In this thesis, I draw on a co-productionist reading of “soft law” as both an epistemic and normative governance device that reconciles imperatives to innovate for the public good with imperatives to protect it in politically legitimate ways. I investigate and compare the making of "soft law" instruments for the governance of emerging neuro-technologies in the US, EU, and OECD, and reveal considerable differences in the way political communities constitute norms and principles for the governance of emerging technologies.

Persistent disagreement is perhaps one of the defining features of modern liberal democracy. Disagreement, though, is not merely a philosophical nuisance, but a source of friction and conflict. The goal of this work is to inquire, whether we can conceive of a political order that might be judged superior to our current modus vivendi arrangements for settling conflict from a diverse set of normative standards or perspectives. In this essay we develop the concept of Polycentric Democracy.