Drones and the Foundations of Political Authority
Schedule
Thu May 21 2026 at 05:15 pm to 06:30 pm
UTC+02:00Location
Campus Oerlikon, Binzmühlestrasse 14, 8050 Zürich, BIN 2.A.01 | Zurich, ZH
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Francis Cheneval, Gerhard Schwabe, and Mateusz Dolata jointly lead an SNF project on the topic of this talk. They examined how the use of automated or semi-automated drones by public executives, such as police forces and fire brigades, reshapes the understanding and exercise of public executives in democratic governance.
While drawing on state-of-the-art philosophical theories of authority and related concepts, the comparative case studies of police and fire brigade drone programs analysed how executive actors justify drone use, how organisational frameworks structure their deployment, and how affected publics perceive these practices.
The findings show that drones have the potential to increase the legitimacy of public authority by improving the epistemic quality as well as the efficiency in surveillance, search and rescue, and emergency response. At the same time, automated drones de-personalise the execution of authoritative behaviour and thereby raise fundamental questions about the connection of this behaviour to the sources of legitimate authority.
Speaker:
Francis Cheneval, University of Zurich, Political Philosophy
Gerhard Schwabe, University of Zurich, Information Management
Mateusz Dolata, Zeppelin University, Artificial Intelligence
This talk is part of the public IfI Colloquium series: https://www.ifi.uzh.ch/en/studies/phd/colloquium/spring-2026.html#Cheneval
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Where is it happening?
Campus Oerlikon, Binzmühlestrasse 14, 8050 Zürich, BIN 2.A.01, Binzmühlestrasse 14, 8050 Zürich, Schweiz, Zurich, SwitzerlandEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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