Dears Colleagues,
In the context of the first IPSA-ECPR Joint Conference "Whatever Happened to North-South?", Sao Paulo, Brazil, February 16 to 19, 2011, we are organizing a section called "Comparative approaches to the qualities of democracies: challenges and transformations". If you are interested in submitting a pape r, this is the final list of our panels. The deadline for paper proposals is Friday, August 6, 2010.
All abstracts must be submitted online, using the submission form (http://www.saopaulo2011.ipsa.org/). No proposals will be accepted by email.
-People's values and understanding about democracy from a comparative perspective
Chairs: Prof. Gabriela Catterberg; Prof. Alejandro Moreno
Discussants: Prof. Christian Welzel; Mr. Ignacio Zuasnabar
Since the Third Wave, democracy is no longer reduced to a small number of industrialized and predominantly protestant nations. Rather, it expanded across the globe and across different cultural and socio-economic settings. Despite instability, turmoil and corruption democracy prevailed in most cases. In this context, the transitional literature has focused on the quality of democracy. In this panel, we propose to concentrate instead on people?s values and u nderstanding about democracy from a comparative perspective. Do people understand democracy similarly across the world? Or, is the meaning of democracy linked to contextual and socio-economic factors? Moreover, how do cultural orientations relate to democratic values? Finally, can we talk about a generational or gender gap when we talk about people?s conceptualizations and expectations of democracy?
-New lenses for an old question: judicial institutions and the quality of democracy
Chairs: Prof. Ramona Coman; Prof. Daniela Piana
The transformation of the functions and the roles of the judicial institutions is a key variable to be taken into account in the understanding of the “state” of our democracies. The idea that the judicialization of politics is one of the most significant trends in the late-twentieth and early twenty-first century government (Tate & Vallinder, 1995: 5) is almost fully accepted within the academic community. The phenomenon of jud icialization of politics has been principally described with reference to the United States and to the American political system. However, in Europe and in other geographical areas it is possible to detect a fairly increasing attention for the importance gained by judicial institutions. Judges have to decide on political matters, such as the legality of some political parties, but also on questions related to the private life and the historical past. They are sometimes asked by public opinion and media to go beyond their constitutionally prescribed duties in order to find solutions for specific social needs, to create new constitutional rights or to restore the confidence on the domestic democratic institutions. This growing demand for justice entrust judges to solve problems that political institutions are unable or unwilling to deal with effectively (Guarnieri & Pederzoli: 2002). This panel focuses on the following questions: what impact the transformation of the functions and roles of the judicial actors has on the democratic regimes?
-Representational Roles in Multi-Layered Democracies
Chair: Dr. Sam Depauw
Central to democratic representation has long been the principal-agent relation between constituents and their elected representatives (Urbinati & Warren, 2008; Rehfeld, 2005; cf. Pitkin, 1967). The relation is increasingly obfuscated, however, by the dissociation of citizens and social groups (including political parties) and the challenge to the national state posed by regions and international organizations … As a result, there is a renewed interest in rethinking the relationship between voters and their representatives. First, representational roles have been considered primarily from the perspective of elected representatives and the personal vote-seeking incentives the electoral rules provide them with (Wahlke et al., 1962; Carey & Shugart, 1995). Voters’ preferences have not been included very widely in the d iscussion (Carman, 2006; Andeweg & Thomassen, 2005; cf. Jewell, 1983). One aim of this panel is to re-connect supply and demand-sides of the relationship. The second aim of this panel is to integrate the multi-level character of many democracies into our understanding of changing relationships between voters and representatives. In an expanding number of democracies, control over policy-making has been in varying and non-symmetrical ways devolved to regions, juxtaposing regional and national representatives to represent (partially) coinciding constituencies along blurred lines of jurisdiction (in particular, in voters’ perceptions).
-Assessing the Democratic Divide between Eastern and Western Europe
Chair: Dr. Joshua Dubrow;
Discussant: Prof. Kazimierz Slomczynski
Panelists explore the continuing relevance of the divide between post-1989 Eastern and Western Europe in terms of democratic processes and mass political engagement. Eastern Europe’s mov e from totalitarianism to democratic regimes produced radical changes to the European political landscape. After 1989, social, economic and political developments within and between countries impacted democratic processes and mass political engagement, where rapidly maturing Eastern Europe and Western Europe share similar democratic outlooks but have, at points, different political outcomes. At the micro-level, political inclusion of women and minorities and mass political engagement vary across countries. At the macro-level, the drive toward European unification continues the relevance of the East-West divide: With European Union and NATO membership as coveted awards for “good” democratic behavior, lack of membership is the new isolation for the historically marginalized post-communist countries of Europe. Papers should explicitly compare points of convergence and divergence of these “halves” of Europe, preferably across time. Panelists are invited to apply lessons learned from analyzing East-West to the North-South divide.
-Challenges and transformations in the Qualities of Democracis: a comparative perspective
Chairs: Prof. Leonardo Morlino; Prof. Jean-michel De Waele
The aim of this panel is to provide an overview on the research agenda on the state of democracy in different geographical areas. This topic is no longer related to transitions and the processes of consolidation of democracy. The organizers invite the interested paper givers to provide empirical insights into recent changes in relation with the state of our democracies. The first aim of the panel is to highlight differences and similarities in relation to the ongoing transformations in democracies in a comparative perspective. The analysis will focus particularly on factors 1) justifying the change in the quality of democracy, always within this kind of regime and 2) explaining the differences in quality between different democracies. The panel focuses on the following questions: what is changing and under what conditions?
-Changing Patterns of Democracy: Conceptual and Empirical Challenges
Chairs: Prof. Ferdinand Mueller-Rommel; Prof. Phillip Harfst
Since its publication, Lijphart’s “Patterns of Democracy” has stimulated lively conceptual and empirical debates in political science. In the light of recent developments, the discipline faces a number of conceptual and empirical challenges: In the last two decades, transitional countries have experienced a number of institutional changes following the establishment and consolidation of democracy. Additionally, established democracies, in many cases, have undergone substantive adaptations of their institutional arrangements. In consideration of this fact, a number of questions can be asked: How do we adequately describe shifts in institutional settings in a comparable manner over time and space? What are the reasons for these changes? Which are their c onsequences?
The panel shall address these questions. The conceptual challenge arising from Lijphart’s approach is how the theoretically assumed one-dimensional and the empirically detected two-dimensional pattern(s) can be accommodated and whether Lijphart’s view is suitable for comparative analyses across time and space. The empirical challenge focuses on the operationalization of institutional patterns and the tracing of their change. We call for papers that contribute both to the solution of conceptual and empirical problems when applying Lijphart’s concept and its possible advancements to countries from different world regions and from different time periods.
-Institutions, social actors and democratic quality: lessons from the "third wave"
Chairs: Mr. Jose Javier Olivas Osuna; Prof. Enrique Peruzzoti
Discussants: Mr. Ignazio De Ferrari; Dr. Olga Onuch
For a long time after the collapse of the military and communist authoritarianism in Lati n America, southern and eastern Europe, the democratisation debate was centred around the idea of democratic consolidation (O'Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead 1986, Linz and Stepan 1996). Initially, the
emphasis was on the institutional basics of transitions from authoritarian rule, electoral turn over was seen as the starting point of consolidation. Second, at an early stage of third wave democratisation, scholars focused on only one dependent variable: the degree of consolidation. However, as time passed the democratisation agenda broadened to encompass more than one explanatory variable and more than one dependent variable. While in Latin America, southern and central Europe democracy became ‘the only game in town’, in eastern Europe the paths of democracy were more divergent and several countries’ became known as backsliders. In response, the conceptual emphasis turned to democratic quality and, more precisely, on measures of good governance and particular policy out comes (Weaver/Rockman 1993, Powell 2000, Shugart/Haggard 2001). The papers approach these issues both from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective by taking into consideration experiences from Latin America and Southern and Eastern Europe and by focusing on government institutions, public policy and social actors.
-Party members, intra-party conflicts and political linkage in democracies
Chairs: Prof. Wolfgang R?dig; Prof. Emile Van Haute
In order to assess the state of democracies, a key element is to understand and explain how major social and political actors behave and function in democratic systems. Among these actors, political parties are central as they fulfil major functions in representative democracies. While a lot has been written about parties in the electorate and parties in government (Reiter, 2006), the literature on parties as organizations is either rather dated or of theoretical and static nature (classifications of party org anizations and party families). This panel aims at focusing on intra-party dynamics with a strong empirical perspective. More specifically, the main goal is to tackle the issue of conflict and competition within parties, through the lens of conflicting relations between the three faces of party organizations (Katz & Mair 2001), and factionalism (Boucek, 2009). The main goal is to investigate and explain the roots of conflict and factionalism within parties. Indeed, understanding intra-party competition and dynamics is a key element to understand how parties behave and perform in the political system as a whole.
If you have any questions or concerns feel free to contact us.
Best wishes
prof. Leonardo Morlino, Chair
prof. Jean-Michel De Waele, Co-chair
CEVIPOL - Centre d'?tude de la vie politique
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