Calls for papers

Mounia Bennani-Chraïbi, Youssef El-Chazli, and Olivier Fillieule (CRAPUL/IEPHI, University of Lausanne)

(Click here to see this call for papers as PDF)

New Deadline for submission of proposals for papers: February 15, 2016

The 2011 cycle of mobilization triggered a frenetic wave of academic activity, and calls from all directions to “renew”, “revisit”, and “reframe” the debates, and to launch “new” research agendas. On this occasion, attempts at de-compartmentalizing (between anthropology, social movement theories, the study of democratic transitions, political economy, socio-history, etc.) were proposed to better understand these events. Yet, despite all these aspirations to create a dialogue between these different literatures, the individual level has been rather neglected: individual actors are sometimes subsumed, reduced to archetypes or dissolved in social categories (“youth,” ”women,” “workers,” etc.), and, at times, merely invoked by way of example. Furthermore, the invitation to take macro, meso and micro scales into account in an interactive and process-oriented perspective rarely goes beyond a declamatory or prescriptive stage.

The goal of this conference is to bring together approximately twenty-five researchers from diverse scholarly and disciplinary backgrounds, working in different geographical and cultural contexts, to address the following question: how do individuals experience political events? The concept of a political event is “elusive” due to “its symbolic plasticity, its historical elasticity, and the weight of its subjective dimension” (Ihl, 2002, p. 138). In this symposium, we will focus on events which turn to be “transformative” after they happen (Sewell, 1996), which offer occasions for political socialization “through direct contact with a collective dynamic” (protest mobilization, revolution, and civil war (Ihl, 2002, p. 138).

Employing dense empirical data (direct observation, interviews, digital traces, life calendars, etc.), as well as longitudinal studies, the goal is to examine these experiences from two particular angles:

• The modalities in which individuals encounter the political event and deal with it, as well as the issue of the move to action; and
• The ways in which actors experience the event.

Such an investigation is at the juncture of two approaches:

• An “eventful” perspective, centred on the event, at the heart of the sociology of political crises, the process-oriented approaches of historians, such as Sewell and Tackett (1997), and the debate about biographical ruptures, bifurcations and turning points generated by direct participation in political events (Fillieule, 2001; and Bessin et al. 2009).
• An analysis based on the individual level, but a historicized individual, an individual acted upon, acting and interacting; which leads to question a number of issues and literatures:
  • The actors’ predispositions, accumulated biographical experiences and pre-existing social links;
  • The move to action and its determinants, from the perspective of studies on rational choice, the cultural turn in social movements studies and the integration of emotions (Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta, 2001; Traïni, 2009; Sommier, 2010; Van Stekelenburg, Klandermans, 2013; Latté, 2015; Bernard, 2015, etc.).
  • The experience of the event itself, the “emotions” it entails, issues of sociability, learning, experimentation in situ, and direct consequences of participation.

Four caveats:

1) Focussing on individual experiences does not exclude consideration of dimensions raised by Stéphane Latté in terms of the role of emotions during mobilization: “their collective character (a joint production rather than an individual creation), established (produced by inherited constraints associated with the role, observed and adapted), reflexive (with the actors as aware as the observers of the constraints and opportunities of various emotional registers) and relational (the meaning and weight of emotional prescriptions varying from one social configuration to another, from one context of mobilization to another)” (Latté, 2015).

2) While focussing on the political event, it is important, on one hand, to think of different modes and forms of politicization simultaneously and in terms of their connections and, on the other hand, to understand their entanglements with other spheres of existence.

3) In a group dynamic approach, it is a matter of considering the plurality of individual actors who participate differentially in the event (for example, protestors, members of security forces, spectators, etc.), with particular attention to their interactions, both nonviolent and violent.

4) Finally, one of the issues to be addressed by this conference is the promotion of “deep-rooted” comparativism, both in the disciplinary debates and in the field. This would encourage the provision of more detailed descriptions, an attention to vernacular vocabularies, and clarification of any methodological issues.

The papers presented will be based only on empirical investigations in various protest and political arenas. Interdisciplinarity and longitudinal studies combining a number of methods would be especially welcome.

Proposals should be between 3,500 and 4,000 characters, spaces included, may be written in French or English, in the form of an abstract describing the issue and the researched field, as well as a selected bibliography. Funding for travelling and accommodation expenses shall be provided. The abstracts should be sent to: mounia.bennani@unil.ch, olivier.fillieule@unil.ch and youssef.elchazli@unil.ch.

Key Dates

– Call for papers: December 2, 2015

– New Deadline for submission of proposals for papers: February 15, 2016

– Deadline for submission of papers: July 15, 2016

References:

Bernard, Julien (eds.), “Emotion/Emotions”, Terrains/Théories [on line], 2 | 2015, https://teth.revues.org/194

Bessin, Marc, et al., (ed.), Bifurcations, Paris, La Découverte, 2009, pp. 23?35.

Latté, Stéphane, “Des ‘mouvements émotionnels’ à la mobilisation des émotions”, Terrains/Théories [On line], 2 | 2015.

Fillieule, Olivier, “Post scriptum?: Propositions pour une analyse processuelle de l’engagement individuel”, Revue française de science politique, 51(1), 2001, pp. 199?215.

Ihl, Olivier, “Socialisation et événements politiques”, Revue française de science politique 52 (2-3), 2002, pp. 125?44.

Goodwin, Jeff, Jasper James M., and Polletta, Francesca, Passionate Politics. Emotions and Social Movements, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2001.

Van Stekelenburg, Jacquelien, and Klandermans, Bert, “The Social Psychology of Protest”, Current Sociology, 61(5-6), 2013, pp. 886?905.

Sommier, Isabelle, “Les états affectifs ou la dimension affectuelle des mouvements sociaux”, Penser les mouvements sociaux, Paris, La Découverte, 2010, p. 185?202.

Sewell, William Jr., “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille”, Theory and Society, 25(6), 1996, p. 841-881.

Tackett, Timothy, Par la volonté du peuple. Comment les députés de 1789 sont devenus révolutionnaires, Paris, Albin Michel, 1997.

Traïni, Christophe (ed.), Emotions… Mobilisation, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2009.

Panel at the European Sociological Association Conference, Prague, 25-28 August 2015

The panel is part of the Social movement research network session, with many other movement related panels. More information on all the panels and on how to submit a paper here http://www.esa12thconference.eu/rn25-social-movements

Social movements and corporations in the global South

Chairs

Philip Balsiger, Graduate Center, City University New York, philip.balsiger@gmail.com

Maria-Therese Gustaffson, Stockholm University, maria-therese.gustafsson@statsvet.su.se

Corporations are powerful players in a world of deregulation and economic globalization. In recent years, there has been a growing scholarly interest in studying interactions between social movements and corporations. So far, this literature has overwhelmingly focused on activists opposing corporations in Western countries. Yet many conflicts between corporations and social movement organizations or civil society groups take place in the ‘global South’. While scholars from a variety of disciplines do study such conflicts, they are rarely linked to the debates raised within the Western-centric study of movement-corporate interactions. In producing countries conditions differ in important ways: conflicts take place further down in the supply chains, the inequality of resources between activist challengers and companies is likely to be higher, political-institutional contexts vary greatly. For this panel we welcome empirical studies that address the following questions: How does corporations’ involvement in social service provision and/or the relationship between the state and corporations affect the relationship between corporations and movements? How are movement-corporate interactions related to the global inequalities of capitalism and reflected in in framing processes? How do the complex relationships between transnational advocacy groups and national/local organizations shape movement-corporate interactions? And how, on the opposite side, does the integration of firms in global supply chains constrain corporate responses? By addressing these issues the panel seeks to cross-fertilize studies on Western and non-Western contexts and contribute to develop the theoretical frameworks used to analyze interactions between movements and corporations.

Call for Papers  University of Portsmouth April 16-18, 2015  Narrating European Integration: Actors and Stories in Politics, Academia and Cultural Institutions  Deadline: June 15, 2014 Contact: Professor Wolfram Kaiser, University of Portsmouth, Wolfram.Kaiser@port.ac.uk

Academics, politicians and cultural institutions develop and tell ‘stories’ about European integration. They can present European integration as a peace project or as the creation of a group of ‘founding fathers’; or, in various counter-narratives, as a bureaucratic monster that serves capitalist interests or seeks to destroy proud consolidated nation-states. Such stories seek to explain integration as a ‘process’, to legitimize (or call into question) the European Union, its institutions and policies or to describe, critically evaluate and contextualize the present-day EU for citizens who visit museums or watch films, for example. The resulting narratives of European integration can be explicit or implicit. They can have a strong teleological, or even theological, thrust, including narratives opposing European integration, membership or further integration, or they can be more open to pluralist interpretations of post-war European history and contemporary EU politics. They constitute, in any case, a formidable weapon in controversies over European integration, its spatial scope, political finality and policy objectives. Equivalent narratives have, in the past, played a crucial role in imagining nations and their histories, and in forming and legitimizing new states in Europe. They also rely heavily on broader categories such as Christianity, modernity, civilization or the West – possible parallels with the present-day EU which help explain the emphasis on, and increasingly fierce opposition to, narratives of European integration with strongly positive normative connotations. This trans-disciplinary conference seeks to explore actors in three key fields, politics, academia, and culture, and their narratives of European integration. Participants can discuss different political actors such as EU institutions, political parties or social movements; academic disciplines; or cultural institutions such as museums or film festivals. They can also cover different time-periods during the twentieth century up to the present-day. They may employ a variety of methods used in the humanities and/or social sciences. However all papers, whether they examine particular regions or Europe as a whole, should have a transnational scope in analyzing actors and narratives. We are not interested in papers on e.g. ‘Swiss narratives’ of European integration. Moreover, all papers should adopt a dual focus with a view to a possible collective publication: they need to address, in a first section, the actors who produce, disseminate and propagate narratives of European integration including e.g. institutions, individual entrepreneurs or networks; and, in a second section, the narrative(s) that these actors develop and propagate. The conference is organized jointly by Wolfram Kaiser, Professor of European Studies, and Marie Curie Fellow Richard McMahon. Prof. Kaiser works on networks and narratives of European integration promoted by EU institutions and in history museums and exhibitions (see e.g., with S. Krankenhagen and K. Poehls, Exhibiting Europe in Museums. Transnational Networks, Collections, Narratives and Representations, Berghahn 2014). Dr. McMahon conducts research into evolving narratives in the academic field of European Studies . The conference forms part of the activities of the ‘Transnational Europe’ research cluster co-led by Wolfram Kaiser, within the Centre of European and International Studies Research (CEISR) at the University of Portsmouth, UK. The conference is funded by the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence for the Study of Transnational Europe, which is linked to CEISR and will cover accommodation for two nights and reasonable travel costs. The deadline for paper proposals is 15 June 2014. Please send your proposal (short CV and an abstract in English of no more than 300 words) to both Wolfram Kaiser at Wolfram.Kaiser@port.ac.ukand Richard McMahon at rychumac@yahoo.com

Partecipazione e conflitto 

Call for paper for a special issue on:

BETWEEN RESILIENCE AND RESISTANCE: GRASSROOTS (ECONOMIC) ACTIVISM IN TIMES OF CRISIS

Guest Editors:

Giacomo D’Alisa, Institute of Science and Environmental Technologies (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Francesca Forno, University of Bergamo

Simon Maurano, University of Bergamo

Abstract:

Looking at the history of social movements, we may identify periods during which these actors have prevalently opposed the dominant power structure directly by using protest actions (i.e. conflicting and resisting the dominant socio-economic structure), and periods in which movements have prevalently proposed and sustained forms of self-help and self-production – mutualism, economic cooperativism – i.e. developing their resilience through commoning.

Like in the past, the mobilizing capacity of social movements to this day is conditioned by the environment within which these actors operate. The degree of openness/closedness of political, economic and cultural opportunities not only affects the action strategies adopted by these collective actors, but also their organizational structure.

In the current economic crisis, social movements simultaneously face two types of challenge: firstly, they are confronting institutions which are less able (or willing) to mediate new demands for social justice and equity from various sectors of society in the wake of the successful neo-liberal attack on the social welfare system and the consequent retreat of the state; secondly, giving the highly individualized structure of contemporary society, they also experiencing difficulties in building strong and lasting bonds of solidarity and cooperation among people, bonds which constitute a fundamental resource for collective action.

It is in this context that potentially huge protest waves are in fact often short-lived, and it is here that we see the rise and consolidation of new mutualistic and cooperative experiences within which (like in the past) new ties for collective action are created. Apart from spectacular events given special attention by the media, over recent decades it has in fact been at the local level in particular that social movements have continued to expand, promoting community-led initiatives for social and economic sustainability, which in some cases have played a decisive role in the fight against poverty and in defending human and environmental rights.

Such organizations include those promoting solidarity-based exchanges and networks, barter groups, new consumer-producer cooperatives, time banks, microfinance, local savings groups, ethical banks, alternative social currency, citizens’ self-help groups, pro-sumption practices, solidarity purchasing groups, social enterprises, fair trade, and others communing practices.

Grassroots economic activism sprang up during the economic crisis in Argentina and other Latin American regions. Similar initiatives also developed in Europe before and after the 2008 crisis – e.g. the flourishing of local currencies and barter networks in Greece and Spain; the Plataforma contra los Desahaucios and the citizens’ assemblies in neighbourhoods which help residents with foreclosure/housing issues in Spain; the alternative cashless production and exchange systems such as the Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) in the UK; the GAS (Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale) groups in Italy; the French AMAPs (Associations pour le Maintien d’une Agriculture Paysanne) and the CSA (Community-Supported Agriculture) movement which started in Europe and spread to the U.S.; the so-called Transition Town Movement, as well as more radical groups promoting degrowth and nowutopias. All these networks and practices attest to a new kind of politics through the creation of bottom-up participatory initiatives promoting a ‘solidarity economy’, as seen in countries confronting crises in the past.

While indicative of citizens’ capacity to self-organize in order to tolerate, absorb, cope with and adjust to the environmental and social threats posed by neoliberal policies in order to cover basic and urgent needs regarding food, shelter, health, childcare and education, these informal networks are also attempting to change an economic system increasingly perceived as unfair by building an alternative system within it based on greater mutual solidarity between individuals and the environment. That means that unlike more ‘classic’ social movements, such informal networks are much more involved in constructive and thoroughly organized forms of dissent towards contemporary capitalism and its transnational organization by promoting and diffusing innovative economic practices throughout society.

Despite the rapid growth of grassroots economic activism, there is still currently very little information available. The purpose of this special issue is to gather empirical studies that might shed light on new forms of self-organization that address both the intensification of economic problems and the difficulties of rebuilding social bonds and solidarity within society, emphasizing solidarity as a means by which to re-embed the economic system within social relations, starting from a local level. We are particularly interested in collecting contributions that address the organizational aspects, the individual stories and biographical consequences of this form of activism, as well as the role of the political representation of these organizations and their ability to influence decision-making processes. Comparative studies will be particularly appreciated, but theoretical considerations and in-depth cases studies are also welcomed.

Submission procedureand dead-lines:

Articles, written in English, will be submitted to a peer review process according to the following schedule:

– Submission of long abstracts (about 1,000 words): 30 April 2014

– Selection of long abstracts: 31 May 2014

– Submission of articles: 31 October 2014

– Provision of peer review feedback: 31 January 2015

– Submission of revised drafts: 31 March 2015

– Publication of the issue: 15 July 2015

Articles should be no longer than 10,000 words, including notes and references. A maximum of 10 articles will be published.

Please refer to the editorial guidelines available at http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions

Please address any queries to: francesca.forno@unibg.it

Partecipazione e Conflitto

Call for papers for a special issue on:

POLITICAL PARTIES: THEORETICAL APPROACHES, COMPARISONS AND CASE STUDIES

Guest Editors:

Francesco Raniolo, Università della Calabria, francesco.raniolo@unical.it

Marco Damiani, Università di Perugia, marco.damiani@katamail.com

Lorenzo Viviani, Università di Pisa, lorenzo.viviani@unipi.it

The crisis of political parties in contemporary societies and democracies is composed of different points of views, that require a joint effort for social and political science to try to understand the changing relationship between citizens and parties. Compared to the political mass models, which are typical of the second half of the twentieth century, parties undergo deep processes of transformation. The beginning of a critical season for the traditional forms of political organization goes back to those years; and this critical season can be configured as ideological, organizational and institutional. The main indicators of the crisis are, mainly, due to: i) an increase of the distance between the democratic institutions and the citizens-voters, ii) a decrease of the number of activists and members of political parties, iii) a constant decrease of the political and electoral participation at all levels of government. On the other hand, between the twentieth and twenty-first century, the political parties has strengthened the structure of their political organization and the weight of their parliamentary activities within the institutions, becoming more and more «state-centered parties», characterized by the progressive reduction of the forms of territorial settlement and the growth of the importance of central organisms and the representatives of the assemblies, especially those elected in national parliaments. This results in significant changes of the organizational model and their political functions. In the face of these changes, will the parties still remain a key player for the functioning of contemporary democracy?

The branch of research the call deals with the analysis on how the parties, which the public appointment made strong but are frail in credit, relate with a “re-opened” civil society, that is virtually the right place where social links can grow again and the political requests can find a voice. The aim of this special issue is to consider the planning, ideological, strategic changes of the parties and their crisis as well as to rebuild their ability in giving life to a new networking role. The ideological block and the colonization strategies towards institution and society, and the “linking” strategies towards the varied realities of the public and political domain go alongside. For these parties, the selection of the political class takes place via a reciprocal contamination among the various members of the network, where the personalization of politics and leadership becomes a relevant aspect in planning the consent and developing the political identities. It is not, therefore, a simple confrontation between the epitaph and the revival of the parties. The fact concerns, once more and as it has always been in the history of political parties, the link with the social changing, looking to the behavior of a political class, which has the task of understanding and, at the same time, addressing this change itself. It is a many-sided link, grounding a net able to create a new link between institution and society, following those patterns of identity and organization that can express new contents, importance and trust towards the mover of the political representation.

In this regard, we welcome in particular:

– political parties

– electoral studies

– leadership, personalization and presidentialisation of politics

– organizational models and membership

– internal democracy, primaries

– political communication and electoral campaigns

– political parties, lobbies, other political organizations

– parties, institutions and policies

– political parties and foreign policy

– populism and challenges to democracy

– political parties in non-democratic regimes

– political system and case studies

Peer Review Policy: Partecipazione e Conflitto adheres to a standard double-blind peer review process. Each article submitted will be evaluated by Editors and Editorial Board. If congruent with the object of the call for papers, it will be reviewed by at least two anonymous scholars.

Submission procedure:

Articles, written in English, will be submitted to a peer review process according to the following schedule:

– Submission of long abstracts (about 1,000 words): 30 May 2014

– Selection of long abstracts: 15 June 2014

– Submission of articles: 15 September 2014

– Provision of peer review feedback: 15 November 2014

– Submission of revised papers: 30 December 2014

– Publication of the issue: 15 March 2015

Articles should be no longer than 10,000 words, including notes and references. A maximum of 10 articles will be published.

Please refer to the editorial guidelines available at http://siba-ese.unisalento.it/index.php/paco/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions

Please address any queries to one of the three guest Editors.

Panel organized at the ECPR General Conference 2014, Standing group on Southern European Politics

Panel Chair: Giorgos Charalambous (PRIO Cyprus Centre and University of Cyprus).

If you are interested in proposing a Paper to this Panel, please contact Giorgios Charalambous. Deadline for Panel submissions (which include Papers) is 15 February.

Abstract

Social contention in the form of strikes, protests, riots and violent acts tends to be an important characteristic of countries in crisis. Southern European countries – Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain – are currently experiencing a dramatic economic slump and fully fledged austerity measures. Accordingly, the standard of living of large parts of southern European populaces has suffered dramatically and political alignments have been affected. Nevertheless, the proliferating dynamics of social contention that accompany these experiences remain understudied. The phenomenon of citizens and social groups seeking alternative, confrontational and even illegal channels of influence or resistance by attempting to challenge the legitimacy of political institutions and actors may not be new, but it has not been sufficiently inrorporated by scholars into the larger study of crisis environments. How economic malaise unfolds into societal behaviour cannot be fully appreciated without assessing the patterns and causes of social contention. Similarly, the consequences of contentious acts for the modalities of political competition and public governance can offer comparative insights into the cultures of policy making at times of economic crisis.

Why in certain southern European countries social contention has increased to unprecedented heights while in others social upset has not translated into contentious acts? Why some forms of protest flourish over others? What is the role of the internet and the media in initiating, spreading or obstructing contentious acts? To what extent, if at all, has social contention exercised influence on the programmatic positions offered by parties, or the policies implemented by governments, either at the national or sub-national level? The panel invites empirical papers that aim at answering the above and other related questions in an attempt to interrogate further the particularities of the countries of southern Europe and the sociopolitical manifestations of the ongoing economic crisis.

Call for papers

European Unions’ Relational Politics Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow: The Union – Labour INGO Link in Times of Change and Crisis.

Panel Sponsor: The Politics & Labour Network (Italy) Panel Chair: Antonina Gentile, Università degli Studi di Milano Panel Discussant: Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick, University of London

The need for intra- European labour solidarity is palpable in today’s Europe. With the end of the Cold War, the widening and deepening of the EU, the recent global economic crisis, and the politics of Austerity in southern Europe, calls for unions’ cross-border coordination and mobilization – both political and industrial – have progressively increased. In theory, these phenomena have been seen as intensifying the incentive for labour to organize cross-border campaigns and to access centres of European power. And they have been seen as opportunities to develop a realm of European labour and social rights; to narrow the developmental divide between Europe’s internal regions; to strengthen the European Parliament; and to promote a politics of growth against the EU’s politics of Austerity. In practice, however, INGO-led attempts to organise cross-border political and industrial mobilization have been uneven across time, space, issues and sectors. Their attempts have revealed: conflicts of interest between regional cores and peripheries of labour; an uneven representation of national unions in labour INGOs; contradictory national and EU legal institutions and legal strategies; and widely differing repertoires of labour. For scholars of labour there is ample ground for empirical research and for re-theorizing labour internationalism. During the past decade, EU institutions posed new threats to existing labour rights, as evidenced by a series of European Commission directives and rulings by the European Court of Justice. These prompted labour INGOs to construct cross-border campaigns and cross-national legal strategies – sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Central to the process of coordinating and mobilizing unions of Europe were international and European labour INGOs, e.g., the European Trade Union Confederation and the International Transport Workers Federation. But how prepared and resourced for the task were these? What baggage did labour INGOs carry from the half-century long Cold War and to what extent was that baggage dropped? How universally shared were their campaign goals and frames and, indeed, how were those goals and frames designed and by whom? How strongly represented and integrated into labour INGOs were national affiliates and regional clusters of affiliates? What were the limits of INGOs’ political/industrial/legal strategies? Even more recently, workers and unions in southern Europe have felt the full force of national and European Austerity measures. Most southern European union movements have mobilized in record numbers, frequently joining forces with other domestic social movements. Conspicuous for its absence during these recent protest events and industrial actions, however, was an additional up-scaling of southern European unions’ campaigns to the regional or EU level. There was little coordination across southern European states, and only symbolic INGO campaigning for European-wide actions in solidarity with southern European workers and unions. What factors – whether internal or external to labour INGOs, internal or external to national unions, internal or external to regions of Europe, internal or external to EU institutions, or, indeed, in the dynamics between any of these – have restricted intra-European labour solidarity with southern European unions and workers? Why the drop in INGO-led campaigning by comparison to the 1990s and 2000s? This panel seeks to interrogate European labour internationalism today and yesterday in the hope of theorizing it for tomorrow. To broach these questions, the Politics and Labour Network (Italy) welcomes a range of methods and perspectives: case studies, comparative studies, historical studies, legal studies, institutional analysis and contentious politics approaches, among the many. It is hoped that the panel’s contributions will lay the basis for a publication.

NEW DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS: 9 FEBRUARY 2014

Please send abstracts to the Politics and Labour Network (Italy) Coordinator: antonina.gentile@unimi.it