Mainstreaming Accelerationism: Discourse, Ideology, and Techno-Futurism in a Comparative Perspective

Dr. Michaelangelo Anastasiou (DIGITS, University of Nicosia), Dr. Giorgos Charalambous (DIGITS, University of Nicosia) and Dr. Lazaros Karavasilis (University of Bremen) have been awarded the Gerda Henkel Foundation Scholarship (Funding Programme: Democracy) for a three-year research project that examines the mainstreaming of accelerationism in a comparative perspective.

The project investigates the rise of accelerationism—an emergent ideological constellation that fuses politics with techno-futurist imaginaries. Using comparative discourse, digital ethnographic and (social) media analysis across the U.S., U.K., and Germany, the study explores how accelerationist ideas critique liberal democracy, enable novel political alliances, and become mainstreamed. Key sources of analysis include foundational texts, as well as digital, social and mainstream media. By systematizing and analyzing how accelerationist ideas are constructed, iterated and circulated, the project maps processes of ideological cross-pollination between the various types of accelerationist currents, as well as between accelerationist and mainstream political ideologies, thus identifying the manner by which accelerationism moves from the fringes to the mainstream. By analyzing these emerging ideological trends that are, nonetheless, becoming increasingly politically prominent, the project fills a substantive empirical and theoretical gap in the literature and deduces associated societal and policy responses that inform and reinforce democratic resilience.