[Cadaad] FW: EXTENDED DEADLINE CADAAD 2016 Panel: Exploring the concepts and mechanisms of participatory and radical democracy in the 21st Century

[Hart, Christopher]

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DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS EXTENDED TO 13th JANUARY


Panel Proposal to be presented at the CADAAD 2016, University of Catania, 5-7 September 2016

Conveners: Tom Bartlett (Cardiff University) and Nicolina Montesano Montessori  (Utrecht University of Applied Sciences)



Exploring the concepts and mechanisms of participatory and radical democracy in the 21st Century.



DEADLINE: 13th January.  Submission to Tom Bartlett <BartlettT at cardiff.ac.uk<mailto:BartlettT at cardiff.ac.uk>>



The transition from late modernity to the digital era has brought to the public imagination not only the limits of representative democracy but also the various movements to enhance popular participation globally. Problems have become so complex that it is not to be expected that they can be resolved by politicians alone, while the capacity of political parties to represent the people, both majorities and minorities, is increasingly called into question in the public arena. In this panel we will explore responses to this crisis of representation in both theory and  action.



The popularisation of democratic processes takes various forms: grassroots and bottom-up movements challenging the political status quo, often with an emphasis on economic reform, have  appeared in the form of 15 M and the Cooperatives Integrales in Cataluña and popular protests in the Middle East; there are moves to decentralise decision-making power in the European Union, and the UK in particular; and elected leaders, such as Bolivia's Morales, have laid claim to a more authentic representation of the 'voice' of the people.  Examples with a longer tradition include townhall meetings in the US and referenda in Switzerland and elsewhere.

Such movements have been mirrored in political theory, where the concept of radical democracy, as developed by Laclau and Mouffe (1985) and further explored by Torfing (1990) and Hajer & Versteeg (2006), has been a topic of much debate.  Laclau and Mouffe spoke of the primacy of politics, while more recent global trends suggest we may now be living in an era of the primacy of the economy, where popular voice is increasingly marginalised, and in this panel we explore examples of radical or participatory democracy which run counter to this development and may help pave the way for civil emancipation.



Papers on this theme from a range of theoretical and applied perspectives are welcome, particularly those that demonstrate the impact of (local) moves towards participatory democracy or provide examples of participatory (action) research in this area.



All papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English.

Abstracts of 250-350 words excluding references should be sent as MS Word attachment to bartlettt at cardiff.ac.uk<mailto:bartlettt at cardiff.ac.uk> and n.montesanomontessori at vu.nl<mailto:n.montesanomontessori at vu.nl>, before 13th January 2016. Please include in the body of the email but not in the abstract itself (1) your name, (2) affiliation and (3) email address. Notifications of acceptance will be communicated by 1 March 2016.


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