We are happy to inform you that our section “Society-State Relations in Post-Democracy: Illiberalism and Populism and their Alternatives” has been accepted for the ECPR General Conference at the University of Innsbruck 2020 with seven panels. See below our section description.
The call for panels (with 4-5 papers) and papers is open until midnight UK time on 19 February 2020. You can submit your abstracts for panels and papers via the ECPR website.
Our section proposal:
Title: Society-State Relations in Post-Democracy: Illiberalism and Populism and their Alternatives
Chair: Laura Landorff, Aalborg Universitet
Co-Chair: Oscar Mazzoleni, Université de Lausanne
Abstract
This session addresses several topics crucial for political sociology, regarding severe threats to the liberal democratic political order brought on by the emerging illiberal nationalist and populist agency in different European countries. These new threats on the political scene build up their ideological and practical challenges from being against a set of heterogeneous and interchangeable targets, such as established national and EU political elites, global economic powers, migrants and refugees, underserving people, minorities, intellectuals, and others. In addition, growing social inequalities increasing risks and uncertainty, and the crisis of the political representation of different social groups create a specific context in which these tendencies have proliferated. New digital technologies offer innovative instruments and patterns of communication with the electoral body, and are often well used by nationalist and populist leadership. What will be the political consequence of these post-democratic illiberal trends? How do these challenges transform the relations between society and state? What kinds of alternative political discourse are emerging to contest these phenomena?
The ubiquity of these transformations posits challenges not only in terms of empirical knowledge but also in terms of a new theoretical reflection, re-assessment, and renewal. For instance, what can social theory say about populism in confrontation with the new forms of nationalism? How do populism and nationalism alter the European supra- and trans-national integration? How do they reshape the European and global borderscapes? In what ways do these new trends affect the most vulnerable social groups? How might we rethink political dis-engagement and re-engagement of individuals and groups in our societies? In what ways do new technological tools and their ordinary uses challenge the significance of expertise? Finally, what political and social alternatives to the illiberal trends can be identified today in the European context?
These questions will frame the focus of the session, but others may be proposed as well. This Section invites Panel proposals from various disciplinary angles and multiple methodologies to address key theoretical debates and empirical research in political sociology regarding the challenges of illiberalism and populism.
These questions will frame the focus of the session, but others may be proposed as well. This Section invites Panel proposals from various disciplinary angles and multiple methodologies to address key theoretical debates and empirical research in political sociology regarding the challenges of illiberalism and populism.