Digital Justice and the Socio-Economic Fabric: Localized Equity Practices Versus Global Techno-Governance
A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 December 2026 | Viewed by 2784
Special Issue Editors
Interests: public administration; public policy; data analysis; statistics; law
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: law; public administration; administration of justice; public policy; justice systems; digital justice
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: economics; public administration; delegation to independent agencies; regulation and regulatory capture
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Contemporary societies find themselves at a critical juncture where digital technologies fundamentally reshape the landscape of justice, equity, and socio-economic relations. This transformation has created unprecedented tensions between localized efforts to promote digital equity and the increasingly dominant paradigms of global techno-governance, generating complex challenges for both practitioners and scholars seeking to understand and navigate this evolving terrain.
Digital justice emerges as a critical framework for examining how technological systems either perpetuate or dismantle existing inequalities within the socio-economic fabric of communities. This concept encompasses not merely access to digital tools, but the broader questions of who controls digital infrastructure, how algorithmic decision-making affects marginalized populations, and whether technological solutions can meaningfully address systemic inequities. At its core, digital justice represents an extension of social justice principles into the digital realm, demanding that we interrogate power structures embedded within technological systems.
The tension between localized equity practices and global techno-governance reveals a fundamental paradox of our time. While communities develop grassroots initiatives, participatory technology design, and locally responsive digital inclusion programmes, they simultaneously operate within ecosystems dominated by transnational corporations, standardized platforms, and governance frameworks that often prioritize efficiency and scalability over equity and local autonomy. This creates a dynamic where well-intentioned local interventions may be constrained or undermined by broader structural forces beyond community control.
Recent scholarship and empirical evidence demonstrate the multidimensional nature of this challenge. Digital justice intersects with numerous domains including data sovereignty and privacy rights; algorithmic bias and automated decision-making; digital labor and platform economics; smart city governance and surveillance; financial technology and digital banking access; educational technology and the digital divide; healthcare digitization and telemedicine equity; civic participation and e-governance; artificial intelligence ethics and community involvement; and cybersecurity and digital rights protection.
This Special Issue seeks original, rigorous, and innovative contributions that grapple with these complexities, addressing the central question: how can localized equity practices effectively challenge, negotiate with, or transform global techno-governance structures to advance digital justice and strengthen the socio-economic fabric of communities?
Contributions have to follow one of the three categories of papers (article, conceptual paper or review) of the journal and address the topic of the Special Issue.
Dr. Pedro Miguel Alves Ribeiro Correia
Dr. Fabrício Castagna Lunardi
Dr. Adriano do Vale
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- digital justice
- digital equity
- techno-governance
- socio-economic fabric
- localized equity practices
- algorithmic bias
- digital divide
- data sovereignty
- platform economics
- smart cities
- digital rights
- community technology
- digital inclusion
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