Please circulate widely!
CALL FOR PAPERS
Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2011
Organized by: Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
Mode: Online by Google+ video conference
Date: 15-16 November 2011
The "Anti-Democracy Agenda" is the premier resource on the net for the study of anti-democratic thought and practice across the boundaries of various traditions and academic disciplines. First introduced by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS) as a blog in January 2010, it has since been reconstituted as a circle (with associated public posts, much like a blog) on the new social network Google+. An archive of the blog is to be found here: http://anti-democracy-agenda.blogspot.com
For the new circle, see here:
https://plus.google.com/109507108125539761871/posts
The Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2011 will be the third event we organize to advance the research agenda on anti-democratic thought and practice as well as old and new criticisms of democracy. It will build up on a highly successful workshop on anti-democratic thought SCIS organized at the Annual Conference Workshops in Political Theory in Manchester, England, in September 2007, as well as the Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010, taking place at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich in November last year. Both events drew participants from the world over. The Manchester workshop led to the publication of an edited volume on "Anti-Democratic Thought" (Imprint Academic, 2008).
The Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2011 is set to be equally international and interdisciplinary in scope. We invite affiliated academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students and candidates from a wide range of disciplines, such as Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, International Relations, Development Studies, Security Studies, Law, Economics, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Literature, History, Classics, Theology, Religious Studies, Education, and so on. Papers may not only cover any and all aspects of criticisms of democracy and anti-democratic thought and practice, from perspectives including anarchism, libertarianism, conservatism, communism, Islamism, the extreme right, and others, but also related concepts such as authoritarianism, dictatorship, military rule, monarchy, chieftaincy, mixed constitution, the backlash against democracy promotion, terrorism, post-democracy, voter apathy, voter ignorance, etc. Have a look at the blog to see what might be of interest and falls within our remit. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature. Work in progress is welcome too.
This symposium may be the first academic conference to make use of the “Hangouts” video conference facility that is an integral part of Google+. Due to technical restrictions, the number of participants in the Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2011 is limited to 10. All accepted participants will be required to create a profile on Google+ in order to be able to participate in the event. While we encourage the participation of scholars from developing countries, please only apply if you have access to a stable Internet connection. As in our previous physical events, over the course of two days, each presenter will have 60 minutes to present his or her paper and discuss it with all others. Due to the small size of the symposium, all participants are expected to attend both days fully.
As with all SCIS events, no fees will be charged from participants, and no funding is available to cover participants' expenses (if any). We will be glad to issue letters of acceptance on request to assist participants in securing leave from work. Detailed instructions on how to set up a Google+ profile and join the video conference will be provided to confirmed participants.
Please send your proposal to: erichkofmel@gmail.com
Deadline: 15 October 2011
Later submissions may still be accepted, but early submission is strongly advised and proposals may be accepted as they come in.
Cordially,
Erich Kofmel
Managing Director / Research Professor of Political Theory
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
https://plus.google.com/109507108125539761871
E-mail: erichkofmel@gmail.com
Postal address:
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society
1200 Geneva
Switzerland
SCIS is an international association under Swiss law.
Founded 2006 at the University of Sussex.
Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts
Showing posts with label conference. Show all posts
16 August 2011
17 February 2011
CFP: Democracy and its Critics: Ancient and Modern
One-day conference "Democracy and its Critics: Ancient and Modern" of the Political Thought Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association (PSA), Oxford, UK (precise venue to be confirmed), October 2011 (possible date: 22 October)
Call for papers
Description: "Most of the countries of the world are now democracies in that they have representative governmental institutions controlled by freely elected officials which operate under the rule of law and guarantee a wide array of individual rights, including equality and non-discrimination, personal liberty, freedom of expression, association and conscience, fair trials and a variety of social benefits. If a country's democratic system works tolerably well, the large majority of its citizens would not want to live under a very different political system, such as an absolute monarchy, communism, fascism, one-party dictatorship or anarchism, and this provides some indication of the relationship between citizenry and democracy. Nevertheless, in the past century or so democracies have had their critics and in some cases powerful enemies who have argued that democracy does not provide society the security, economic development, welfare and the other goods it 'really' needs.
"Some critics, for example, argue that modern liberal democracy is not a 'real' democracy as power is actually exercised not by the people, but by an oligarchy or a bureaucratic elite, and they compare this system unfavourably with the direct democracy of Athens and other Greek city-states in the 5th and 4th centuries BC where the body of citizens actually participated, on an equal footing, in making decisions on public issues. However, ancient democracy also had its critics, including great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. Similar republican forms of government in ancient Rome also had their critics and enemies. The aim of the conference is to bring together and encourage discussion among scholars who are interested in the main features of ancient and modern forms of democracy, and seek to assess the purposes and methods of their governments by reference to the wishes and needs of the people."
Papers are invited that deal with any of the above issues. Please send an abstract to both Evangelia Sembou (Study group convenor): evangelia.sembou@hotmail.com
and Zenon Stavrinides (University of Leeds): z.stavrinides@leeds.ac.uk
Deadline: 30 April 2011
An early expression of interest would be appreciated, as it would help determine numbers.
Call for papers
Description: "Most of the countries of the world are now democracies in that they have representative governmental institutions controlled by freely elected officials which operate under the rule of law and guarantee a wide array of individual rights, including equality and non-discrimination, personal liberty, freedom of expression, association and conscience, fair trials and a variety of social benefits. If a country's democratic system works tolerably well, the large majority of its citizens would not want to live under a very different political system, such as an absolute monarchy, communism, fascism, one-party dictatorship or anarchism, and this provides some indication of the relationship between citizenry and democracy. Nevertheless, in the past century or so democracies have had their critics and in some cases powerful enemies who have argued that democracy does not provide society the security, economic development, welfare and the other goods it 'really' needs.
"Some critics, for example, argue that modern liberal democracy is not a 'real' democracy as power is actually exercised not by the people, but by an oligarchy or a bureaucratic elite, and they compare this system unfavourably with the direct democracy of Athens and other Greek city-states in the 5th and 4th centuries BC where the body of citizens actually participated, on an equal footing, in making decisions on public issues. However, ancient democracy also had its critics, including great thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. Similar republican forms of government in ancient Rome also had their critics and enemies. The aim of the conference is to bring together and encourage discussion among scholars who are interested in the main features of ancient and modern forms of democracy, and seek to assess the purposes and methods of their governments by reference to the wishes and needs of the people."
Papers are invited that deal with any of the above issues. Please send an abstract to both Evangelia Sembou (Study group convenor): evangelia.sembou@hotmail.com
and Zenon Stavrinides (University of Leeds): z.stavrinides@leeds.ac.uk
Deadline: 30 April 2011
An early expression of interest would be appreciated, as it would help determine numbers.
13 November 2010
Report on the Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010: Setting the example for the debate of the future
The first event held by the Geneva-based Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS) in conjunction with its "Anti-Democracy Agenda" blog, the Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010, took place to great acclaim on 8 and 9 November 2010 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich.
Keynotes to the symposium were contributed by Professor Doh Chull Shin, a native of Korea, director of the Korea Democracy Barometer, and core partner in the Asian Barometer Survey (an ongoing research project monitoring democratization in Asian countries), who is based in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri, a leading public research university in the United States, and Professor Kuldip Singh, Head of the Department of Political Science at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, India.
The Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010 attracted twelve papers submitted by participants from institutions such as the National University of Singapore, the University of the Philippines, the Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal), Ankara University (Turkey), the University of the Punjab, Quaid-i-Azam University (both Pakistan), the University of Central Oklahoma (USA), and the Islamic Azad University (Iran). Other countries and territories of origin or residence represented include Palestine, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK, Switzerland, Nigeria, Korea, and India.
Participants – from doctoral candidates to full professors – came from the disciplines of Political Science, Philosophy, Political Theory, Islamic Studies, Defence and Strategic Studies, Law, and Media Studies, giving theoretical as well as empirical presentations under the titles "Is Confucianism Anti-democratic?", "Islamic Philosophy and Criticizing Democracy", "Against Liberal Democracy", "Anti-Democracy Is Created By Means of Media", "Twenty-First Century Anti-Democracy: Theory and Practice in the World", "A Critique of Western Discourses of Sovereignty and Democracy from Chinese Lenses", "Reflecting on Anti-Democracy Forces in Arab Politics", "'Democracy' in Kazakhstan: Political System Managed from Above", "Pakistan’s Road to Democracy: Islam, Military and Silent Majority", "Democracy: A Form of Government or an Instinct?", "The Role of Ethics in Shaping Democracy: An Examination of Unethical Actions among House of Assembly Members in Nigeria", and "Pekan Anti Otoritarian: Some Observations on Anarchist Gathering at Indonesia".
After a workshop on "Anti-Democratic Thought" in Manchester in 2007, this was the second symposium on anti-democracy organized by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society and, once more, it opened up new frontiers for the study of anti-democratic thought and practice. Bringing together scholars from both sides of the debate, advocates of democracy as well as critics and opponents, it set the example for the proper academic conduct of a discussion that does not take place anywhere else, yet. Focusing on twenty-first century anti-democracy, rather than historical expressions and criticisms, it shone the way toward the most important debate of the near future. Asia will play as central a role in that debate as participants from Asia did in our symposium.
The Anti-Democracy Agenda blog and the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society will continue to be at the forefront of these developments.
Keynotes to the symposium were contributed by Professor Doh Chull Shin, a native of Korea, director of the Korea Democracy Barometer, and core partner in the Asian Barometer Survey (an ongoing research project monitoring democratization in Asian countries), who is based in the Department of Political Science at the University of Missouri, a leading public research university in the United States, and Professor Kuldip Singh, Head of the Department of Political Science at Guru Nanak Dev University in Amritsar, India.
The Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010 attracted twelve papers submitted by participants from institutions such as the National University of Singapore, the University of the Philippines, the Technical University of Lisbon (Portugal), Ankara University (Turkey), the University of the Punjab, Quaid-i-Azam University (both Pakistan), the University of Central Oklahoma (USA), and the Islamic Azad University (Iran). Other countries and territories of origin or residence represented include Palestine, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the UK, Switzerland, Nigeria, Korea, and India.
Participants – from doctoral candidates to full professors – came from the disciplines of Political Science, Philosophy, Political Theory, Islamic Studies, Defence and Strategic Studies, Law, and Media Studies, giving theoretical as well as empirical presentations under the titles "Is Confucianism Anti-democratic?", "Islamic Philosophy and Criticizing Democracy", "Against Liberal Democracy", "Anti-Democracy Is Created By Means of Media", "Twenty-First Century Anti-Democracy: Theory and Practice in the World", "A Critique of Western Discourses of Sovereignty and Democracy from Chinese Lenses", "Reflecting on Anti-Democracy Forces in Arab Politics", "'Democracy' in Kazakhstan: Political System Managed from Above", "Pakistan’s Road to Democracy: Islam, Military and Silent Majority", "Democracy: A Form of Government or an Instinct?", "The Role of Ethics in Shaping Democracy: An Examination of Unethical Actions among House of Assembly Members in Nigeria", and "Pekan Anti Otoritarian: Some Observations on Anarchist Gathering at Indonesia".
After a workshop on "Anti-Democratic Thought" in Manchester in 2007, this was the second symposium on anti-democracy organized by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society and, once more, it opened up new frontiers for the study of anti-democratic thought and practice. Bringing together scholars from both sides of the debate, advocates of democracy as well as critics and opponents, it set the example for the proper academic conduct of a discussion that does not take place anywhere else, yet. Focusing on twenty-first century anti-democracy, rather than historical expressions and criticisms, it shone the way toward the most important debate of the near future. Asia will play as central a role in that debate as participants from Asia did in our symposium.
The Anti-Democracy Agenda blog and the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society will continue to be at the forefront of these developments.
18 September 2010
Public forum: Power Grab: European Integration in the Post-Democratic Age
Policy forum "Power Grab: European Integration in the Post-Democratic Age", organized by The Cato Institute, F.A. Hayek Auditorium, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, USA, 8 October 2010, 12.00 noon-1.30 pm
www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=7390
Description: "The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 massively increased the powers of Brussels and gave the European Union its own resident and foreign service. Supporters of Lisbon claim that it will make the EU more efficient and effective. Critics say that the treaty, which was adopted in spite of its rejection in several national referenda, will further deepen Europe's 'democratic deficit.' Other events, including the violation of the legal arrangements prohibiting the recent bailout of Greece, raise questions about the EU's commitment to the rule of law. By transcending nationalism, the EU was meant to be the way of the future. Today, however, many associate it with an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy."
Participants include Frits Bolkestein (former European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services); John R. Gillingham (Professor in the Department of History, University of Missouri-St. Louis); and Angelos Pangratis (Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to the United States).
Open to the public free of charge. Early arrival is recommended as seating is limited and not guaranteed. Business attire requested. Followed by a buffet luncheon.
To register for the event, please fill out the form on the website or send an e-mail with full details (name, affiliation, etc.) to: events@cato.org
Alternatively, the event can be watched live on the website.
The Cato Institute is a libertarian public policy think tank.
www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=7390
Description: "The Lisbon Treaty of 2009 massively increased the powers of Brussels and gave the European Union its own resident and foreign service. Supporters of Lisbon claim that it will make the EU more efficient and effective. Critics say that the treaty, which was adopted in spite of its rejection in several national referenda, will further deepen Europe's 'democratic deficit.' Other events, including the violation of the legal arrangements prohibiting the recent bailout of Greece, raise questions about the EU's commitment to the rule of law. By transcending nationalism, the EU was meant to be the way of the future. Today, however, many associate it with an unelected and unaccountable bureaucracy."
Participants include Frits Bolkestein (former European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services); John R. Gillingham (Professor in the Department of History, University of Missouri-St. Louis); and Angelos Pangratis (Deputy Head of the EU Delegation to the United States).
Open to the public free of charge. Early arrival is recommended as seating is limited and not guaranteed. Business attire requested. Followed by a buffet luncheon.
To register for the event, please fill out the form on the website or send an e-mail with full details (name, affiliation, etc.) to: events@cato.org
Alternatively, the event can be watched live on the website.
The Cato Institute is a libertarian public policy think tank.
15 September 2010
CONF: The end of democracy
A debate on "The end of democracy" will be organized by the Fundación para las Relaciones Internacionales y el Diálogo Exterior (FRIDE), at the Fundación Mapfre, Paseo de Recoletos 23, Madrid, Spain, 22 September 2010
www.fride.org/event/229/debate:-the-end-of-democracy
Description: "How has the financial crisis affected the credibility of democratic values? What is the impact of the increasing weight of other political systems, such as China and Russia's? Are democracy promotion policies still valid? Why does Spain not play a greater role in this area? Why has the number of democracies decreased worldwide during the last decade? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this debate".
Participants include: Pedro Solbes (former Deputy Vice President and Minister of Economy of Spain); Ana Palacio (former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain and former Senior Vice President of the World Bank); Eduardo Serra (former Minister of Defense of Spain); and Fernando Vallespín (Professor of Political Science, Autonomous University of Madrid). The debate will be led by Richard Youngs, Director General of the Madrid-based "European think tank for global action" FRIDE and Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
Attendance is by invitation only.
For further information, please contact Richard Youngs: ryoungs@fride.org
(Update 2 October 2010: Contributions to this event, in Spanish, have been uploaded to the website as audio and video files.)
www.fride.org/event/229/debate:-the-end-of-democracy
Description: "How has the financial crisis affected the credibility of democratic values? What is the impact of the increasing weight of other political systems, such as China and Russia's? Are democracy promotion policies still valid? Why does Spain not play a greater role in this area? Why has the number of democracies decreased worldwide during the last decade? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this debate".
Participants include: Pedro Solbes (former Deputy Vice President and Minister of Economy of Spain); Ana Palacio (former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Spain and former Senior Vice President of the World Bank); Eduardo Serra (former Minister of Defense of Spain); and Fernando Vallespín (Professor of Political Science, Autonomous University of Madrid). The debate will be led by Richard Youngs, Director General of the Madrid-based "European think tank for global action" FRIDE and Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick.
Attendance is by invitation only.
For further information, please contact Richard Youngs: ryoungs@fride.org
(Update 2 October 2010: Contributions to this event, in Spanish, have been uploaded to the website as audio and video files.)
29 June 2010
CFP: Breakdowns of Democracy Revisited
12th Mediterranean Research Meeting of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (EUI), Florence and Montecatini Terme, Italy, 6-9 April 2011
Call for papers for Workshop 7: "Breakdowns of Democracy Revisited: Transitions from Liberal-Democratic to Authoritarian Regimes around the Mediterranean Littoral"
www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/RobertSchumanCentre/Research/InternationalTransnationalRelations/MediterraneanProgramme/MRM/MRM2011/Index.aspx
From the workshop description: "Studies of democratization have matured greatly over the last two decades [...]. Nevertheless, early expectations that new democracies would survive and flourish have run up against significant cases in which political reform has quickly stalled out or regressed to liberalized authoritarian rule. This development has opened the door to systematic investigations of the circumstances under which initial liberalization programs have failed to gain momentum, most notably in Tunisia and Jordan. Such studies raise the crucial question of whether democratization can be assumed to move in only one direction. History suggests that liberal democracies on occasion collapse and get replaced by highly illiberal regimes. Classic cases of democratic breakdown include Italy in the early 1920s and Germany a decade later.
"Less fully investigated are parallel instances of democratic collapse in Spain, Greece and Turkey. Completely ignored are countries whose brief liberal-democratic eras have been overlooked by political scientists and historians. A number of important examples of the transition away from liberal democracy can be found in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa region]. Among these stand Egypt, Syria, Iraq and perhaps even Libya, not to mention the aborted transition to illiberal governance in Lebanon of the late 1950s. Focused comparisons between well-studied episodes of the breakdown of liberal political orders along the northern shores of the Mediterranean and largely overlooked instances to the south and east are certain to enhance our understanding of the causal factors and processes that lead democracies to be supplanted by authoritarian regimes.
"Scholarship on the topic has lain virtually dormant since the late 1970s. [...] This workshop proposes not only to bring a wide range of additional, long-overlooked cases into the literature on democratic collapse but also to begin the crucial task of formulating well-structured comparisons across different empirical examples. Contributions which focus on countries that have so far been ignored in the academic literature, particularly ones situated in the MENA region, will be expected to make reference to analyses of better-studied examples. Given the peculiarities of the German model, the organizers anticipate that the experience of Italy during the first two decades of the twentieth century is likely to prove particularly thought-provoking, and would therefore welcome proposals from specialists in Italian history and politics. Contributions intended primarily to advance the theory of liberal-democratic breakdown are certainly encouraged, but will be expected to rest on a firm empirical foundation.
"Liberal experiments in the MENA during the 1920s and 1930s are routinely dismissed as too imperfect to be included in discussions of the structure, workings and transformation of democratic governance. The workshop organizers firmly reject such dismissiveness toward the variety of party-based, electoral systems that one finds throughout the Arab world in the decades before the wave of military-led revolutions washed across the region. Instead, they hope that detailed explorations of the liberal-democratic moment in the MENA, unbiased by what E.P. Thompson might call 'the enormous condescension of posterity,' will offer new insight into the dynamics of politics in this part of the world, while at the same time reinvigoring conceptual debates about the dynamics of democratization on the basis of evidence drawn from all shores of the Mediterranean."
Please find detailed instructions on how to submit a paper proposal for this workshop on the conference website (see particularly full call for papers and online form). The procedures and requirements are uncommonly stringent.
Deadline: 15 July 2010
Only for workshop-related questions, contact directly the workshop directors, Fred Lawson (Mills College, California): lawson@mills.edu
and Abdelwahab Shaker (Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt): abdelwahab.shaker@bibalex.org
Call for papers for Workshop 7: "Breakdowns of Democracy Revisited: Transitions from Liberal-Democratic to Authoritarian Regimes around the Mediterranean Littoral"
www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/RobertSchumanCentre/Research/InternationalTransnationalRelations/MediterraneanProgramme/MRM/MRM2011/Index.aspx
From the workshop description: "Studies of democratization have matured greatly over the last two decades [...]. Nevertheless, early expectations that new democracies would survive and flourish have run up against significant cases in which political reform has quickly stalled out or regressed to liberalized authoritarian rule. This development has opened the door to systematic investigations of the circumstances under which initial liberalization programs have failed to gain momentum, most notably in Tunisia and Jordan. Such studies raise the crucial question of whether democratization can be assumed to move in only one direction. History suggests that liberal democracies on occasion collapse and get replaced by highly illiberal regimes. Classic cases of democratic breakdown include Italy in the early 1920s and Germany a decade later.
"Less fully investigated are parallel instances of democratic collapse in Spain, Greece and Turkey. Completely ignored are countries whose brief liberal-democratic eras have been overlooked by political scientists and historians. A number of important examples of the transition away from liberal democracy can be found in the MENA [Middle East and North Africa region]. Among these stand Egypt, Syria, Iraq and perhaps even Libya, not to mention the aborted transition to illiberal governance in Lebanon of the late 1950s. Focused comparisons between well-studied episodes of the breakdown of liberal political orders along the northern shores of the Mediterranean and largely overlooked instances to the south and east are certain to enhance our understanding of the causal factors and processes that lead democracies to be supplanted by authoritarian regimes.
"Scholarship on the topic has lain virtually dormant since the late 1970s. [...] This workshop proposes not only to bring a wide range of additional, long-overlooked cases into the literature on democratic collapse but also to begin the crucial task of formulating well-structured comparisons across different empirical examples. Contributions which focus on countries that have so far been ignored in the academic literature, particularly ones situated in the MENA region, will be expected to make reference to analyses of better-studied examples. Given the peculiarities of the German model, the organizers anticipate that the experience of Italy during the first two decades of the twentieth century is likely to prove particularly thought-provoking, and would therefore welcome proposals from specialists in Italian history and politics. Contributions intended primarily to advance the theory of liberal-democratic breakdown are certainly encouraged, but will be expected to rest on a firm empirical foundation.
"Liberal experiments in the MENA during the 1920s and 1930s are routinely dismissed as too imperfect to be included in discussions of the structure, workings and transformation of democratic governance. The workshop organizers firmly reject such dismissiveness toward the variety of party-based, electoral systems that one finds throughout the Arab world in the decades before the wave of military-led revolutions washed across the region. Instead, they hope that detailed explorations of the liberal-democratic moment in the MENA, unbiased by what E.P. Thompson might call 'the enormous condescension of posterity,' will offer new insight into the dynamics of politics in this part of the world, while at the same time reinvigoring conceptual debates about the dynamics of democratization on the basis of evidence drawn from all shores of the Mediterranean."
Please find detailed instructions on how to submit a paper proposal for this workshop on the conference website (see particularly full call for papers and online form). The procedures and requirements are uncommonly stringent.
Deadline: 15 July 2010
Only for workshop-related questions, contact directly the workshop directors, Fred Lawson (Mills College, California): lawson@mills.edu
and Abdelwahab Shaker (Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt): abdelwahab.shaker@bibalex.org
10 June 2010
CONF: American Political Science Association annual meeting 2010
106th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), Washington, DC, USA, 2-5 September 2010
http://apsanet.org/content_65547.cfm?navID=193
The programme of this year's APSA meeting features a panel on "Democratic Ethics in a Post-Democratic World", organized by APSA's "Normative Political Theory" section (2 September, 4.15 pm). The participants are Stephen Macedo (Princeton), Melissa A. Orlie (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Nancy L. Rosenblum (Harvard), and Ian Shapiro (Yale).
Also of interest, but unfortunately scheduled at the same time: The panel "Women, Authoritarianism, and Conflict", organized by APSA's "Comparative Politics" section and "Comparative Politics of Developing Countries" division, includes a paper by Dara Kay Cohen (University of Minnesota) and Amelia Hoover Green (Yale), "Are Non-Democracies Better for Women in Wartime? Regime Type, Sexual Violence, and Conflict" (2 September, 4.15 pm).
Further information and the full programme are to be found on APSA's website.
http://apsanet.org/content_65547.cfm?navID=193
The programme of this year's APSA meeting features a panel on "Democratic Ethics in a Post-Democratic World", organized by APSA's "Normative Political Theory" section (2 September, 4.15 pm). The participants are Stephen Macedo (Princeton), Melissa A. Orlie (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Nancy L. Rosenblum (Harvard), and Ian Shapiro (Yale).
Also of interest, but unfortunately scheduled at the same time: The panel "Women, Authoritarianism, and Conflict", organized by APSA's "Comparative Politics" section and "Comparative Politics of Developing Countries" division, includes a paper by Dara Kay Cohen (University of Minnesota) and Amelia Hoover Green (Yale), "Are Non-Democracies Better for Women in Wartime? Regime Type, Sexual Violence, and Conflict" (2 September, 4.15 pm).
Further information and the full programme are to be found on APSA's website.
03 June 2010
CFP: Democracy, History, Universality: Beyond the Decline of the West
Sixth General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), University of Iceland, Reykjavik, 25-27 August 2011
Call for panels and papers for a section on "Democracy, History, Universality: Beyond the Decline of the West"
www.ecprnet.eu/conferences/general_conference/Reykjavik/section_details.asp?sectionID=84
Description: "The global debate about the universal significance of democracy represents one of the defining features of our time. Democracy is accepted by nearly everyone as the only legitimate form of government. At the same time, the appeal of the democratic values is weakened both by an ever greater degree of alienation between the population and the democratic institutions in the quintessentially democratic societies of Europe and North America and by the fact that in the more peripheral countries the pro-democracy rhetoric is often cynically used to justify some of the most undemocratic decisions and practices.
"Another crucial dimension of the debate is the increasing recognition that liberal democracy is indeed rooted in the historical experience and cultural particularity of the West. This tension between universalism and particularism has several dimensions. In Europe, it is reflected in the clash between universalist ambitions associated with the European democratic model and the rise of xenophobic politics that strive to redefine Europe in cultural or religious terms. At the same time, accepting the fact that democracy is historically conditioned immediately opens it up to the relativist challenge.
"The western community is often accused of monopolising the power to define what democracy means in political practice, which arguably exposes the Eurocentric nature of democracy promotion undertaken by democratic governments. Political leaders of many nations that explicitly define themselves as non-western now offer their respective political regimes as possible alternative models of democratic development. These claims have to be taken seriously despite their underlying instrumental motives, because what makes them possible in the first place are genuine grassroots concerns about western unilateralism, shared by many people all over the world.
"The panels within this section will be focused around the tension between the supposedly universal value of democracy and its embeddedness in a particular historical experience. The following questions will be discussed, among others: Can we think of truly universal democracy, or must the universal, as some theorists argue, be cleared of any positive predicates? What is happening to the idea of the West as a model democratic community? Does the universal appeal of the European idea give way to xenophobic particularism? What are the consequences of the internal tensions within the West and external challenges to its alleged domination? Can the criticism of democracy as 'too western' pave the way towards truly generic emancipation of humankind?"
Instructions on how to submit proposals for panels and papers are to be found here:
www.ecprnet.eu/conferences/general_conference/Reykjavik/documents/Panel_Chair_Guidelines_and_Deadlines.pdf
Currently, only proposals for panels will be accepted. Proposals for papers can be submitted from 1 November 2010, when a list of the panels accepted for this section will be published on the ECPR website. All proposals are to be submitted online.
Deadline for panel proposals: 1 September 2010
Deadline for paper proposals: 1 February 2011
For further information, please contact the section convenors:
Viatcheslav Morozov (University of Tartu): viacheslav.morozov@ut.ee
Christopher S. Browning (University of Warwick): c.s.browning@warwick.ac.uk
Pertti Joenniemi (Danish Institute for International Studies): pjo@diis.dk
Please note that conference participants may only appear in the academic programme once in any one capacity. That is, they may only chair one section, they may only chair one panel, they may only present one paper, they may only act once as a discussant.
Call for panels and papers for a section on "Democracy, History, Universality: Beyond the Decline of the West"
www.ecprnet.eu/conferences/general_conference/Reykjavik/section_details.asp?sectionID=84
Description: "The global debate about the universal significance of democracy represents one of the defining features of our time. Democracy is accepted by nearly everyone as the only legitimate form of government. At the same time, the appeal of the democratic values is weakened both by an ever greater degree of alienation between the population and the democratic institutions in the quintessentially democratic societies of Europe and North America and by the fact that in the more peripheral countries the pro-democracy rhetoric is often cynically used to justify some of the most undemocratic decisions and practices.
"Another crucial dimension of the debate is the increasing recognition that liberal democracy is indeed rooted in the historical experience and cultural particularity of the West. This tension between universalism and particularism has several dimensions. In Europe, it is reflected in the clash between universalist ambitions associated with the European democratic model and the rise of xenophobic politics that strive to redefine Europe in cultural or religious terms. At the same time, accepting the fact that democracy is historically conditioned immediately opens it up to the relativist challenge.
"The western community is often accused of monopolising the power to define what democracy means in political practice, which arguably exposes the Eurocentric nature of democracy promotion undertaken by democratic governments. Political leaders of many nations that explicitly define themselves as non-western now offer their respective political regimes as possible alternative models of democratic development. These claims have to be taken seriously despite their underlying instrumental motives, because what makes them possible in the first place are genuine grassroots concerns about western unilateralism, shared by many people all over the world.
"The panels within this section will be focused around the tension between the supposedly universal value of democracy and its embeddedness in a particular historical experience. The following questions will be discussed, among others: Can we think of truly universal democracy, or must the universal, as some theorists argue, be cleared of any positive predicates? What is happening to the idea of the West as a model democratic community? Does the universal appeal of the European idea give way to xenophobic particularism? What are the consequences of the internal tensions within the West and external challenges to its alleged domination? Can the criticism of democracy as 'too western' pave the way towards truly generic emancipation of humankind?"
Instructions on how to submit proposals for panels and papers are to be found here:
www.ecprnet.eu/conferences/general_conference/Reykjavik/documents/Panel_Chair_Guidelines_and_Deadlines.pdf
Currently, only proposals for panels will be accepted. Proposals for papers can be submitted from 1 November 2010, when a list of the panels accepted for this section will be published on the ECPR website. All proposals are to be submitted online.
Deadline for panel proposals: 1 September 2010
Deadline for paper proposals: 1 February 2011
For further information, please contact the section convenors:
Viatcheslav Morozov (University of Tartu): viacheslav.morozov@ut.ee
Christopher S. Browning (University of Warwick): c.s.browning@warwick.ac.uk
Pertti Joenniemi (Danish Institute for International Studies): pjo@diis.dk
Please note that conference participants may only appear in the academic programme once in any one capacity. That is, they may only chair one section, they may only chair one panel, they may only present one paper, they may only act once as a discussant.
06 May 2010
CFP: Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010
Please circulate widely!
CALL FOR PAPERS
Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010
Organized by: Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
Location: Gottfried-Semper Villa Garbald, part of the Collegium Helveticum of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and the University of Zurich, at Castasegna, in the Swiss Alps
Date: 8-10 November 2010
The "Anti-Democracy Agenda" (www.anti-democracy-agenda.blogspot.com) has been run by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society since January 2010. The blog is the premier resource on the net for the study of anti-democratic thought and practice across the boundaries of various traditions and academic disciplines.
The Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010 will be the first event we organize in conjunction with the blog. It will build up though on a highly successful event on anti-democratic thought SCIS organized earlier, at the Annual Conference Workshops in Political Theory in Manchester, England, in September 2007, drawing participants from the world over. That workshop led to the publication of an edited volume, "Anti-Democratic Thought" (Imprint Academic), in December 2008.
The Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010 is set to be equally international and interdisciplinary in scope. We invite affiliated academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students and candidates from a wide range of disciplines, such as Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, International Relations, Development Studies, Security Studies, Law, Economics, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Literature, History, Classics, Theology, Religious Studies, Education, and so on. Papers may not only cover any and all aspects of criticisms of democracy and anti-democratic thought and practice, from perspectives including anarchism, libertarianism, conservatism, communism, Islamism, the extreme right, and others, but also related concepts such as authoritarianism, dictatorship, military rule, monarchy, chieftaincy, mixed constitution, the backlash against democracy promotion, terrorism, post-democracy, voter apathy, voter ignorance, etc. Have a look at the blog to see what might be of interest and falls within our remit. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature. Work in progress is welcome too.
We expect that 10-15 participants will be attending the workshop-style Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010. Over the course of two and a half days, each presenter will have 60 minutes to present his or her paper and discuss it with all others.
As with all SCIS events, no fees will be charged from participants, and no funding is available to cover participants' travel and accommodation expenses. We will be glad to issue letters of invitation on request to assist participants in securing funding from their usual sources. The charges payable directly to the Villa Garbald (approx. $510 half-board/$570 full-board per person) cover accommodation for three nights and food and drink (except alcohol and minibar) throughout your stay. Participants will be arriving on Sunday, taking in the magnificent scenery of the Swiss Alps on a spectacular 5-hour train journey from Zurich airport (via St. Moritz) to a remote Italian-speaking Swiss valley (Val Bregaglia), home to Europe's largest chestnut forest, and leave on Wednesday after lunch, on the same way (cost of a return ticket approx. $115). Alternatively, you can get there in 3-4 hours by train from Milano airport, passing Lake Como. During the symposium there will be ample time to explore the surroundings. Please feel free to contact us with any questions. Detailed travel instructions will be provided to confirmed participants. Don't miss this unique opportunity.
The Italian-style Villa Garbald was built by German star architect Gottfried Semper (of Semper Opera in Dresden and Vienna Burgtheater fame) during his exile in Switzerland. A pro-democracy activist in aristocratic mid-19th century Germany, his experiences with direct-democratic government in Switzerland turned him in later life increasingly against democracy.
Please send your proposal to: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Deadline: 31 July 2010
Later submissions may still be accepted, but early submission is strongly advised and proposals may be accepted as they come in.
Cordially,
Erich Kofmel
Managing Director / Research Professor of Political Theory
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.sussexcentre.org
E-mail: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Postal address:
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society
1200 Geneva
Switzerland
SCIS is an international association under Swiss law.
Founded 2006 at the University of Sussex.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010
Organized by: Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
Location: Gottfried-Semper Villa Garbald, part of the Collegium Helveticum of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich and the University of Zurich, at Castasegna, in the Swiss Alps
Date: 8-10 November 2010
The "Anti-Democracy Agenda" (www.anti-democracy-agenda.blogspot.com) has been run by the Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society since January 2010. The blog is the premier resource on the net for the study of anti-democratic thought and practice across the boundaries of various traditions and academic disciplines.
The Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010 will be the first event we organize in conjunction with the blog. It will build up though on a highly successful event on anti-democratic thought SCIS organized earlier, at the Annual Conference Workshops in Political Theory in Manchester, England, in September 2007, drawing participants from the world over. That workshop led to the publication of an edited volume, "Anti-Democratic Thought" (Imprint Academic), in December 2008.
The Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010 is set to be equally international and interdisciplinary in scope. We invite affiliated academics, independent scholars, and doctoral students and candidates from a wide range of disciplines, such as Philosophy, Political Theory, Political Science, International Relations, Development Studies, Security Studies, Law, Economics, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Literature, History, Classics, Theology, Religious Studies, Education, and so on. Papers may not only cover any and all aspects of criticisms of democracy and anti-democratic thought and practice, from perspectives including anarchism, libertarianism, conservatism, communism, Islamism, the extreme right, and others, but also related concepts such as authoritarianism, dictatorship, military rule, monarchy, chieftaincy, mixed constitution, the backlash against democracy promotion, terrorism, post-democracy, voter apathy, voter ignorance, etc. Have a look at the blog to see what might be of interest and falls within our remit. Papers may be theoretical and/or empirical in nature. Work in progress is welcome too.
We expect that 10-15 participants will be attending the workshop-style Anti-Democracy Agenda Symposium 2010. Over the course of two and a half days, each presenter will have 60 minutes to present his or her paper and discuss it with all others.
As with all SCIS events, no fees will be charged from participants, and no funding is available to cover participants' travel and accommodation expenses. We will be glad to issue letters of invitation on request to assist participants in securing funding from their usual sources. The charges payable directly to the Villa Garbald (approx. $510 half-board/$570 full-board per person) cover accommodation for three nights and food and drink (except alcohol and minibar) throughout your stay. Participants will be arriving on Sunday, taking in the magnificent scenery of the Swiss Alps on a spectacular 5-hour train journey from Zurich airport (via St. Moritz) to a remote Italian-speaking Swiss valley (Val Bregaglia), home to Europe's largest chestnut forest, and leave on Wednesday after lunch, on the same way (cost of a return ticket approx. $115). Alternatively, you can get there in 3-4 hours by train from Milano airport, passing Lake Como. During the symposium there will be ample time to explore the surroundings. Please feel free to contact us with any questions. Detailed travel instructions will be provided to confirmed participants. Don't miss this unique opportunity.
The Italian-style Villa Garbald was built by German star architect Gottfried Semper (of Semper Opera in Dresden and Vienna Burgtheater fame) during his exile in Switzerland. A pro-democracy activist in aristocratic mid-19th century Germany, his experiences with direct-democratic government in Switzerland turned him in later life increasingly against democracy.
Please send your proposal to: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Deadline: 31 July 2010
Later submissions may still be accepted, but early submission is strongly advised and proposals may be accepted as they come in.
Cordially,
Erich Kofmel
Managing Director / Research Professor of Political Theory
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.sussexcentre.org
E-mail: e.kofmel@sussexcentre.org
Postal address:
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society
1200 Geneva
Switzerland
SCIS is an international association under Swiss law.
Founded 2006 at the University of Sussex.
18 April 2010
CONF: Non-Democratic Regimes
Conference on "Non-Democratic Regimes" of the Georg Walter Leitner Program in International and Comparative Political Economy at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA, 11-12 June 2010
www.yale.edu/leitner/NonDemocratic_Regimes.html
Description: "This conference brings together researchers studying the politics of non-democratic regimes, including democratization, repression, growth, and civil and international conflict. More specifically, how do economic conditions affect popular support for a dictator and the transition to democracy? When do citizens protest against a dictatorship and when does a dictatorship respond with repression? When does a dictatorship allow for limited forms of political representation? What explains the post-tenure fate of dictators and how does it affect their propensity to democratize? Is the International Court of Justice a spoiler or promoter of democracy? What explains the variety of non-democratic institutions and how do such institutions affect economic growth? How does the targeting of groups or a populist rhetoric allow the leaders of weak democracies to avoid accountability? Which non-democratic institutions are more likely to generate international wars? Why do the leaders of non-democracies get involved in such long civil wars in the post-World War II period? Presenters use a variety of methodology to tackle such a wide array of questions, including formal and quantitative methods."
Presenters include Charles Boix (Princeton), Joseph Wright (Pennsylvania State University), Beatriz Magaloni (Stanford), Jason Brownlee (University of Texas at Austin), Peter Lorentzen (Berkeley), Alexandre Debs (Yale), Monika Nalepa (University of Notre Dame), Milan Svolik (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Philip Keefer (World Bank), Alastair Smith (New York University), Konstantin Sonin (New Economic School, Moscow), Jessica Weeks (Cornell), and Andrea Vindigni (Princeton).
No registration information is provided on the website. To see whether it is possible to participate, please contact the conference organizer, Alexandre Debs (Yale): alexandre.debs@yale.edu
www.yale.edu/leitner/NonDemocratic_Regimes.html
Description: "This conference brings together researchers studying the politics of non-democratic regimes, including democratization, repression, growth, and civil and international conflict. More specifically, how do economic conditions affect popular support for a dictator and the transition to democracy? When do citizens protest against a dictatorship and when does a dictatorship respond with repression? When does a dictatorship allow for limited forms of political representation? What explains the post-tenure fate of dictators and how does it affect their propensity to democratize? Is the International Court of Justice a spoiler or promoter of democracy? What explains the variety of non-democratic institutions and how do such institutions affect economic growth? How does the targeting of groups or a populist rhetoric allow the leaders of weak democracies to avoid accountability? Which non-democratic institutions are more likely to generate international wars? Why do the leaders of non-democracies get involved in such long civil wars in the post-World War II period? Presenters use a variety of methodology to tackle such a wide array of questions, including formal and quantitative methods."
Presenters include Charles Boix (Princeton), Joseph Wright (Pennsylvania State University), Beatriz Magaloni (Stanford), Jason Brownlee (University of Texas at Austin), Peter Lorentzen (Berkeley), Alexandre Debs (Yale), Monika Nalepa (University of Notre Dame), Milan Svolik (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Philip Keefer (World Bank), Alastair Smith (New York University), Konstantin Sonin (New Economic School, Moscow), Jessica Weeks (Cornell), and Andrea Vindigni (Princeton).
No registration information is provided on the website. To see whether it is possible to participate, please contact the conference organizer, Alexandre Debs (Yale): alexandre.debs@yale.edu
02 April 2010
CONF: The Role of Law in Undermining the Defense of Democracy
Conference "The UN's Goldstone Report: The Defamation of Israel and the Threat to American National Security in the Age of Terrorism" of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists (AAJLJ) and Touro College's Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust (IHRH), at Fordham University School of Law, 140 W 62nd Street, New York City, 27 April 2010, 9.00 am-5.00 pm
Description: "International law and legal institutions are being used to pursue strategic and political goals as a corollary to modern warfare. In the case of Israel and the threat posed by terrorism in the 21st century, 'lawfare' can be as biased and lethal as any other form of weaponry. Attacks on the legitimacy of actions taken in self-defense by democratic states, in the halls of the UN and international and domestic courts, radically undermine the ability to protect the welfare of the Jewish state and all democracies from the scourge of terrorism. This assault empowers and emboldens the enemies of democracy and encourages the intolerance and antisemitism at the root of the terrorist and anti-Zionist agenda.
"In particular, the semblance of authenticity and the cloak of legal language surrounding the Goldstone Report have given it an undeserved legitimacy and inspired a plethora of further mechanisms intended to demonize and delegitimize the state of Israel. The report and the lawfare strategy it embodies, erode the legitimacy of international law and pose a clear and present danger to the right of all democratic states, including the United States, to defend themselves. This [conference] will explore, examine and expose the fallacies of the Goldstone Report, and other manifestations of lawfare, as well as suggest strategies for fighting back."
Of particular interest may be the part of the programme on "The Role of Law in Undermining the Defense of Democracy".
Confirmed speakers include: Gabriela Shalev (Ambassador of Israel to the United Nations), Shmuel Trigano (Professor of Religious and Political Sociology, Paris West University Nanterre La Défense), Anne Bayefsky (Director, IHRH, Touro College), Samuel Edelman (Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, American Jewish University), Malvina Halberstam (Professor of Law, Cardozo School of Law), Kenneth Marcus (Ackerman Visiting Professor of Equality and Justice in America, Baruch College), Ed Morgan (Professor of Law, University of Toronto), Nicholas Rostow (University Counsel and Vice Chancellor, State University of New York), Peter J. Haas (President, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East), and Martin Kramer (Senior Fellow, Shalem Center).
Kosher lunch provided.
Seating is limited and participants must pre-register. Please RSVP asap: info@jewishlawyers.org
Co-sponsored by B'nai Brith, American Jewish International Relations Institute, International Council of Jewish Women, World Council of Conservative/Masorti Synagogues, Jewish Law Students Association of Fordham School of Law, American Zionist Movement, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and Women's League for Conservative Judaism.
A first conference on lawfare last month, also held in New York City, was criticized afterward for not inviting any speakers from the opposing camp. Although seemingly more academic, this one sounds fairly one-sided too.
Description: "International law and legal institutions are being used to pursue strategic and political goals as a corollary to modern warfare. In the case of Israel and the threat posed by terrorism in the 21st century, 'lawfare' can be as biased and lethal as any other form of weaponry. Attacks on the legitimacy of actions taken in self-defense by democratic states, in the halls of the UN and international and domestic courts, radically undermine the ability to protect the welfare of the Jewish state and all democracies from the scourge of terrorism. This assault empowers and emboldens the enemies of democracy and encourages the intolerance and antisemitism at the root of the terrorist and anti-Zionist agenda.
"In particular, the semblance of authenticity and the cloak of legal language surrounding the Goldstone Report have given it an undeserved legitimacy and inspired a plethora of further mechanisms intended to demonize and delegitimize the state of Israel. The report and the lawfare strategy it embodies, erode the legitimacy of international law and pose a clear and present danger to the right of all democratic states, including the United States, to defend themselves. This [conference] will explore, examine and expose the fallacies of the Goldstone Report, and other manifestations of lawfare, as well as suggest strategies for fighting back."
Of particular interest may be the part of the programme on "The Role of Law in Undermining the Defense of Democracy".
Confirmed speakers include: Gabriela Shalev (Ambassador of Israel to the United Nations), Shmuel Trigano (Professor of Religious and Political Sociology, Paris West University Nanterre La Défense), Anne Bayefsky (Director, IHRH, Touro College), Samuel Edelman (Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, American Jewish University), Malvina Halberstam (Professor of Law, Cardozo School of Law), Kenneth Marcus (Ackerman Visiting Professor of Equality and Justice in America, Baruch College), Ed Morgan (Professor of Law, University of Toronto), Nicholas Rostow (University Counsel and Vice Chancellor, State University of New York), Peter J. Haas (President, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East), and Martin Kramer (Senior Fellow, Shalem Center).
Kosher lunch provided.
Seating is limited and participants must pre-register. Please RSVP asap: info@jewishlawyers.org
Co-sponsored by B'nai Brith, American Jewish International Relations Institute, International Council of Jewish Women, World Council of Conservative/Masorti Synagogues, Jewish Law Students Association of Fordham School of Law, American Zionist Movement, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and Women's League for Conservative Judaism.
A first conference on lawfare last month, also held in New York City, was criticized afterward for not inviting any speakers from the opposing camp. Although seemingly more academic, this one sounds fairly one-sided too.
26 March 2010
CONF: Orthodox Constructions of the West
The Solon and Marianna Patterson Triennial Conference for the Theological and Historical Examination of the Orthodox/Catholic Dialogue "Orthodox Constructions of the West", hosted by the Orthodox Christian Studies Program at Fordham University, Rose Hill Campus, O'Hare Hall, New York City, USA, 28-30 June 2010
www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/orthodox_christian_s/triennial_patterson_/index.asp
From the rationale: "Orthodox authors, especially in the twentieth century, had created artificial categories of 'East' and 'West' and then used that distinction as a basis for self-definition. The history of Orthodox Christianity is typically narrated by Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike as developing in the 'East', which is geographically ambiguous, but usually refers to the region in Europe east of present-day Croatia, Hungary and Poland. In contemporary Orthodoxy, 'West' refers not simply to a geographical location, but to a form of civilization that was shaped and influenced by Latin Christendom, which includes both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The 'West,' thus, represents a cluster of theological, cultural and political ideas against which Orthodox self-identify. In other words, Orthodox self-identification often engages in a distorted apophaticism: Orthodoxy is what the 'West' is not.
"Given that much of the Orthodox world has until recently suffered oppression from the Ottomans and the Communists, one can read the creation of the 'East-West' binary as a post-colonial search for an authentic Orthodox identity in the wake of such domination. After centuries of repression, it is not surprising that the Orthodox recovery of identity would take the form of opposition to that which is seemingly the religious, cultural and political 'Other.' The question that the conference will attempt to answer is whether such a construction has as much to do with Orthodox identify formation vis-à-vis the West as it does with genuine differences. By creating this opposition to the 'West,' do Orthodox communities not only misunderstand what Western Christians believe but, even more egregiously, have they come to believe certain things about their own tradition and teachings that are historically untrue?
"The importance of addressing these questions is not simply limited to the theological realm. There is evidence of anti-democracy and anti-human rights rhetoric coming from traditional Orthodox countries that have recently been liberated from communism, and this rhetoric often associates liberal forms of democracy and the notion of human rights in general as 'Western' and, therefore, not Orthodox. In other words, the self-identification vis-à-vis the 'West' is affecting the cultural and political debates in the traditional Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe. Insofar as this conference addresses the broader theme of identity formation, its impact is potentially far-reaching, as it hopes to influence the production of theological, cultural and political ideas within contemporary Orthodoxy."
Keynote speakers: Robert F. Taft, SJ (formerly Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome) and Sarah Coakley (Cambridge)
According to the website, registration for the conference was set to begin in February. There is however no registration information to be found yet. I presume that it may be added soon.
Alternatively, contact one of the Co-Founding Directors of Fordham's Orthodox Christian Studies Program, George Demacopoulos: damacopoulos@fordham.edu
or Aristotle Papanikolaou: papanikolaou@fordham.edu
www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/orthodox_christian_s/triennial_patterson_/index.asp
From the rationale: "Orthodox authors, especially in the twentieth century, had created artificial categories of 'East' and 'West' and then used that distinction as a basis for self-definition. The history of Orthodox Christianity is typically narrated by Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike as developing in the 'East', which is geographically ambiguous, but usually refers to the region in Europe east of present-day Croatia, Hungary and Poland. In contemporary Orthodoxy, 'West' refers not simply to a geographical location, but to a form of civilization that was shaped and influenced by Latin Christendom, which includes both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The 'West,' thus, represents a cluster of theological, cultural and political ideas against which Orthodox self-identify. In other words, Orthodox self-identification often engages in a distorted apophaticism: Orthodoxy is what the 'West' is not.
"Given that much of the Orthodox world has until recently suffered oppression from the Ottomans and the Communists, one can read the creation of the 'East-West' binary as a post-colonial search for an authentic Orthodox identity in the wake of such domination. After centuries of repression, it is not surprising that the Orthodox recovery of identity would take the form of opposition to that which is seemingly the religious, cultural and political 'Other.' The question that the conference will attempt to answer is whether such a construction has as much to do with Orthodox identify formation vis-à-vis the West as it does with genuine differences. By creating this opposition to the 'West,' do Orthodox communities not only misunderstand what Western Christians believe but, even more egregiously, have they come to believe certain things about their own tradition and teachings that are historically untrue?
"The importance of addressing these questions is not simply limited to the theological realm. There is evidence of anti-democracy and anti-human rights rhetoric coming from traditional Orthodox countries that have recently been liberated from communism, and this rhetoric often associates liberal forms of democracy and the notion of human rights in general as 'Western' and, therefore, not Orthodox. In other words, the self-identification vis-à-vis the 'West' is affecting the cultural and political debates in the traditional Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe. Insofar as this conference addresses the broader theme of identity formation, its impact is potentially far-reaching, as it hopes to influence the production of theological, cultural and political ideas within contemporary Orthodoxy."
Keynote speakers: Robert F. Taft, SJ (formerly Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome) and Sarah Coakley (Cambridge)
According to the website, registration for the conference was set to begin in February. There is however no registration information to be found yet. I presume that it may be added soon.
Alternatively, contact one of the Co-Founding Directors of Fordham's Orthodox Christian Studies Program, George Demacopoulos: damacopoulos@fordham.edu
or Aristotle Papanikolaou: papanikolaou@fordham.edu
26 February 2010
CONF: Lawfare: The Use of the Law as a Weapon of War
Conference on "Lawfare: The Use of the Law as a Weapon of War", co-sponsored by The Lawfare Project, the Committee on Foreign and International Law of the New York County Lawyers Association (NYCLA), and the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), taking place at the NYCLA, 14 Vesey Street, New York City, 11 March 2010, 9.00 am-4.00 pm
www.thelawfareproject.org/about/program
Lawfare denotes the abuse of the law and legal systems for strategic ends, the negative manipulation of the law to achieve a purpose other than, or contrary to that for which it was originally enacted. Distinguished speakers will examine lawfare tactics as they are used to: silence and punish free speech about issues of national security and public concern; delegitimize democratic nations such as the United States and Israel; and frustrate the West's War on Terrorism.
Speakers include the current Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, former US and Israeli ambassadors to the UN, John Bolton (American Enterprise Institute) and Dore Gold (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs), former US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Pierre Prosper, and Jeremy Rabkin (George Mason University School of Law), among others. Chairs include David Schizer (Columbia University Law School) and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Irwin Cotler.
Photo ID required at registration. Light food and refreshments will be served.
RSVP required: rsvp@thelawfareproject.org
From The Lawfare Project's website: "When full-scale military attacks on the West failed, its enemies resorted to an extensive campaign of terrorism and asymmetric warfare. At the same time, a complementary legal campaign was launched aimed at politically, morally and legally delegitimizing the war on terror as well as frustrating the actions of nation states dedicated to the eradication of terrorist methods. Just as terrorism has targeted democracies around the world, lawfare is similarly being utilized by national and transnational organizations, fighting with a new variety and combination of offensive legal actions employed in both domestic and international courts of law. Terrorists and their sympathizers understand where they can't win with brute force, they can undermine our willingness and ability to fight them using legal grounds. [...]
"Lawfare can be utilized to challenge the sovereign ability of a state and its actors to defend itself as well as exert power over its citizens and territory as it sees fit. Such challenges are more often directed at democracies even though their actions are accountable to their citizenry and most in compliance with customary international law. Nevertheless, the concept of universal jurisdiction has been methodically extended to provide for lawsuits and human rights complaints against western governments and officials in both international and national courts of law. Western democracies are being compelled to report on and alter their internal and external actions in accordance with human rights norms, resolutions and treaties, as interpreted by third parties.
"On the other hand, non-democratic countries often escape the same universal jurisdiction and liability standards. Courts and tribunals have remained largely silent or ineffective when totalitarian dictatorships exert their sovereignty by openly flaunting international law. [...] Democracies are being held to a much higher and often biased standard then [sic] their counter-parts, resulting in a system that often criticizes and punishes those who strive to be good while the rest are left to act with impunity. [...] Moreover, human rights terminology (most specifically the words 'apartheid' and 'genocide') has been systematically misapplied with the goal of diluting their real meaning and impeding the public's ability to distinguish between real instances of abuse and false strategic claims of human rights violations."
This sounds like an interesting conference even (or especially) if one does not agree with the organizers' world view.
www.thelawfareproject.org/about/program
Lawfare denotes the abuse of the law and legal systems for strategic ends, the negative manipulation of the law to achieve a purpose other than, or contrary to that for which it was originally enacted. Distinguished speakers will examine lawfare tactics as they are used to: silence and punish free speech about issues of national security and public concern; delegitimize democratic nations such as the United States and Israel; and frustrate the West's War on Terrorism.
Speakers include the current Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, former US and Israeli ambassadors to the UN, John Bolton (American Enterprise Institute) and Dore Gold (Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs), former US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Pierre Prosper, and Jeremy Rabkin (George Mason University School of Law), among others. Chairs include David Schizer (Columbia University Law School) and former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Irwin Cotler.
Photo ID required at registration. Light food and refreshments will be served.
RSVP required: rsvp@thelawfareproject.org
From The Lawfare Project's website: "When full-scale military attacks on the West failed, its enemies resorted to an extensive campaign of terrorism and asymmetric warfare. At the same time, a complementary legal campaign was launched aimed at politically, morally and legally delegitimizing the war on terror as well as frustrating the actions of nation states dedicated to the eradication of terrorist methods. Just as terrorism has targeted democracies around the world, lawfare is similarly being utilized by national and transnational organizations, fighting with a new variety and combination of offensive legal actions employed in both domestic and international courts of law. Terrorists and their sympathizers understand where they can't win with brute force, they can undermine our willingness and ability to fight them using legal grounds. [...]
"Lawfare can be utilized to challenge the sovereign ability of a state and its actors to defend itself as well as exert power over its citizens and territory as it sees fit. Such challenges are more often directed at democracies even though their actions are accountable to their citizenry and most in compliance with customary international law. Nevertheless, the concept of universal jurisdiction has been methodically extended to provide for lawsuits and human rights complaints against western governments and officials in both international and national courts of law. Western democracies are being compelled to report on and alter their internal and external actions in accordance with human rights norms, resolutions and treaties, as interpreted by third parties.
"On the other hand, non-democratic countries often escape the same universal jurisdiction and liability standards. Courts and tribunals have remained largely silent or ineffective when totalitarian dictatorships exert their sovereignty by openly flaunting international law. [...] Democracies are being held to a much higher and often biased standard then [sic] their counter-parts, resulting in a system that often criticizes and punishes those who strive to be good while the rest are left to act with impunity. [...] Moreover, human rights terminology (most specifically the words 'apartheid' and 'genocide') has been systematically misapplied with the goal of diluting their real meaning and impeding the public's ability to distinguish between real instances of abuse and false strategic claims of human rights violations."
This sounds like an interesting conference even (or especially) if one does not agree with the organizers' world view.
21 February 2010
Journal special issue on political ignorance in democracy
In autumn 1998, "Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society" carried a symposium on "Public Ignorance and Democracy" (12 [4]). In winter 2006, it carried another one on "Democratic Competence", also with some articles of possible interest (18 [1-3]). On occasion of the last but one annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA) in Boston, then, the Critical Review Foundation convened a "Conference on Political Ignorance and Dogmatism" titled "Homo Politicus: Ignorant, Dogmatic, Irrational?" on 31 August 2008. The conference comprised five hour-long roundtables, the transcripts of which were published again in a special issue of "Critical Review" (20 [4], December 2008):
www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g908384773
Contents:
Jeffrey Friedman (University of Texas, Austin/Editor, "Critical Review"), "Preface" (p. 415), "Introductory Remarks" (pp. 417-21), and "Closing Remarks" (pp. 527-33).
Scott Althaus (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; moderator), Bryan Caplan (George Mason University), Jeffrey Friedman, Ilya Somin (University of Pennsylvania), and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (New York University; discussant), "Roundtable 1: Public Ignorance: Rational, Irrational, or Inevitable?" (pp. 423-44).
Excerpts: "[Friedman:] [A]mazingly little – as far as I know – survey research has been done asking people why they do or don't vote. Do people not vote because they realize that their vote doesn't really count, given the large size of the electorate? [...] [I]t's hard to [...] explain the political ignorance of voters, who by virtue of voting seem to think that their vote does count. [...] The fact that they vote [...] suggests that many hundreds of millions of voters around the world don't know the odds against their vote making any difference, and probably have never even thought about that. [...] [Somin:] [A] recent survey shows that over 70 percent of the public can name all three of the Three Stooges. [...] On the other hand, only about 40 percent can name the three branches of the federal government. [...] Similarly, most people cannot name more than one of the rights that are in the Bill of Rights, but most people can name multiple characters on 'The Simpsons.' [...] [Y]ou probably spend much more time deciding what car you're going to buy or what television you're going to buy than deciding who you're going to vote for for president. It's not because the presidency is less important than these other things, it's because you know that your choice is individually decisive on the car or the house but is not going to be decisive on the presidency."
Scott Althaus (discussant), John Bullock (Yale), Jeffrey Friedman (moderator), Arthur Lupia (University of Michigan), and Paul Quirk (University of British Columbia), "Roundtable 2: Ignorance and Error" (pp. 445-61).
Excerpts: "[Lupia:] How should we measure voter competence? To measure competence, it has to be competence with respect to something, such as a task. [...] For now, we can think of the task to be voting. [...] What I want to point out to you first, is that if you take a chimpanzee and you give it a fair coin and you make its vote based on the outcome of that coin toss, the chimp gets the answer right half the time. [...] So the question you might want to ask yourself is, 'Is the voter in a binary-choice situation dumber than a chimp with a coin?' [...] [Quirk:] Why should we say, or why do I say in the things that I write, that the public is prone to error or maybe that it lacks competence in public-policy judgments? [...] There is no SAT on public policy where people need to score a 600 in order to get into the voting booth. [...] One could imagine, and attribute to a scholar like me, such views as that we ought to find ways to limit voting participation, or that we should delegate absolutely as much policy making as we can to expert commissions, or that possibly we should limit the frequency of elections, or endorse vast increases in the amount of secrecy that the government uses: these are some of the recommendations you could make on the grounds that the public was not competent about judging policies. [...] I think it's reasonable to oppose the expansion of direct democracy – that is, to oppose more use of referendums or teledemocracy and so forth. [...] [Althaus:] [L]ook at what those so-called 'classical democratic theorists' had to say, none of them presumed that democracy required an informed citizenry. Quite the contrary, they were writing before universal education. Most people were ignorant, according to conventional standards; they could not read. The problem of democracy was how to design a system that worked despite the fact that most people who would have had the power under universal suffrage to choose the government might lack the competence to carry out this task."
Samuel DeCanio (Georgetown University), Jeffrey Friedman (moderator), David R. Mayhew (Yale; discussant), Michael H. Murakami (Yale), and Nick Weller (University of Southern California), "Roundtable 3: Political Ignorance, Empirical Realities" (pp. 463-80).
Excerpts: "[DeCanio:] [M]ost voters [...] cannot name their elected officials, much less describe what these individuals are doing once they're in power. [...] [Murakami:] [R]ecent papers highlight the public's inability to distinguish between the outcomes of policy and the outcomes of random chance. [...] I'm actually arguing against a popular political environment, including journalism, where it's assumed that citizens should be making these kind of very sophisticated, knowledgeable decisions, which is unrealistic. [...] I think that there is a bridge that needs to be built [...] to overcome the misinterpretation of people who are highly critical of the competence of citizens as attacking democracy."
Scott Althaus (moderator), David Barash (University of Washington), Jeffrey Friedman (discussant), George E. Marcus (Williams College), and Charles S. Taber (State University of New York, Stony Brook), "Roundtable 4: Political Dogmatism" (pp. 481-98).
Jeffrey Friedman (moderator/discussant), Tom Hoffman (Spring Hill College), Russell Muirhead (University of Texas, Austin), Mark Pennington (Queen Mary, University of London), and Ilya Somin, "Roundtable 5: Normative Implications" (pp. 499-525).
Excerpts: "[Muirhead:] 'How should democracy take stock of the fact of voter ignorance?' [...] We inhabit, as you know, a commercial republic, not the Greek polis, and the commercial republic asks for much less of citizens than did the participatory democracy of ancient Athens. It asks that citizens work regularly and vote only very occasionally. [...] So the problem of citizen ignorance is less acute for commercial republics than it would be for a participatory republic or a participatory democracy. It's less acute for us than it would be if we filled our Supreme Court by lottery or if we filled the Senate by lottery. It's less acute for a representative democracy, where citizens are basically engaged in commerce, than it would be for others. [...] [Pennington:] I think the major normative implication to arise from this work on public ignorance is the notion that we should actually limit the scope of democratic collective-choice mechanisms."
While probably none of the speakers in this conference would call themselves anti-democratic, it has been suggested by others (such as Bruce Gilley) that in fact they are.
www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=g908384773
Contents:
Jeffrey Friedman (University of Texas, Austin/Editor, "Critical Review"), "Preface" (p. 415), "Introductory Remarks" (pp. 417-21), and "Closing Remarks" (pp. 527-33).
Scott Althaus (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; moderator), Bryan Caplan (George Mason University), Jeffrey Friedman, Ilya Somin (University of Pennsylvania), and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (New York University; discussant), "Roundtable 1: Public Ignorance: Rational, Irrational, or Inevitable?" (pp. 423-44).
Excerpts: "[Friedman:] [A]mazingly little – as far as I know – survey research has been done asking people why they do or don't vote. Do people not vote because they realize that their vote doesn't really count, given the large size of the electorate? [...] [I]t's hard to [...] explain the political ignorance of voters, who by virtue of voting seem to think that their vote does count. [...] The fact that they vote [...] suggests that many hundreds of millions of voters around the world don't know the odds against their vote making any difference, and probably have never even thought about that. [...] [Somin:] [A] recent survey shows that over 70 percent of the public can name all three of the Three Stooges. [...] On the other hand, only about 40 percent can name the three branches of the federal government. [...] Similarly, most people cannot name more than one of the rights that are in the Bill of Rights, but most people can name multiple characters on 'The Simpsons.' [...] [Y]ou probably spend much more time deciding what car you're going to buy or what television you're going to buy than deciding who you're going to vote for for president. It's not because the presidency is less important than these other things, it's because you know that your choice is individually decisive on the car or the house but is not going to be decisive on the presidency."
Scott Althaus (discussant), John Bullock (Yale), Jeffrey Friedman (moderator), Arthur Lupia (University of Michigan), and Paul Quirk (University of British Columbia), "Roundtable 2: Ignorance and Error" (pp. 445-61).
Excerpts: "[Lupia:] How should we measure voter competence? To measure competence, it has to be competence with respect to something, such as a task. [...] For now, we can think of the task to be voting. [...] What I want to point out to you first, is that if you take a chimpanzee and you give it a fair coin and you make its vote based on the outcome of that coin toss, the chimp gets the answer right half the time. [...] So the question you might want to ask yourself is, 'Is the voter in a binary-choice situation dumber than a chimp with a coin?' [...] [Quirk:] Why should we say, or why do I say in the things that I write, that the public is prone to error or maybe that it lacks competence in public-policy judgments? [...] There is no SAT on public policy where people need to score a 600 in order to get into the voting booth. [...] One could imagine, and attribute to a scholar like me, such views as that we ought to find ways to limit voting participation, or that we should delegate absolutely as much policy making as we can to expert commissions, or that possibly we should limit the frequency of elections, or endorse vast increases in the amount of secrecy that the government uses: these are some of the recommendations you could make on the grounds that the public was not competent about judging policies. [...] I think it's reasonable to oppose the expansion of direct democracy – that is, to oppose more use of referendums or teledemocracy and so forth. [...] [Althaus:] [L]ook at what those so-called 'classical democratic theorists' had to say, none of them presumed that democracy required an informed citizenry. Quite the contrary, they were writing before universal education. Most people were ignorant, according to conventional standards; they could not read. The problem of democracy was how to design a system that worked despite the fact that most people who would have had the power under universal suffrage to choose the government might lack the competence to carry out this task."
Samuel DeCanio (Georgetown University), Jeffrey Friedman (moderator), David R. Mayhew (Yale; discussant), Michael H. Murakami (Yale), and Nick Weller (University of Southern California), "Roundtable 3: Political Ignorance, Empirical Realities" (pp. 463-80).
Excerpts: "[DeCanio:] [M]ost voters [...] cannot name their elected officials, much less describe what these individuals are doing once they're in power. [...] [Murakami:] [R]ecent papers highlight the public's inability to distinguish between the outcomes of policy and the outcomes of random chance. [...] I'm actually arguing against a popular political environment, including journalism, where it's assumed that citizens should be making these kind of very sophisticated, knowledgeable decisions, which is unrealistic. [...] I think that there is a bridge that needs to be built [...] to overcome the misinterpretation of people who are highly critical of the competence of citizens as attacking democracy."
Scott Althaus (moderator), David Barash (University of Washington), Jeffrey Friedman (discussant), George E. Marcus (Williams College), and Charles S. Taber (State University of New York, Stony Brook), "Roundtable 4: Political Dogmatism" (pp. 481-98).
Jeffrey Friedman (moderator/discussant), Tom Hoffman (Spring Hill College), Russell Muirhead (University of Texas, Austin), Mark Pennington (Queen Mary, University of London), and Ilya Somin, "Roundtable 5: Normative Implications" (pp. 499-525).
Excerpts: "[Muirhead:] 'How should democracy take stock of the fact of voter ignorance?' [...] We inhabit, as you know, a commercial republic, not the Greek polis, and the commercial republic asks for much less of citizens than did the participatory democracy of ancient Athens. It asks that citizens work regularly and vote only very occasionally. [...] So the problem of citizen ignorance is less acute for commercial republics than it would be for a participatory republic or a participatory democracy. It's less acute for us than it would be if we filled our Supreme Court by lottery or if we filled the Senate by lottery. It's less acute for a representative democracy, where citizens are basically engaged in commerce, than it would be for others. [...] [Pennington:] I think the major normative implication to arise from this work on public ignorance is the notion that we should actually limit the scope of democratic collective-choice mechanisms."
While probably none of the speakers in this conference would call themselves anti-democratic, it has been suggested by others (such as Bruce Gilley) that in fact they are.
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