Heinrich Heine University
Düsseldorf
Germany
Keynote speakers:
Prof. Dr. Ulrich von Alemann
Prof. Dr. Martin Morlok
Prof. Dr. Thomas Poguntke
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Elvert
Deadline for abstract/panel submission: Friday, 20th August 2010
The conference represents an excellent opportunity for post-graduate students to come together from all over Europe in order to present and discuss their research on politics-related issues.
A democratic state is characterised by the ability of its citizens to formulate preferences, communicate them to the government, have these preferences weighed equally and eventually realised. The agents and framework for these purposes are made up of political parties, party systems and institutions, which will therefore attract full attention of this academic event. Thus the conference format will consist of themed panels with the following, and related, topics covered:
Elections, voter participation and activism: what are the ways of increasing popular participation and bringing parties back into the public domain in the face of voter de-alignment, checkbook voting, etc.?;
European governance: problems of representation and accountability. Legitimacy deficits – what can be done about them?;
Party structure and organization: formation, types, internal dynamics and interaction patterns of the party groups;
Political theory: revisiting the applicability of already existing concepts and developing new methodological approaches;
Leadership, followers and political psychology: personality, charisma, political ambition and motives, image marketing, political rhetoric, emotions. How can citizens make sense of the political world?;
Media, political communication and campaigns: how is politics reproduced in the media? To what degree can politicians use it for their purposes and eventually misuse?;
Eurosceptic and extremist movements and the role of religion in political discourses and outcomes;
Europe´s social democracy: the current state and ways out of the crises. What accounts for the difference in its electoral results in Western, Central and Eastern Europe?;
Corruption, lobbying and political funding: where is a crossing line between democratic processes and destructive opportunism?;
Authoritarianism and its formula of success: what are the constitutional arrangements and party system implications? The democratic rule is a matter of definition and degree, but still, is there an ideal Executive-Legislature relationship?;
Post-Communist politics: party building, party system institutionalisation and development in post-authoritarian states. Which changes took place since the early days of Perestroika? Do East European politics follow the patterns of their Western counterparts? What factors account for eventual divergence? What is a balance between the path dependency and innovation in their development?;
The relationship between political parties and civil society actors: political opportunity structure of the parties, social movements and the nature of contentious politics require thorough examination. Who do these organisations represent? Are they elitist or democratic? Do they actually reflect public opinion?;
New media and electoral participation: how new technologies reshape political activity by altering the cost structure and the spectrum of political engagement? What is the impact of the Internet on political attitudes, mobilization, party politics and new online political activities?;
Politics tend to dominate virtually all aspects of human activity and the relationship between political actors such as parties, institutions and electorates shapes the nature of democratic governance. Against this backdrop the conference purpose is to examine theories, case studies and research methods of political science and especially party politics.
There is considerable merit in facilitating a theoretically informed debate between various perspectives, rather than seeking to arrive at uniform solutions. Therefore preference will be given to papers that deliberately combine theory and evidence from a comparative perspective. Graduate, doctoral and post-doctoral students are welcome to submit the results of their current research on political issues of sub-national, national and supra-national level.
The keynote lectures will be delivered by renowned professors and panels chaired by experienced researchers. The organisers are looking for external funding in order to cover participants´ accommodation and travel costs. One-page abstracts and/or panel proposals are solicited till Friday, 20th August 2010 to the following e-mail: aegcpp2011@googlemail.com. A publication comprising best papers is also envisaged. Language: English. For further information please contact AEGCPP 2011 academic convenor Alex Svetlov aegcpp2011@googlemail.com. Website: http://politics.ucoz.org. For previous conferences: http://www.aegcpp.org.uk
Please quote 10 Academic Resources Daily in your application to this opportunity!
