RC03 - European Unification

Panel title: “POPULISM, ANTI-POPULISM, AND THE EU”

Chair: Carlo Ruzza
Discussants: Hans-Joerg Trenz

Populism scholarship is fast gaining momentum in social and political sciences. However, less attention has been paid to the relationship between populist politics, EU institutions, and EU Civil Society.
While populism has been analysed from a variety of perspectives and methodologies, the scholarship has particularly focused on national and cross national cases, rather than on its European dimension. This panel aims to discuss how populist forces are impacting and reshaping EU institutions, civil society, and the representations and public debate that surround the European Union. We welcome papers that focus on different dimensions of this topic, such as:
• The impact of populism on European institutions, in terms of discourses, practices, and policy making;
• The relationships and interactions between populism and European organised civil society;
• How political forces at EU level are re-organizing themselves to face the challenge of populism;
• How populism is reshaping the public debate about the European Union, and what strategies non-populist and anti-populist forces apply to react to populism;
• How the rise of populist forces has shaped citizens’ perception of the EU and its institutions.
• Innovative theoretical perspectives on populism and its relationship with the EU.
• How to disentangle the relationship between populist and nationalist politics, within the EU insittutions and across Europe more broadly.

The panel aims at representing a forum of debate over the dynamics and consequences of populism for the EU, and how political forces and civil society should face this challenge. Papers that assess the relationship between populism and the EU from different theoretical and methodological perspectives are particularly welcome.
Submit all paper proposals to paolo.cossarini@unitn.it by Friday, October 18 2019

Panel “Citizenship and mobility in the EU: policies and practices”

Panel chair: Daniela Vintila (Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies, University of Liege)

Abstract: In a context of widening inequalities and rising populism, increasing mobility to and from EU countries clearly represents a major challenge for defining the boundaries of citizenship in the EU. The integration of migrants and their offspring across Europe has increasingly gained salience in societal and political debates. At the same time, the EU citizenship status continues to be portrayed as a powerful institutional and legal tool that marks the reconfiguration of the traditional paradigm of belonging in an increasingly diverse European Union. This panel seeks to contribute to ongoing debates regarding the design, outcomes and outputs of citizenship and mobility policies within the EU. To do so, we focus on three important angles. Firstly, we examine the legal implications of the EU citizenship status for the integration of mobile EU citizens across European host countries and, more broadly, for the politics of inclusion and exclusion within the EU. Secondly, we focus on mobile Europeans’ rights by looking not only at how these rights are defined and contested across the EU, but also at how EU citizens exercise these rights while residing in another EU Member State or in non-EU countries. Thirdly, the panel also discusses new top-down and bottom up participatory initiatives aiming to strengthen mobile Europeans’ identification with the EU by reshaping the meaning and significance of the EU citizenship.

Deadline for abstracts: Thursday 3^rd October, please send to Daniela.Vintila@uliege.be

Call for Papers Panel: "Representative Democracy in Danger? The Impact of Populist Parties on the Powers of National Parliaments"- IPSA World Congress, Lisbon 2020
Panel convenor: Dr. Aleksandra Maatsch (Chair of Social Sciences and Economy, Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies, University of Wrocław)
Panel chair: Prof. Dr. Ireneusz Paweł Karolewski (Chair of Political Theory and Research on Democracy, University of Leipzig)
Panel co-chair: Dr. Aleksandra Maatsch (Chair of Social Sciences and Economy, Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies, University of Wrocław)

Over recent years no other phenomenon has received greater academic attention than populism. While the meaning of the term continues to generate deep controversies among scholars, there is a broad consensus on populism constituting one of the most serious challenges to contemporary politics. It may therefore seem surprising that one important aspect of the problem has so far escaped academic attention: comparative studies analysing whether (and if yes, how) populist parties influence the powers of national parliaments. This workshop therefore addresses the following questions: How does the presence of populist parties in national parliaments influence core parliamentary competences, namely law-making, scrutiny and representation? To what extent does the presence of populists in national parliaments erode representative democracy?
Why is this research question worth looking at? Firstly, for a democracy to thrive, national parliaments cannot be constrained in their capacity to control and to hold governments accountable and to debate and vote on legislative projects while also representing the variety of interests in the deliberative and law-making process. Secondly, we have no systematic knowledge regarding the impact of populist actors on national parliaments in Europe or elsewhere. In particular, we do not know which aspects of national parliamentary competences have been predominantly affected by the presence of populist parties in the national parliaments of specific states.
The aim is therefore to examine the de facto practices of national parliamentary legislative, scrutiny and representative functions under the impact of populist parties (our dependent variable). We are interested in examining the impact of populist parties as (a) the parliamentary opposition; (b) junior coalition partners in governments and (c) the major force in a government. We welcome papers focusing on European and non-European states, country case-studies and comparative papers employing either qualitative or quantitative
methods. Regarding the topics of the papers, we welcome contributions focusing on any of the core aspects of national parliamentary powers (i.e. law-making and/or scrutiny).
The panel is open to researchers working in different subfields of political science and legal studies. As output from the workshop, the organiser is aiming for a special issue in an international peer-reviewed journal.

Deadline for abstracts: Monday 7^th October, please send to maatsch@wbz.uni.wroc.pl

CfP Panel “Identity(ies)-building in the EU: discourse, actors and dynamics”

Chair: Annie NIESSEN

Panel to be submitted for the Session RC03 European Unification

During the past decades, the European Union has increasingly focused on actively reinforcing a sense of European identity through the promotion of the EU citizenship status and rights, cultural policies and symbolic references, among others. Yet, a return to nationalist attitudes can be observed in some EU Member States, notably in the voting behavior of EU citizens and their increasing skepticism towards EU membership.

This sheds light on some unresolved conflicting identity issues between the European and national levels, while also raising important questions such as: What is the role of the EU institutions and national actors in shaping a common, European, identity? Which dynamics lead to reinforcing or weakening European or national identities? Can European and national identities coexist and complement each other? To what extent discourses for regional autonomy at national level or supranational discourses at EU level may have an impact on how identity is shaped in the EU?

This panel aims to address these questions by focusing on the multi-dimensional construction of identity – or identities – within the EU, as well as on the actors and dynamics involved in this process of identity-building. The panel welcomes contributions with both theoretical and empirical approaches, as well as with various methodological and epistemological stances.

Paper proposals should be sent via email to Annie Niessen (annie.niessen@uliege.be) by 1st of October 2019 (midnight GMT). Paper proposals should include the title of the paper (no more than 25 words) and the abstract (no more than 250 words). For more information about the congress, please visit: https://wc2020.ipsa.org/wc/home

Call for papers

IPSA World Congress of Political Science, Lisbon, 25-29 July 2020

Panel title: The Brexit and the Future of European Security Affairs - https://wc2020.ipsa.org/wc/panel/brexit-and-future-european-security-affairs

Convenor: Prof. Benjamin Zyla

Type: Open Panel

Chair: Dr. Arnold Kammel

The Brexit has attracted a lot of scholarly attention especially to its economic and social implications. However, what has largely been neglected is a discussion of its implications for both NATO and Europe’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The aim and objective of this panel is to close this gap. How will the Brexit affect the inner mechanics of the transatlantic alliance (NATO) and CFSP in particular in the years to come? What implications does it have for CFSP missions (civilian & military), also financially?
Why are these important questions? First, the UK has been an integral part of the transatlantic as well as European security architecture since their beginnings. Second, the is EU currently exposed to a variety of external security and foreign policy challenges, including threats from Russia, as well as the instability permeating the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. On the NATO side, the climate is uncertain as well, especially given President Trump’s questioning of the viability of NATO. Thus, it appears to be clear is that the Brexit is more than simply an internal management exercise where British commitments (financial & human resources etc.) to the EU are going to be ‘switched around’ from one organization to the other—that is from the EU to NATO—or where their human resources (civilian & military) are being rotated out of the respective EU institutions in Brussels and posted elsewhere. The Brexit is much more fundamental than that, touching upon the very basic foundations of European security affairs and the transatlantic relationship. Against this backdrop, it is fair to hypothesize that the Brexit will undoubtedly have significant policy implications for all transatlantic security actors and institutions involved in the management thereof, in Britain, in NATO, and in the EU.

Session

RC03 European Unification

Call for papers

IPSA World Congress of Political Science, Lisbon, 25-29 July 2020

Panel title: Democracy Decline in EU Member States and EU Neighbours – Is the EU Helpless?- https://wc2020.ipsa.org/wc/panel/democracy-decline-eu-member-states-and-eu-neighbours-eu-helpless

Convenor: Dr. Adam Szymanski

Type: Open Panel

In many states in the world, including the EU and its neighbourhood, we can observe the phenomenon called most often “de-democratization”, “democracy decline” or “democratic backsliding”. It has many faces – it can be about lowering the quality of democracy but sometimes also the situation close (if not identical) to the change of the regime – to a less democratic one.
 

It is often associated in the literature with the process of de-Europeanization. In the context of democratization it is connected with the frequent distancing from the European democratic values, rules and procedures. In practice it means often the reversal of previous reforms or conducting them without reference to the EU standards of liberal democracy. However, the de-Europeanization is also often associated with the weakening EU capabilities to react to the changes in (of) political regimes.
 

The aim of the panel is to investigate if the EU is really helpless in reacting to democracy decline – both in the EU members (such as Hungary, Poland or Romania) and its neighbours which either aspire to be the EU members in the future (Turkey, Western Balkan states) or want to have close ties with the EU (ENP countries), taking into consideration the current state of affairs.
 

The following questions will be posed: Are the current instruments and procedures in the EU insufficient and ineffective in response to the democracy decline in EU members (e.g. infringement procedures, art. 7 TEU) or countries within the EU enlargement and the ENP (mechanisms led by conditionality)? If so, what is needed to change this situation? What are the key problems for the EU to act effectively? What is the impact of particular EU institutions in the case in question – the European Commission, the European Parliament or the Court of Justice of the EU?
 

All of these, and more questions will be answered in the panel, which can include both empirical studies (single case studies and comparative analyses) and more theoretical papers trying to answer the question if the current theoretical framework is sufficient to explain the EU problems concerning the impact on the political regimes.

CfP: “Failing Forward or Falling Apart? Crises and Patterns of European Integration” Workshop at Princeton University on September 13, 2019

By Erik Jones, R. Daniel Kelemen, and Sophie Meunier

Abstract: In “Failing Forward? The Euro Crisis and the Incomplete Nature of European Integration” (Comparative Political Studies, 49/7, 2016), we fused together liberal institutionalist and neo-functionalist logics to argue that in some circumstances European integration proceeded through a “failing forward” cycle in which lowest common denominator bargains led to incomplete institutions, which in turn generated crises, which propelled deeper integration through (once again) incomplete institutions – thus setting the stage for the process to repeat itself. Several scholars have since used this framework to explain crisis-based integration dynamics in various policy sectors, such as migration policy (Scipioni, 2017) and the common asylum system (Lavenex, 2018).

We are organizing a one-day workshop at Princeton University on Friday September 13 to take stock of how the Failing Forward framework may help us understand the pattern of European integration both at critical moments in its development and over time.   We welcome papers refining the Failing Forward framework, papers using the explanation in a variety of policy areas, papers applying the Failing Forward analysis to polities other than the EU, as well as papers critical of the framework. We might envision subsequently gathering the papers that most speak to each other into a journal special issue.Thanks to support from the Princeton Institute on International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) and the European Union Program at Princeton (EUPP), we will cover lodging, meals, and partial travel costs.

To apply, please send the following to smeunier@princeton.edu by February 28: title of paper, abstract of about 200 words, and your full name, position, institution, email address, and website.

The Institute of Public Goods and Policies at the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid, Spain, is willing to endorse outstanding researchers willing to take part in the Spanish national competition for 100% research post-doctoral employment contracts in any of the six research areas of the institute: i) Environmental Economics, ii) Rural Geography, iii) Citizens, Institutions and Policy, iv) Social Policies and Welfare State, v) Systems and Policies for Research and Innovation, and vi) Scientometrics.

More information on how to apply for endorsement by CSIC-IPP before 15^th of January in the documents attached.

The text of the national call, requiring endorsement from Spanish public organizations, can be found in the links below (in Spanish):

Juan de la Cierva - Formación (2 year contract for Spanish or foreign candidates who obtained their PhD between 2017 and 2018)

Juan de la Cierva - Incorporación  (2 year contract and 6,000 euros research grant for Spanish or foreign candidates who obtained their PhD in 2014 or 2016)

Ayudas para Contratos Ramón y Cajal  (5 year contract and 40,000 euros research grant for Spanish or foreign candidates with an outstanding research career)

Location: Foyer, Door 1/4-T12, Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre

Date: Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Time: 12:45-13:45

1. Welcome

• Welcome- Carlos Closa, chair of IPSA RC03 for the term 2016-2018
• Agenda approval
• 21 RC03 members attended the meeting in Brisbane

2. Recent activities

• 18 IPSA RC03 panels at the 2016 IPSA World Congress in Poznan
• 11 panel proposals submitted to IPSA RC03 for the 2018 World Congress in Brisbane. 8 IPSA RC03 panels included in the final programme (between 4 and 6 papers per panel, covering a wide range of topics related to the EU and the European integration process) 

3. Website and social media

• IPSA RC03 website: http://rc03.ipsa.org/
• Since 2016, Twitter account (https://twitter.com/rc3_ipsa) and Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/IPSA-RC3-European-Unification-1508340372717640/)
• Members are strongly encouraged to use the RC website, Twitter account and Facebook page in order to disseminate information relevant to the RC, including recent publications, Call for Papers, seminars, workshops, etc. To do so, please send your contributions to Daniela Vintila (Daniela.Vintila@uliege.be).  

4. Future activities

• Next IPSA Congress: Lisbon 2020. Main objective: approximately 11 RC03 panel proposals.
• RC mailing list: updated every two years. The aim is to encourage colleagues working on topics that are relevant for the RC03 to join the Committee and the mailing list. A new mailing list will be created with all the participants who attended the RC03 business meeting in Brisbane. 

5. Elections for the IPSA RC03 Executive Board

• Board members for the mandate 2016-2018:

1. Carlos Closa (Spanish National Research Council, IPP-CSIC, Spain) Chair  
2. Philomena Murray (University of Melbourne, Australia) Vice-Chair
3. Amy Verdun (University of Victoria, Canada) Treasurer 
4. Yvonne Gallighan (Queen’s University Belfast, UK)
5. Ken Endo (Hokkaido University, Japan)
6. Hans-Jörg Trenz (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
7. Simona Piattoni (University of Trento, Italy)
8. Daniela Vintila (University of Leicester, UK)
9. Hartmut Mayer (University of Oxford, UK)
10. Adam Szymański (University of Warsaw, Poland)
11. Przemysław Biskup (University of Warsaw, Poland)

• After the elections held during the business meeting in Brisbane, the new members of the RC03 Executive Board are:

1. Hans-Jörg Trenz (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) Chair  
2. Sophie Meunier (Princeton University, US) Vice-Chair
3. Daniela Vintila (University of Liege, Belgium) Vice-Chair and Secretary
4. Adam Szymański (University of Warsaw, Poland)
5. Benjamin Zyla (University of Ottawa, Canada)
6. Francesco Violi (Canterbury Christ Church University, UK)
7. Tamara Tubakovic (University of Melbourne, Australia)
8. Charlotte Galpin (University of Birmingham, UK)