RC03 - European Unification

Call for Papers Workshop ¨Citizenship, Diversity, Participation and Education in Times of Change¨

ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops 2015, Warsaw

Deadline: 1 December 2014

Description: A number of social and political changes have recently challenged political legitimacy, which makes citizens’ political interest and participation even more critical. First globalization opens up communications (new media) and networks, changes national and personal identities, and expands the arenas and means of participation. Second, migration increases pluralism, which in turn fuels debates over rights, social inclusion and exclusion, and the means of citizens’ social and political participation. Third, the current financial turmoil has in many countries led to social and political reclassification, poverty and political unrest. Many citizens take it to the streets to address their immediate problems and democratic deficits. Some states experience ethnic rivalry, or separatism. Religious and political extremism is growing among some citizens. Young people continue to find new forms of participation and show a tendency to favour virtual and more occasional involvement. Generally, political interest and conventional participation is declining somewhat, particularly among young citizens. In the situation described above, there is continuous work and growing interest to develop universal human rights for citizens and education for citizenship in all states, particularly in the name of the Council of Europe and the European Council. UNESCO’s member states have also agreed to develop competence, autonomy, and citizenship among all young people. All of these educational efforts are situated in and influenced by the social and political changes and the changing roles of citizens and non-citizens alike. In this joint session we wish to gather scholars who address questions related to the changing conditions for citizens’ social and political life as well as educational attempts to address these challenges and changing conditions for citizenship.

http://www.ecpr.eu/Events/PanelDetails.aspx?PanelID=2429&EventID=90

Call for Papers Conference on ¨Mobility in Crisis¨, organized by the European University Institute

Deadline: 10 September 2014

Description: This conference aims to generate critical debate and new empirical and theoretical knowledge on mobility, or rather mobilities in the European space. The conference questions the nature of mobility. We prefer to speak of mobilities, in the plural (see also Urry 2007, 2002). Mobility is defined as not necessarily spatial, but also virtual, and subjectively experienced rather than only objectively described (as migration from place A to place B or transition from study to work, or from job A to job B). Our theoretical framework is informed by Anthony Giddens’ analysis of modernity and self-identity (1991), as well as Zygmunt Bauman’s notion of liquid modernity (2000, 2007, 2011) and its critiques (for instance Abrahamson 2004, Atkinson 2008, Lee 2011, Beck and Lau 2005). Understanding the seemingly paradoxical picture of spatial 'immobility’ of Europeans or even seeming apathy or inability to either angrily 'voice’ or 'exit’ (Hirschmann 1970) in the face of increasing hardship and decreasing hope, needs to factor in the in-built uncertainty, the liquidity of late modernity. Our reading is open-ended: we question whether the limited spatial mobility of citizens and residents of the EU is a symptom of resistance to the neo-liberal transformation of societies and has a potential for re-embeddedness (re-solidification), or whether it is a sign of defeat: in a world that worships 'travelling light’ as improvement and progress, Europeans are/perceive themselves to be among the settled majority losers, unable to recast themselves as members of the nomadic, extraterritorial elites that Bauman has so poetically analysed. If the crisis has induced both involuntary mobility and persistent sedentariness, the following questions arise: How is this division articulated in terms of socio-economic inequalities and cultural distinctions between mobile and sedentary populations in Europe? How are these divisions politically mobilized and how are they reinforced or modified through regulatory policies? Is the distinction between free internal movement for EU citizens, on the one hand, and immigration control and integration policies for third country nationals, on the other hand, gradually eroding and being replaced by a deeper division between mobile and sedentary populations? Building on these reflections, the conference questions how cultural attachments and social networks assume a central role in defining the social experience and are crucial meso-factors that guide decision-making on spatial as well as socio-economic mobility, even in conditions of 'free movement’ policies within the EU.

More information: http://www.eui.eu/SeminarsAndEvents/Index.aspx?eventid=103127