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Submission deadline: 24 January 2020
Call for Panels and Papers
International Conference of the PSA/PSAI Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Groups
Democratic Transformations Spaces, Connections, and Systemic Change
Dublin City University, Ireland June 4-5 2020
Keynotes: Melissa Williams (University of Toronto) and Yves Sintomer (University of Paris 8)
Current times are characterized by the proliferation of a variety of participatory spaces, emerging in response to the shortcomings and challenges that modern democracies are facing. These sites of engagement vary widely, including citizens’ assemblies, occupied public squares, workplace democracy, participation in schools, and flash mobs. Further variety to these spaces is added by new modes of digital deliberation, e-rulemaking, and various forms of online engagement. Recent debates in the scholarship on deliberative and participatory democracy suggest that the most fruitful way to understand these spaces is not as insular phenomena but rather as connected in participatory ecologies or participatory systems. Different spaces might fulfil different democratic functions in a larger system. Digital connectivity often contributes to these newly emerging networks of various, hybrid forms of participation. This opens up opportunities for systemic change. Through their connections, participatory spaces are part of deep systemic transformations toward more participatory societies. The Conference of the PSA Participatory and Deliberative Democracy Specialist Group 2020 invites democracy researchers in all stages of their careers (including PhD students) to discuss their empirical and theoretical work. Topics may include but are not limited to
Digital engagement,
e-rulemaking, and crowdsourcing
Mini publics, citizens’ assemblies
Global democracy
Participatory experiences from the Global South
Feminist, gender and queer approaches to democracy
Radical democratic, socialist or anarchist politics
Participatory constitution making
Workplace participation and worker cooperatives
Democratic innovations
Social movements’ democratic experiences and unconventional forms of participation
Ecological and green democracy
The economic context of participation Inequalities and modes of exclusion/inclusion
Consumerism as form of participation
Public administration, representative institutions, and elite deliberation
Research methods for studying participatory and deliberative democracy