HiSoPo vous informe de la publication de l’appel à communication pour le prochain congrès de l’ECPR, qui se tiendra à Oslo du 6 au 9 septembre 2017. Le groupe “Political Concepts” organise une section intitulée “Concepts in Conflict”. Pour proposer une intervention, vous pouvez contacter les organisateurs/trices de la section (taru.k.s.haapala@jyu.fi ; anna.kronlund@fiia.fi ;  gabriele.ciampini1@gmail.com), ou bien, encore mieux, directement les organisateurs/trices du panel qui vous intéresse.  Il est possible que le programme final change en fonction du nombre de réponses aux panels, ou que certains panels ne soient finalement pas retenus, mais dans ce cas les organisateurs essaieront de proposer des panels de remplacement.

ECPR General Conference

Oslo University

6-9 September 2017

Section proposal

Title: Concepts in Conflict

The aim of the section is to focus on political conflicts in their various forms, and the ways in which they are linked to different usages, contestations and discussions of concepts.

Worldwide, political conflicts pose challenges or threats in various degrees, not just on life and humanity, but also on political order and democratic institutions. They can come in different shapes and forms and last for longer or shorter periods of time. What they all share, however, is some kind of conceptual disagreement on principles, values or arguments. Sometimes conflicts can be reconciled, but there are also instances of crises following after another. Ethnic conflicts, for example, can be continuous, whereas European integration forms a very different sort of chain of crises that can also be detrimental for a whole continent. At the same time, political conflict is a basic feature of representative democracies. In parliaments, political disagreement and debate are constitutive of the political process and come about in orderly manner following established rules and procedure.

Controversies and struggles over concepts provide important nodal points for the study of politics and political conflicts. Paying attention to what is contested, not just in political life but in other types of debates as well, is not just the starting point for political research but can also constitute breaks or shifts in current debates, historical perception or established grand narratives. What has been previously considered as incontestable or without a doubt, can suddenly seem more problematic and worthy of further research. For example, human rights, nation states and the European integration can seem incontestable and matters of fact if the conceptual struggles over their political aspects are ignored.

Chair:

Dr Taru Haapala is a research fellow at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä. She has held the position of visiting fellow at the Queen Mary Centre of History of Political Thought, University of London, and at the Department of History and Civilization of the European University Institute in Florence. She has co-chaired panels on deliberation in three previous ECPR General Conferences.

email: taru.k.s.haapala@jyu.fi

Vice-chairs:

Dr Anna Kronlund is a Senior Research Fellow specializing in US politics at The Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Together with Dr Haapala, she has co-chaired panels on politics of deliberation in two previous ECPR General Conferences.

email: anna.kronlund@fiia.fi

MA Gabriele Ciampini is a PhD student at Università degli Studi di Firenze. Previously he has acted as a Vice-Chair for Section on EU Politics at the ECPR Graduate Student Conference held in Tartu 2016 and a Chair of the panel ‘Liberalism and Economics’ at the ECPR General Conference in Montréal.

email: gabriele.ciampini1@gmail.com

This section endorsed by the ECPR Standing Group Political Concepts will be formed of the following 11 panels addressing issues ranging from ethnic and religious conflicts to the European past and revolutions, with both modern and historical as well as theoretical and empirical emphases:

1) Concepts in revolutions

Chairs: Douglas Moggach (dmoggach@uottawa.ca), University of Ottawa and Samuel Hayat (samuel.hayat@univ-lille2.fr), CNRS (CERAPS)

The aim of the panel is to assess the effects of revolutions on key concepts in political vocabulary. The focus will be set on the concepts of freedom, universality, and the state.

2) The politics of negation: public resentment in democratic theory

Chair: Anthoula Malkopoulou (anthoula.malkopoulou@statsvet.uu.se), Uppsala University

This panel will take issue with why citizens are becoming increasingly resentful of ‘democracy’ as we know it and how this bears on our understanding of democracy and related concepts, such as representation, participation and legitimacy.

3) Neoliberalism as a Social Order. Conflicting visions in the Neoliberal Intellectual Community

Chair: Gabriele Ciampini (gabriele.ciampini1@gmail.com), Università degli Studi di Firenze

The panel aims to analyse the intellectual conflicts within the neoliberal community. The panel focuses on the critiques of democracy and on the complex relationship between economic and political sphere.

4) Conceptual politics of European integration

Chairs: Taru Haapala (taru.k.s.haapala@jyu.fi), University of Jyväskylä/Queen Mary University of London & Teemu Häkkinen (teemu.hakkinen@jyu.fi), University of Jyväskylä

This panel addresses the conceptual controversies related to European integration which can redefine and change the way in which key issues on European unity and its political institutions are seen and valued.

5) Strategic narratives and conceptual change

Chairs: Alister Miskimmon (Alister.Miskimmon@rhul.ac.uk), Royal Holloway University of London & Michelle Bentley (Michelle.Bentley@rhul.ac.uk), Royal Holloway University of London

This panel examines the ways in which the strategic construction of rhetoric contributes to and facilitates shifts in conceptual understanding. It seeks to explore where actors deliberately construct narratives for their own gain and use redefinitions of concepts in order to realize the ambitions behind them.

6) Conflicting concepts in making representations of the past

Chairs: Katja Mäkinen (katja.a.p.makinen@jyu.fi), University of Jyväskylä & Sanna Valkonen (sanna.valkonen@ulapland.fi), University of Lapland

Competing interpretations about the past are made through the uses and meanings of concepts depending on perspectives, contexts and actors involved. The panel will welcome papers discussing conceptual conflicts in politics of representation.

7) Ethnicity and the State: struggles over representation during political crises

Chairs: Mehdi Labzaé, CESSP, Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne & Marianne Saddier (marianne.saddier@gmail.com), CESSP, Paris 1 – Panthéon Sorbonne

This panel seeks to address from a comparative perspective mobilizations of ethnicity in the context of political crises, with a focus on their political usages and varying relationships with the State.

8) The Political Rhetoric of European Memory

Chair: Rieke Trimcev (rieke.trimcev@uni-greifswald.de), Greifswald University

The panel focuses on the political rhetoric of “European” Memory that serves to negotiate competing concepts of Europe and sustains manifold strategies to mobilize the past for present political aims.

9) Catholic Encounters with Nationalism and Political Modernity

Chair: Ettore Bucci (ettore.bucci@sns.it), Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa – Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po, Paris

This panel aims at discussing case studies of the longstanding confrontation between the Roman Church and the liberal Nation-State after French Revolution. Through presentations of different historical and political contexts, it will focus on recognizing the continuities and discontinuities, from rejection to problematic cooperation.

10) Concept of crisis in international politics

Chair: Anna Kronlund (Anna.Kronlund@fiia.fi), The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Helsinki

This panel investigates how the concept of crisis is used in the vocabulary of international politics. It discusses what kinds of events are constituted as crisis and how these are to be analyzed and conceptualized.

11) Linguistic justice and its conceptual underpinnings

Chair: Josep Soler (josep.soler-carbonell@english.su.se), Stockholm University

This panel will contribute to the debate on ‘linguistic justice’ and the challenges posed to our understanding of the concept of language in the context of increased citizen mobility and diversity.

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