Calls for papers

CfP: Reshaping Democracy? Citizens and Politics in Times of Crisis

Nicholas Pohl Calls for papers, Standing group activities

ECPR General Conference, Bordeaux, September 4-7 2013

Political sociology section

Panel 4: Reshaping Democracy? Citizens and Politics in Times of Crisis

Chaired by Ewa Krazatala-Jaworska, Université de Paris I, and Bobba Giuliano, Università degli Studi, Torino

In political science, the idea of representative democracies going through critical times is a frequently discussed issue. Some social indicators have proved this trend: abstention, distrust towards the political institutions, “ordinary citizens” being critical of politics, new modes of political participation that short-circuit the traditional modes of involvement, recent claims and protests of movements such as the “Indignados” or “Occupy Wall Street”. Could we conclude though that our representative democracies are going through a crisis? This panel would aim at thinking through the modes, evolutions and manifestations of the different kinds of crises undergone by democracies.

The question will be analysed through different fields of the social and political worlds, but also through multiple angles such as the representation and the institutions of the representative democracies, the distrust and disaffection towards politics, the political conflicts and crisis within democracies, the borders and limits of the representative democracy, the usage of the Web and social network online in developing the so called “e-democracy”, the limits and the forms of participative democracy and so on, and so forth.

Supported by empirical case studies, this panel would aim at discussing the transformations of representative democracies. More specifically, we would collectively argue the usages of the notion of field in order to study various evolutions of the representative democracy. The panel would particularly take into account a comparison of different studies on similar issues in order to broaden the national work frame on framework for analysing democracy.

Submit proposals here

Deadline February 1st

CfP: At the Crossroads of Fields. Defining Fields’ Boundaries Through their Intersections

Nicholas Pohl Calls for papers, Standing group activities

ECPR General Conference, Bordeaux, September 4-7 2013

Political sociology section

Panel 3: At the Crossroads of Fields. Defining Fields’ Boundaries Through their Intersections

Chaired by Elise Roullaud and Viviane Albenga, Université Lyon II

One of the main interests of Bourdieu’s field concept is to analyze autonomous and differentiated spaces which detain their own logics, values and norms. What happens when we aim at studying the exchanges, connections and circulations between different fields? This problem raises a series of questions. To what extend does the field concept enable an empirical study of spaces situated at the intersection of various fields? Reciprocally, how do these spaces inform us about the definition of fields’ boundaries? We want to insist here on the sociological instruments which help to understand what definitions are at stake at the crossroads of various fields. With this end in view, papers based on empirical researches and methodological reflection will be privileged in the selection process.

1) How to comprehend the fields’ boundaries?

What is the process to define field’s boundaries? This problem focuses on the actors and their resources to maintain, to reinforce and to try to challenge the field’s boundaries. To what extend the analysis of hybrid or heteronomous spaces helps to comprehend the elaboration of fields’ boundaries. We will pay attention to the cases of successful or failed challenges of field frontiers, but also to the cases of reinforcement.

2) How can we follow the circulation of actors, ideas and resources from one field to another?

What kind of sociological instruments can be used to follow this circulation? Indeed, researchers face a main difficulty: how to describe the very circulation and not only the consequences of this circulation.

3) What are the brokers’ roles?

Which kinds of resources enable some actors to become brokers between two fields? This question aims at bringing into light the specific trajectories of these brokers.

Submit papers here

Deadline February 1st

CfP: Human Rights Violations and Transitional Justice: A Critical Analysis of the Evolution of a Field

Nicholas Pohl Calls for papers, Standing group activities

ECPR General Conference, Bordeaux, September 4-7 2013

Political Sociology Section

Panel 2: Human Rights Violations and Transitional Justice: A Critical Analysis of the Evolution of a Field

Chaired by Olga Martin-Ortega, University of Greenwich

This panel seeks to improve our understanding of how the different interpretations to account for mass atrocities and human rights abuses have shaped and still impact the relations among different actors who are part of this field. Interestingly, however, these actors also interact in other fields, such as law, human rights, and government. Put differently, the transitional justice field consists of many actors including human rights activists, non-profit actors, jurists, academics, various experts and civil servants who have originated from these other fields. This phenomenon raises a challenging set of issues and the panel thus welcomes contributions that address in particular some of the following issues: How has this field emerged especially from a socio-historical perspective? Who constitute its main actors and who are the leading respectively most powerful actors? What shape has it taken and why? Are its boundaries flexible? What overlap exists with other related fields?

This panel invites ethnographic case studies or comparative examinations of transitional justice mechanisms in order to ground the broader theoretical discussion of the field we intend to engender here.

Papers can be submitted here

Deadline February 1st

CfP: Political Parties: Learning from Social Movements

Nicholas Pohl Calls for papers, Standing group activities

ECPR General Conference, Bordeaux, September 4-7 2013

Political sociology section

Panel 1: Political Parties: Learning from Social Movements

Chaired by Oscar Mazzoleni, University of Lausanne, and Alfio Mastropaolo, Università degli Studi Torino

The fragile, or ‘failed’, linkage between citizens and the political sphere is a key issue in political sociology. Scholars provide several attempts to explain this phenomenon, pointing out the critical situation of “mainstream” parties, especially those coming from a mass party legacy, whose organizations were, among other things, instruments of social integration and which are nowadays increasingly focused on vote and office-seeking activities. On the contrary, a widespread opinion represents social movements as agents of civic and democratic mobilization in alternative to political parties.

Nevertheless, as some scholars argued differences between parties and social movements should be considered in a less taken-for-granted perspective. According to a dynamic and relational approach, this panel wants to explore this kind of intersection between party “arenas” and the “sector” of social movements. Of course, there are all sorts of parties and of social movements. Parties can be less or more established, and social movements can be more or less institutionalized. Considering these differences, how much political parties learn from social movements? How much social movements interact with political parties? Did they set up, even if without negotiating it, some sort of division of labor? To what extent and under which conditions party organizations adopt tools and repertories of actions of social movements, or how much do they recruit political personnel coming (or expected to come) from social movements? And which are the consequences (for instance, salience of electoral arenas in party strategy, etc.) of such form of hybridization?

Case-studies and comparative analyses (both on “new” and “old” party organizations) are very welcome

Submit papers here

Deadline February 1st.

CfP: Street Politics in the Age of Austerity

Nicholas Pohl Calls for papers

Centre de recherche sur les politiques et le développement social
Université de Montréal

February 21-22, 2013

This conference aims at bringing together scholars who have conducted research and field work during the recent wave of public square occupations (cf. the “Indignados” and the Occupy Movement) and anti-austerity protests in Europe and North America. We want to situate this wave of protests with respect to the global justice movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s, understand its dynamic by looking at its embeddeness in varieties of local and national histories, and put it in the contemporary context of worldwide struggles against austerity. The goal is to contrast and compare these mobilizations and contentious episodes in order to produce an edited volume in English.

More information on content and paper submission can be found here

CfP: Political Participation and Beyond: Multi-level dynamics of inclusion/exclusion in times of crisis

Nicholas Pohl Calls for papers

CALL FOR PAPERS
ESA Research Network 32 – Political Sociology

The European Sociological Association’s Research Network on Political
Sociology (RN32) is pleased to announce its second mid-term
conference, to be held at the University of Milan (Italy), 30 November
and 1 December, 2012:

Political Participation and Beyond: Multi-level dynamics of
inclusion/exclusion in times of crisis

Political participation is a founding theme of political sociology. In
broadest terms, it refers to all forms and activities through which
individuals or collectives express opinions and also exert influence
on decisions that are of common concern. While concerned with apathy,
abstention and “exit”, political sociology has also described and
categorized a broad and ever-changing repertoire of citizen (and non
citizen) voice, i.e. activism and formal or informal involvement
whether individual/ collective, manifest/ latent, institutionalized/
unconventional, direct/ mediated, online/ offline. In an age of
globalization and multilevel (local, national, supranational, global)
networking of collective decision-making processes, in which social
and political boundaries are being reshaped and new dynamics of social
and political inclusion and exclusion are emerging, this scope of
political participation is potentially wider and rapidly changing. One
may wonder if participation is heightened in times of crisis, which
favour more exclusive forms of governance and tend to mobilise new
forms of protest, or on the contrary generates anomie.

The aim of this conference is to explore the extended scope of
political participation in relation to transnational government
arrangements and processes. Within this broad theme, all crucial
concepts of political sociology are embraced. These include:
challenged legitimisation of democratic representative institutions;
changing power relationships between citizens and the state; the
making of a new political order across the interaction of macro- and
micro-level actors; the battle for cultural, social, and institutional
change involving networked individuals and organized groups at local,
national and global levels.

A number of key contemporary political and social phenomena can
therefore be analysed from a political participation perspective:
• Globalizing forms of protest and new forms of political mobilization
• Changing interactions between public opinion, political elites,
mainstream media, and social media
• The plebiscitary nature of leader-followers relationships as regards
populist parties
• Party primary elections and campaigning
• New patterns of electoral turnout and volatility
• Citizens’ deliberations and experiments in participatory democracy
• The emergence of a new political cleavage along the nationalism vs.
cosmopolitanism value dimensions
• The ongoing conflict over norms of citizenship
• Processes of agenda-setting and the role of migrants’ organizations
in key policy areas
• Political dimensions of immigrant integration and the politics of
voting rights
• Urban governance and urban conflicts
Proposals can relate to all levels of – local to global – mobilization
and participation in the polity. Studies employing a European
comparative perspective or EU-wide framework, that address the
multi-level dimension of participation, or discuss more recent
challenges to citizens’ participation and legitimacy in times of
financial and economic crisis are particularly welcome.

Abstract submission: Both panel proposals and individual paper
proposals are encouraged. For panel proposals please submit a short
description of the theme of the panel and at least three individual
paper abstracts.

Deadline: The deadline for panel and paper proposals is Friday April
30th. Please submit abstracts of max 200 words to:
rn32mtc2012@socpol.unimi.it
The conference committee will notify applicants by May 30th.

Conference venue and organization: The conference will be hosted by
the Department of Social and Political Studies, University of Milan
(Italy). The Department is located in the centre of Milan.
Participants are asked to make their own travel arrangements and book
accommodation. We will suggest a list of hotels.

Information will be available at: http://www.socpol.unimi.it
To encourage participation by a broad range of early career
researchers and experienced academics, there is no registration fee.
To register, please write to rn32mtc2012@socpol.unimi.it  with the
following information: name, position, affiliation with postal
address, country, email address and dietary preferences.

Further information: Contact  Mauro BARISIONE at  rn32mtc2012@socpol.unimi.it

Cfp: CULTURE POLITICS AND CULTURAL POLICIES

Nicholas Pohl Calls for papers

CULTURE POLITICS AND CULTURAL POLICIES

VII INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CULTURAL POLICY RESEARCH
Barcelona, 9-12 July 2012

http://www.iccpr2012.org/

Cultural policy has changed significantly, half a century after its invention as a category. The perspective of welfare has been substituted by the perspective of development; the logic of governance has superseded the logic of government. These changes can only be understood in the broader context of the changes that culture and politics have experienced during this time. The globalization of culture, its digital mutation, its enhanced weight in social and economic dynamics – all these factors influence the transformation of relations between culture and politics, and so also the definition and problems of cultural policy. The same happens with the mediation of politics, with its growing complexity (between the global and the local, the public and the private), and with its multicultural problems. The study of cultural policy should thus be opened up today for the consideration of the broader frameworks that constitute this object: culture and politics.
On the one hand, it will examine institutionalized cultural policy in its configurations, orientation and dynamics, as well as its impact, intended or unintended, on the structures that constitute the cultural sphere. Beyond this bounded area, on the other hand, it will also consider the projection of politics in the configuration of the social through culture, whether in the traditional way of symbolic control or the assertion of identity, or through the most recent policies of development, creativity and diversity. Conversely, it will also consider culture – the cultural and artistic action displayed by creators, citizens and civil society – as a tool of political action, mobilization or conflict. The relationship between culture, politics and cultural politics will thus be addressed in its entirety.

The Barcelona conference will involve the participation of reputed scholars from all over the world. It will be an occasion of great interest, both for the high international level of the meeting as well as for the fact that the event will be held in Barcelona, a very accessible and attractive city. The conference is expected to be an academic success. I am inviting you to take advantage of it. The call for papers has already been posted at the conference website.

CfP: What is a coalition? University of Geneva, May 15 2012

Nicholas Pohl Calls for papers

Call for papers:
What is coalition? Reflections on the conditions of alliance formation with Judith Butler’s work

Date: 15 May 2012 with Prof. Judith Butler (UC Berkeley)
Venue: Institute for Gender Studies, Geneva University, Switzerland
 
Conception : Delphine Gardey (Geneva University) and Cynthia Kraus (Lausanne University)
Logistics: Aurélie Chrestian and Julien Debonneville (Geneva University)

In her groundbreaking book, Gender Trouble (1990), Judith Butler inaugurates and develops her critique of foundational reasoning – of identity categories such as (biological) sex, or of a transcendental subject such as “the woman” or even “women” (in the plural) – as a critique of identity politics in general, and of a women’s identity-based feminism in particular. For this reason, her antifoundationalism appears as a critical practice that seeks not only to rethink the political – along with genders, bodies, subjects and agency – in terms of performativity rather than of representation, but also, and most importantly, to theorize alternatives to identity politics in terms of coalition building. Since then, we can consider that Butler has insistently returned to the action-oriented question of “what is coalition?” and further elaborated on the conditions of possibility of alliance formation – at least, as much as on the conditions of subversion – in order to move effectively toward what she calls a “progressive” or “radical democratic politics.”
This one-day conference aims to reflect – historically, sociologically, philosophically – on the conditions of possibility, on the objects, means and purposes of alliance formation – between minorities, with the State, political parties, and other public actors, or between disciplines, or even across species (e.g. animal-human), etc. –, of political transformation, and thus of a collective agency, in both domestic and international contexts, through the concrete and generic question of “What is coalition?” – with special interest for the ways in which critical perspectives inspired from feminist and queer theory can be made into productive tools to theorize the political at various levels, at different times and locations, but also to intervene and do better democratic work. We encourage submissions from all research fields that present original material and engage, with creativity and precision, with both the theoretical and practical dimensions of the conference question with insights from – rather than directly on – Butler’s “political theory.”

Deadline for conference paper (including abstract) submission: 15 February 2012

Notification of acceptance by: 5 March 2012

Deadline for final conference papers: 15 April 2012

Abstracts, conference paper proposals and final conference papers should be sent to:  coalition-genderstudies@unige.ch

Please find attached the full call for conference paper or check the following link: