From toleration to net neutrality: private threats to expressive freedom
This project considers non-state (i.e., “private”) threats to liberty as a central problem in the history and theory of expressive freedoms (free speech, freedom of thought, religious toleration…). It challenges the idea that these freedoms are merely negative rights against state interference.
First, it explores how early modern canonical thinkers saw private power —churches, feudal lords, trade monopolies… —as a danger to expressive and intellectual freedoms. Second, it argues that addressing contemporary challenges concerning mass communication, such as media and telecom infrastructure monopolies or powerful digital platforms, aligns with these early modern arguments.
In short, “From toleration to net neutrality” looks for the normative foundations of contemporary media policy in historical sources too often dismissed or celebrated as merely “libertarian” — and therefore ostensibly uninteresting to deal with free speech problems other than the state censorship. Outputs include a multilingual outreach article, a scientific article, and a book proposal.
Main Research Topics
- Freedom of Expression
- Media Policy
- Republicanism
- Private Power
- Intellectual History
Curriculum Vitae
- 2023-2025. Substitute lecturer. Faculty of Information and Audiovisual Media, Universitat de Barcelona.
- 2021-currently. Co-director of postgraduate diploma “Analysis of Contemporary Capitalism” (16 ECTS), Universitat de Barcelona
- 2019-2024 PhD candidate (Sociology and Philosophy), Universitat de Barcelona and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Publications and Presentations
- Guerrero, D. (2024). “You are a bad boy to keep sending me pretty books”: Harold Laski, Justice Holmes, and the origins of free speech as a “marketplace of ideas.” Intellectual History Review. OnlineFirst.
- Guerrero, D. (2024). Structural domination, neorepublicanism and the return of liberal state overreach. Journal of Political Power, 17(2), 188-207.
- Guerrero, D. (2024). Contracultura y economía política de la comunicación. Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas, 27(2), 133-143.
- Guerrero, D., & Pérez-Fernández, A. (2024). Rosa Luxemburg as a Republican Agitator: Shaping Social Democracy in Imperial Germany. In F. Jacob (Ed.), Rosa Luxemburg: Periphery and Perception (pp. 207-239). Büchner.
- Guerrero, D., & Martínez-Cava, J. (2022). Between tyranny and self-interest: Why neorepublicanism disregards natural rights. Theoria. A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 69(171), 140-171.
