Conceptual struggles in and for democracy

The conceptual approach to the study of politics provides a fruitful avenue for discussing the interplay between ideas and theories on the one hand and empirical, practiced realities on the other. It invites scholars to contemplate the role of key concepts, theoretical frameworks and heuristic models as non-essentialised categories. It also permits a reflexive recycling of long-established concepts within our conceptual vocabularies. Research shows that democracies are facing significant challenges, including crises of political representation, affective partisanship, intense polarisation, far-right populism, and the gradual erosion of institutional checks and balances. These also challenge the concepts and analytical tools employed by political theorists to explain and analyse contemporary phenomena. Classic concepts such as democracy, the social contract or citizenship have been shaped by past and ongoing practices. Their meaning is contingent upon the relations and normative orders that emerge between citizens and various other actors, including the state, local communities, organisations, and non-citizens. Classic concepts have become revised, redefined and reapplied over time, without becoming obsolete. Expanding and bending the meaning of them also carries the risk of those becoming empty signifiers and losing analytical power. A conceptual lens offers a way to mitigate and even avoid this risk by challenging the essentialist view of concepts and the need for fixed definitions. It encourages the study of how concepts are constructed and undergo changes in meaning, and how these processes mark political, social and historical turning points and continuities. We welcome submissions of panels and papers on the key concepts that challenge contemporary societies in theory and practice. Examples of such concepts include those that have been transformed by policy-making, partisan struggles, discourses, institutional processes, governance practices, or technological advances. Panel 1 “Actors of Democratic Self-Defence” Chair: Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser (PUC Chile) Co-chair: Anthoula Malkopoulou (Uppsala University) Discussant: Bastiaan Rijpkema (Leiden University) The defence of democracy is not the prerogative of a single actor, such as the judiciary or parliament. A wide range of actors –from citizens, NGOs, lawyers, and state authorities to private actors – can and do engage in practices of democratic self-defence. This panel aims to pluralise our thinking about democratic self-defence by placing agency at the centre of democratic self-defence. Questions for the panel concern the power and legitimacy of different actors who engage in forms of democratic self-defence, and their implications for our conceptions of democratic self-defence. Panel 2: “Issues and Regions in the Study of Democratic Self-Defence” Chair: Anthoula Malkopoulou (Uppsala University) Co-chair: Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser (PUC Chile) Discussant: Bastiaan Rijpkema (Leiden University) The instruments and practices of democratic self-defence have mainly been studied through large country datasets or individual case studies. This panel pursues analyses at an ‘in-between’ level, focusing on specific issues (e.g. preconditions for self-defence) and regions (e.g. Latin America, post-Soviet states). It will emphasise the importance of context in understanding patterns and approaches to democratic self-defence, allowing for nuance while striving for conceptual relevance. The aim is to link empirical evidence to broader questions about how we understand and conceptualise democratic self-defence. Panel 3: “Representation and discursive constructions of the people: Struggles over the meaning of democracy” Chair: Karin Bischof, University of Continuing Education, Krems Co-Chair: Marion Löffler, University of Vienna The panel explores the question of whether the current shifts in the meaning of democracy indicate a transformation of democracy. The basic assumption is that democracy is a fundamentally contested concept (Walter Gallie) and that the political debate is constantly shaping and shifting its meaning. Ideas of democracy construct a specific idea of the demos and its representation. How do constructions of the people change in specific contexts? What does it mean when representation is understood as a contract with the people? What representative claims are made by what kind of actors? What patterns of inclusion/exclusion are imprinted in constructions of the people? We also welcome methodological contributions that include images, the performativity of representation and other aspects. Panel 4: “Inclusive and participatory democracy: A conceptual history approach” Chair: Roberto Cruz Romero, Universität Leipzig Abstract: Inclusive and participatory democracy has become a desired norm in liberal politics. Practices and applications of accountability and oversight, transparency and trust, or responsibility and legitimacy are the backbone of this normative order. Yet, these elements often become disfigured and entangled, potentially emptying the social contract of theoretical substance, and shaping democratic action. The panel focuses on conceptual history as a mode of exploration into moments and conditions that have moulded the narratives of democracy and the social contract. We seek analytically diverse approaches with “revision, redefinition and reapplication” at their core, challenging “the essentialist view and the need for fixed definitions”. Contributions from e.g. comparative, legal, economic, or critical studies perspectives, are welcome. Panel 5: A Conceptual Struggle for Supranational Parliamentarism A panel on the book "At the Origins of Parliamentary Europe. Supranational parliamentary government in debates of the Ad Hoc Assembly for the European Political Community in 1952–1953” Chair: Kari Palonen (University of Jyväskylä) The book covers major topics in political science: parliamentary studies, European studies and studies on supranational institutions. Its analyses are connected to conceptual history, debate rhetoric and political theory. The debates in the Ad Hoc Assembly and the draft treaty it proposed for the European Political Community, which was later rejected by the French National Assembly, illustrate how an alternative based on parliamentary government was a serious possibility for the European integration. Panel 6: “The Social Contract” as a political concept: contemporary applications Chair: Anna Björk (Demos Helsinki) The historical and theoretical legacy of the concept of the social contract has been criticised over the years because of its tendency to exclusion and limits of its reach. This panel combines historical and contemporary examples of how the concept of the social contract can be applied in connection to e.g. colonialism and post-colonialism, welfare state models, post-communist contexts, economy, or the EU. We invite discussion on the limitations and expansions of the theoretically and empirically informed concepts of the social contract.