof democracy
Main question: how do we distribute and check power, so that the democratic rule of law can withstand digital, market and political pressure?
Market power, technology power and state power are merging. Our democracy has to be able to withstand that. We research which institutions, rules and countervailing powers make that possible.
Sub-questions:
- Which institutions really protect our rights, and how do you design them?
- How do you measure the health of a democracy?
- What is the role of civil society, and how do you strengthen it?
Ongoing initiatives: Democratie Monitor, policy advice and briefings.
Running throughout: power and intersectionality
Our first question in every transition is what’s going on with power. Inequality is part of that. In everything, we pay attention to who is structurally disadvantaged, and to how different forms of inequality reinforce one another.
How we research
Our methods are set out on the Our methods page. In short: we monitor and look under the bonnet, we explore what’s coming with horizon scans (such as our report Onder Invloed on virtualisation), we build the alternatives and design better rules of the game. We work openly and participatively, and we share our methods and findings, so that others can build on them.
That’s how research never becomes an end in itself for us. It feeds what we build up, and it sharpens what we tear down.