2019 ECPR General Conference, Hamburg (Germany) – SG CITIZENSHIP SECTION PROPOSAL

“The people want” active citizenship[1]: New ideals, new practices and new settings?

The political, social and economic hardships inflicted by the intertwining of neoliberal modalities and different forms of non/democracy, have garnered new impetus to the ideals, practices and settings of active citizenship. Apparent through the apprehensive responses to the 2008 economic meltdown, heightened during the Arab Spring and bolstered in the midst of the (more recent) migration crisis, the facets of active citizenship have begun to really penetrate the actions of institutionalized political actors across the world. Through novel causes, forms and levels of intensity – all of which may, at first, seem unrelated to spatial settings (i.e. cities, states or regions) –, active citizenship is clearly shaping the everyday lives, actions and attitudes of millions of people to an extent that has, perhaps, never been done so hitherto. While divisions linked to class, cultural, and generational cleavages may assist in explaining some of these developments, important questions remain about their long-term implications for democracy, globalization and policy-making more generally. We are also searching for answers about whether, why and how have recent developments begun to modify individual and collective levels of attitudes and practices. For example, how have previously dominant identity categories in inter- and in an intra-community manner – e.g. the ‘us’ and ‘them’ dichotomy that has been based on citizenship and civic characteristics as well as on dividing ethnic ones – been affected? Whether and how can and have educational systems help addressing current challenges to democracy and existing political and social structures? In order to really answer these questions, our understanding and research of active citizenship needs to be revisited and, preferably, taken beyond the paradigmatic frameworks of citizenship studies, New Social Movements, civil societies and (radical) democracy. While such frameworks seemed adequate for when and where the discourse of the rights-bearing citizen was taking hold in our societies, the proximity and affinity between the aforementioned examples clearly calls for a closer look and essential revision of some of our theoretical approaches and empirical predispositions.

The ECPR Standing Group on Citizenship therefore invites panel proposals that recognise the gravity of the current historical moment and the opportunity it provides to reconsider our understanding and approaches to active citizenship and what ‘the people want’ when they practice active citizenship. To cover the various facets of active citizenship, we invite panel proposals addressing any of the following – and related – issues:

• Ideals and challenges of active citizenship; including its meaning and significance; as well as any revisions and/or recent advances which has strengthened, altered or potentially defied theoretical expectations.
• Practices, realisations and attitudes linked to active citizenship, including empirical explorations of the activism, struggle and dispositions of citizens and non-citizens which may occur; and the involvement and responses of legal, political, educational and economic institutions.
• Settings of and localities for active citizenship, including possible ideological as well as socio-spatial divisions – that is within and between non/globalized and non/democratic regions, states and urban settings; as well as the related divisions that emerge within and between classes, generations and cultures.
• Educational structures and practices which address/affect active citizenship, participation and social change.

DEADLINE FOR PANEL PROPOSALS 

Please submit your panel ideas to a member of the SG Citizenship Steering Committee: Tuuli (tuuli-marja.kleiner@fernuni-hagen.de), Nora (nora.siklodi@port.ac.uk), Trond (trond.solhaug@ntnu.no) or Gal (galle@openu.ac.il).

All panel proposals must include the following information:

• Panel abstract (200-250 words)
• Panel Chair (and, if applicable) Co-chair (incl. Affiliation)
• At least 3x Paper Givers (incl. Affiliation)

DEADLINE for panel proposals to reach the Steering Committee:  10 NOVEMBER 2017.

[1] (Achcar 2013)

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Political Citizenship and Social Movements – University of Portsmouth – 27-28 June 2016 (Registration)

Citizenship Study Group and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Standing Group on Citizenship:
Political Citizenship and Social Movements

University of Portsmouth, 27-28 June 2016
Sponsored by University of Portsmouth’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Citizenship, ‘Race’ and Belonging Research Group and the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence

The call of papers for this conference is now closed. We had a wonderful level of interest – with all slots filled – and we are now ready to take registration for the event. You will find all the information on the
registration portal (with map and accommodation)

Although registration is free, we must have delegates details prior to the event. Places are also limited and can be reserved on a first come/ first serve basis.

Recent cultural, social and political events reveal how citizenship and social movements collide and interact in increasingly nuanced and complex ways. Occupy, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, Gezi Park, Sans Papiers, No Borders demand that we re-assess this relationship and think beyond the classification of citizenship and formal political membership. Aided by technological transformations, social movements emerge as both local/global in orientation – from environmental rights, animal rights, gender and sexual rights, migrant and refugee movements to demands for colonial reparations and indigenouslandclaims. Whilst traditionally understood as the enactment of civilor political ‘citizenship’, scholars have begun to explore how social movements themselves provide alternative spaces for the play, disruption and even (re)theorisation of citizenship. Importantly for Citizenship Studies, the participation of those without formal rights in social movements complicates our sovereign understanding of the citizen. Equally, whilst civil and political citizenship has usually been studied and understood as a product of European history, exploring social movements helps us recognise the global dimensions of being political as well as its radical contingency. This two day interdisciplinary conference addresses these issues by exploring how citizenship and social movements continue to reshape each other.

In exploring the interrelationship between citizenship and current social movements we call for papers across several fields of study, including political philosophy, political geography, sociology, legal studies, education and political studies. In order to understand how citizenship studies can help us understand social movements and how social movements reconfigure citizenship we are interested in research on:
Participation; social movements as resistance; protest and contemporary rights claims.

The development of social/political trust, social movements and political subjectivity.

The role of identities in citizenship and social movements.

Mobilisation, new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social and political movements.

New trans-nationalisation of citizenship and social movements.

Social movements as sites for education, practice and learning.

This will be a two-day event organised around a series of keynote talks and paper presentations that will allow for the exchange of ideas and experiences.

We especially welcome abstract submissions from postgraduate and early career researchers as well as established researchers. Each speaker will be given 15 minutes to present their paper and 10 minutes each for questions.

For inquiries, please contact:

Dr Nora Siklodi (University of Portsmouth, UK) nora.siklodi@port.ac.uk (Conference chair; Contact for academic and University of Portsmouth inquires related to this event)

Dr Kristoffer Halvorsrud (University of Newcastle, UK) k_halvorsrud@hotmail.com (Contact for abstract and booking related inquires, as well as BSA Citizenship study group inquires)

Prof. Trond Solhaug (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway) trond.solhaug@plu.ntnu.no (Contact for ECPR Standing Group on Citizenship inquires)

ECPR Conference Prague 07-10 September 2016. Call for panels in the SG Citizenship section

Citizenship debates: Normative, empirical and policy reflections on contemporary developments
Regional conflicts, economic and social crises have made citizenship one of the major political focal points for contemporary debates. This is heightened in the struggles over the rights and responsibilities concerning refugees and asylum seekers today. In the overwhelming exodus of people from the global south to north, the European Union as well as other states have been forced to re-address common policies of citizenship, rules of peoples movement, and the social, economic and political rights and responsibilities claimed by and offered to ‘non-citizens’. Such encounters and the thousands of deaths at the EU’s borders challenge claims of European humanitarianism and the persistent logics of both national and European citizenship. Although dominating the headlines, questions about the effects of forced migration on the politics of inclusion/exclusion and contemporary acts of citizenship (Isin, 2008) are not only relevant in the European context. Similar debates are taking place across the globe – in the north and south Americas, as well as south and east Asia. As a result of these developments, citizenship continues to increase its importance, and that is imbricated in the everyday life of people. These changes diversify and affect most part of our societies from state policies and daily citizen practices to schools and education.
Against this backdrop, ECPR SG on Citizenship calls for panel proposals, which seek to address contemporary debates on citizenship. We welcome panels, which speak to the various aspects of citizenship today (civil, political, social, legal, cultural, transnational, and so on) and explore how different “acts of citizenship” (Isin 2008) have manifested across time, multiple sites and encounters. We welcome proposals with a wide range of approaches to citizenship and citizenship education, including normative, empirical and policy reflections. We also welcome panels on diversification, integration, education and those addressing recent developments in public policy (including education, welfare and so on). The overall objective of this section is to provide an overview of citizenship debates.
Section application procedures.
According to ECPR General Section and panel procedures the section proposal should include an abstract and suggestions for minimum 3 and maximum 8 panels. Standing groups are given a priority when choosing among section proposals, but are not guaranteed to be included. As a member of SG Citizenship, you are hereby invited to propose panels to be included in our section proposal. Your panel proposal should include;

• Name and affiliation of Chair (if you will not be the chair) and co-chair (if necessary)
• Title of panel, eventually a subtitle (idea) – it is preferred, but no requirement, that “Citizenship” is somehow included in the title.
• The panel idea/proposal should include at least 3 and maximum 5 paper titles with Author names and their affiliations.

This panel proposal should be addressed on e-mail to one of the following; Trond Solhaug, trond.solhaug@plu.ntnu.no, Nora Siklodi, nora.siklodi@port.ac.uk , Katja Mäkinen katja.a.p.makinen@jyu.fi, Joseph Turner j.aridiciturner@gmail.com , or Bernard Fournier Bernard.Fournier@me.com within October the 25th.

• As a Standing group we will be notified of the outcome of our Section proposal Dec. 1. 2015. We will notify those whose panel-proposals are selected for our section proposal.
• Then, before February 15. 2016, panel proposers must complete their proposal process through the MyECPR area of the ECPR website. Once logged in, they will be asked to select which Section the Panel should be considered for. Panel proposers are also required to select up to three key words.
• The same procedure will have to be applied for people wishing to submit papers.
• Please notice that you are free to change your panel idea when you turn it in as a panel proposal February. 15. 2016.
• Please notice that to be included in the section proposal may not guarantee that the panel is finally accepted.

Extended deadline: Call for papers workshop ‘A process of (dis)integration?’: Citizens’ attitudes towards, and participation in, national and EUropean politics’

Portsmouth, 10-11 September 2015

Call for papers: Extended deadline 10 August 2015

The ECPR Standing Group on Citizenship in association with the Centre for European & International Studies Research (CEISR) and the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence for the Study of a Transnational Europe (CESTE) are pleased to announce that our original call for papers to the above workshop, exploring citizens’ attitudes towards, and participation in, national and EUropean politics, have been extended to 10 August 2015.

The workshop seeks to offer an opportunity to academics, practitioners, and policy-makers to discuss and debate contemporary developments in national and EUropean politics.

Issues to be discussed relate to:

– Current processes of EUropean (dis)integration

– Contemporary citizenship, identity and public attitudes in national and EUropean contexts

– The rights of citizens and migrants at the national and EUropean levels

– Participation in national and EUropean politics

– The state of democracy in EUrope today

Paper proposals of maximum 300 words, addressing, but not limited to, the above-mentioned issues are invited for submission. Proposals should be sent to Nora Siklodi (nora.siklodi@port.ac.uk) no later than 10 August 2015.

Please note that registration for the workshop will be free. Applications from PhD students and early career researchers are especially encouraged, and an attempt will be made to contribute, where possible, towards their incurring travel and accommodation costs.

For further information about the workshop, speakers and funding, please visit the workshop website (https://t.co/T8nTGQR1YH) or email Nora.

Call for paper: A process of (dis)integration?: Citizens’ attitudes towards, and participation in, national and EUropean politics’ Portsmouth, 10-11 September 2015

The European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Standing Group on Citizenship and the Centre for European & International Studies Research (CEISR) is pleased to announce a workshop exploring citizens’ attitudes towards, and participation in, national and EUropean politics, to take place at the University of Portsmouth 10-11 September, 2015.
It is widely recognised that European integration has not led to the sense of ‘EUrophoria’ that many of the founding fathers anticipated. To the contrary, we now see a process of (dis)integration and increased support for regional autonomy. These developments do not only question the legitimacy of the EUropean project but, quite often, the legitimacy of (more established) nation-states. Against this backdrop, policy-makers, academics and practitioners seem to disagree about what citizens’ diverging attitudes and (lack of) participation really signal for the future of nation-states and that of ‘EUrope’, and how we should respond to these developments.
While some maintain that the majority of citizens support further EUropean integration, others draw attention to the rise in the popularity of Eurosceptic and regional parties across and within national borders. Again others underline there is very little, if any, evidence that in their everyday lives citizens care about what politicians in Brussels or even in their capital actually do. In response to a (supposed) growing disillusionment with national and EUropean politics, some policy-makers have gone as far as to offer their supporters an opportunity to vote for an exit from ‘EUrope’ and even from their (current) territorial boundaries – most notably in the United Kingdom. In sharp contrast, a growing number of academics and practitioners are now involved with civil society organisations and groups, which aim to reach out to different segments of EUropean citizens directly, including migrants, students and workers amongst others, in order to raise their awareness about significance of contemporary national and EUropean politics. These developments underline that it is more important than ever to address the issue of citizens’ attitudes towards, and participation in, national and EUropean politics.
This workshop seeks to offer an opportunity for academics, practitioners, and policy-makers to discuss and debate issues arising from questions about citizens’ attitudes towards, and participation in, national and EUropean politics, whilst reflecting on current processes of EUropean (dis)integration.
Paper and panel proposals, addressing any of the above-mentioned issues are invited for submission.
Proposals of maximum 300 words should be sent to Nora Siklodi (nora.siklodi@port.ac.uk) no later than 3 August 2015.
Please note that registration for the workshop will be free. Applications from PhD students and early career researchers are especially encouraged, and an attempt will be made to contribute where possible towards their incurring travel and accommodation costs.