Dependency, Defence, Democracy: the words that marked 2025

We have been dependent on services from big tech companies for some time, but 2025 was the year when many of us realised how vulnerable this makes us and our institutions, including academia.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has recently been denied access to its Microsoft account because Donald Trump ordered the company to do so as a retaliation for the conviction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But the ICC wasn’t just targeted as an institution: the French judge Nicolas Guillou was also denied access to several platforms as an individual, including Amazon, PayPal, and even non-US services that accept dollars.

The Distinguished UU Professor José van Dijck has been sounding the alarm for years. She is glad to see people finally paying more attention to the issue and switching to services like Signal and Mastodon, but warns that awareness is but a first step. In March, she and Professor Albert Meijer wrote an open letter calling on the UU Executive Board to address the security and privacy risks the university runs. If UU was denied access to Microsoft like the ICJ was, “all research and teaching would come to an immediate halt. We are losing control over our data.”

José van Dijck. Photo: Studio Oostrum, UU

She is glad the UU Executive Board welcomed the letter. “They share our concerns,” she says. But all 14 universities in the Netherlands face the same problem, so Van Dijck and Meijer also contacted peers. “They all have launched their own open letter initiatives,” she recollects. In October, representatives from all universities met to discuss the issue with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Dutch Research Council (NWO), and UNL, the umbrella organisation representing Dutch research universities. “It was the first time we converged our interests and concerns in this respect.” 

A proposal for a committee on digital independence was presented to UNL earlier this month. The committee will be chaired by Alexandra van Huffelen, President of Radboud University Nijmegen and former Minister of the Interior. “I’m now very much encouraged that universities will take their responsibilities to become less dependent on big tech,” says Van Dijck.

However, she has no illusions of complete independence. “We can’t do that, and it’s not what we’re aiming for.” The goal is to have “more diversity in our stacks of software and hardware.” In her view, we shouldn’t be dependent on any one brand or provider. Having more options, including interoperable open-source alternatives that allow data portability, would give us greater freedom of choice and, consequently, make us less vulnerable. 

“We’re a university, we shouldn’t simply be buying things off the shelf,” she argues. “We’re here to experiment and develop software that people could take outside and develop further.” This would also make the software more accessible and cheaper. “Suppose we’re spending two billion euros a year on Microsoft licenses. There’s a lot of stuff you could do for two billion.”

Developing alternatives takes time, though. How can we protect ourselves in the meantime? Van Dijck says that, over the next few months, the committee on digital independence will work on a list of actions universities could take. In her view, however, the cooperation should extend even beyond the Dutch academic landscape. “We need to look towards European cooperation.” After all, “Europe needs to become less dependent on American or Chinese big tech and grow towards a European model built on public values such as privacy, security, transparency, academic freedom, and democracy.”

José van Dijck’s reason to stay optimistic in 2026: “There are many initiatives at the local, national, and European levels that are picking up steam. I could be pessimistic and think: ‘Oh, this is a very complex innovation process. It’s never going to happen.’ But you have to start somewhere.”

In November, the Dutch government began sending a booklet titled "Prepare for an Emergency" to all 8.5 million households in the country. The third page of the brochure says: “Our freedom is under threat. There is currently no war in the Netherlands, but neither is there peace.” The population is being advised to stockpile enough emergency supplies to last for 72 hours. 

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Defence set up shop at Utrecht Central Station to advertise its vacancies. It aims to increase its personnel from 74,000 to 200,000, with a special focus on enlarging reservist capacity. The ministry’s recruitment efforts attracted many UU students. In September, the ministry’s annual budget was increased by 3.4 billion euros to 26.8 billion. The government refers to “the deteriorating security situation in the world” when justifying the increased spending.

The next cabinet is likely to continue on this route, with parties D66 and CDA proposing a fund to invest in the innovation of weapon systems in their proposed coalition agenda. Universities and research institutes would receive money from this fund to work with the ministry. 

Meanwhile, two universities of applied sciences have already partnered up with the ministry to develop a minor that would train students to become reservists in six months. Research universities are working on a “framework agreement” for joint research with the army.

Ismee Tames. Photo: UU

Ismee Tames, the newly-appointed Professor of War Cultures at UU, understands the safety concerns. “When the other has weapons and threatens or attacks you, that creates fear and triggers the impulse to also get weapons,” she says. However, she believes “it would be a mistake to think that weapons bring safety, as weapons bring the ability to use violence. To kill or be killed. Maybe you will survive by killing the other, maybe you won't. In any case, there won't be more safety. It will only be an armistice or 'cold war.’”

According to the professor, real safety would mean breaking out of that cycle. “The moment we resort to weapons, we must start thinking about how to make sure future generations will never get into the same situation we got ourselves in.” 

She stresses that defence does not have to be about weapons and violence. “It can also be understood as the skills to de-escalate a situation, design tools that help solve conflicts without violence, or create mechanisms that prevent power accumulation, for example.”

Ismee Tames’ reason to stay optimistic in 2026: “We have agency – 2026 is as good a year as any to start breaking the cycle of violence. Yes, it’s hard work. And no, you don't have any guarantees of success or reward. But imagine people in the year 2100 looking back at us now: what good things would you want them to see you contributing in the 2020s? So, go do those things.”

In 2025, we have seen how quickly democracies can slide into autocratic regimes, a phenomenon known in academia as democratic backsliding. According to the latest edition of V-Dem, a yearly report by the University of Gothemburg on the state of democracy in every country, almost all aspects of democracy are declining in more countries than they are improving, compared to ten years ago. Liberal democracies have become the least common type of regime in the world: only 29 countries could be described as such in 2024. The Netherlands is one of them.

Perhaps no country exemplified democratic backsliding in 2025 more than the United States, where, in the words of V-dem’s authors, “the scale of what is happening is unprecedented; (…) and seems to be the fastest evolving episode of autocratisation in the USA in modern history.” Trump has been using classic autocratising strategies, such as dismantling state institutions, expanding executive power, and starting offensives on counter-veiling institutions such as academia and the media. 

Earlier this year, DUB spoke with Annette Markham, Professor of Media Literacies & Public Engagement, about how the Trump administration is promoting a democratic backsliding in the US. Trump’s actions affect academic research everywhere, including right here at UU.

Though Dutch democracy is in better shape, that doesn’t mean there is no backsliding going on here. In fact, the 2025 V-Dem report mentions the Netherlands among the countries where they have identified “the first signs of worrisome trends.”

Marlies Honingh. Photo: Ed van Rijswijk, UU

Last March, Marlies Honingh was appointed Endowed Professor in Enacted Democracy at Utrecht University. In 2024, she, Carolien van Ham and others completed a study on democratic erosion in the Netherlands. They concluded that not only are formal institutions being undermined, but that democracy is deteriorating due to a failure to act in accordance with norms and a disregard for aspects of the rule of law.

“It’s not just about elections, formal institutions, rules and constitutional aspects,” she explains. “It’s also about behaviours and social norms. If you only look at The Hague, you’re missing a lot. We should keep a sharp eye on the behaviours we expect, accept, and do not accept.”

According to Honingh, activities that, at first glance, have nothing to do with democracy are actually crucial for its health. Housing associations, sports associations, collective gardens, grassroots movements and theatre groups, to name but a few, are all places where one can keep the flame of democracy alive. These activities teach us to listen to each other, make decisions together, find compromise, and follow instructions. They also show us that we don’t have to agree with someone’s point of view to understand where they are coming from.

What’s more, Honingh explains that participating in civil society “teaches us that we don’t always have the majority voice, but we should also be protected. We may all be vulnerable at a certain point. That’s the underlying idea of democracy. It’s not just about the majority view, it’s also about whether or not other people will treat you humanely.” 

In sum, “democracy is a way of living that requires a certain effort from all of us”. Honingh notes that filter bubbles may give us the impression of a world without friction, but we need friction to learn how to enact democracy. “Otherwise, we’re only behaving as consumers.” 

So, if you are still writing your list of New Year's resolutions, Honingh suggests joining a social activity that will provide you with an everyday democratic experience. 

Marlies Honingh’s reasons to stay optimistic in 2026: Honingh has not one, but two reasons to stay positive. The first one is that many individuals in the public eye, such as the mayor of Utrecht, are now more keen to call others out when they make anti-democratic statements. The second reason: all the small, local organisations that “regard public goods as public. It’s not a consumer good, it’s not yours or mine.”