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Call for Papers
Theme: Political Community
Subtitle: Authority in the Name of Community
Type: Academic Workshop
Institution: Centre for Citizenship, Civil Society and Rule of Law
(CISRUL), University of Aberdeen
Location: Aberdeen, Scotland (United Kingdom)
Date: 24.–25.6.2014
Deadline: 28.2.2014
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We confirmed in the June 2013 workshop that the term “political
community” was appropriate for identifying a core set of issues that
interest us at CISRUL, even though it was evident that no term will
ever carry all the right connotations and none of the wrong ones.
Though we each have our own preferred approach, reflecting the wide
range of perspectives in CISRUL, several of us are using the term
“political community” for one whose members feel somehow represented
within its structures of authority, and thus somehow obliged to their
fellow-members to follow its norms and accept its decisions. A
political community could also be termed a democracy but we prefer to
use the term “democracy” for a form of government; our focus is more
on the link between authority and community than on the precise
structure of government. In a political community, authority is
exercised in the name of some kind of community of members – this is
the point on which for the most part we converge.
That said, we understand both “authority” and “community” in a
variety of ways. We are interested in:
- established political institutions but also less formal and/or
emergent structures of authority
- nations as the (arguably) paramount political communities of the
contemporary world but also other forms of political community:
pre-modern cities are obvious examples, but we are open to the
possibility that there are political communities other than nations
in the present day, even if these may be linked to or embedded
within nations.
We prefer, on the whole, to reserve the term “political community”
for those that claim a degree of self-sufficiency (or
self-determination) and we distinguish political communities from
political collectives such as trade unions or churches which see
themselves as players in a broader arena. However, we are still very
much interested in how authority is exercised internally in the name
of members of such entities, as well as in how they position
themselves in relation to the political communities that host them.
We acknowledge, too, that political communities such as nations also
see themselves as players in a broader, international arena.
We are open to a full range of topics but are particularly interested
in:
- how political communities compare to communities that we might
consider less or non-political, such as kin groups or cultural
associations:
* is it the case, for example, that what we are calling “political
community” is a community only because it has a political
authority which rules in the name of the members?
* is it really possible to form a “political community” of people
with no common worldview and who disagree about issues and
priorities or simply don’t like each other?
- how one might differentiate between forms of political community,
including that of nations:
* how the largely involuntary nature of membership in nations
conditions the structures of authority that we know as states
(for example, where it leaves those who are citizens but do not
identify with the nation), and how this compares to other forms
of political community in which membership may be more voluntary
* whether and how one can differentiate between stronger and
weaker forms of political community:
~ nationalism generally entails strong community bonds which
support the strong claim to authority known as national
sovereignty – do weaker community bonds make for weaker
claims to authority, and if so, to what effect?
~ by what criteria might one consider some communities more
political than others, and how might one account for the
difference?
- the role of international law in the contemporary world in shaping
political community, primarily by recognizing the self-determination
of “peoples”
* for example, how successful have indigenous peoples been in
challenging the virtual monopoly of nations on
self-determination?
- the relation between electoral democracy as a form of government
and political community as authority in the name of community
* for example, how has the recent “transition to democracy” in
many countries affected the shape of political community?
- how political community relates to 3 other key concepts that CISRUL
has examined since 2009:
* citizenship: understood both as formal membership with rights
and obligations and as a broader set of commitments to others
within and beyond the political community
* civil society (topic of our 2012 workshop): a concept whose
analytical value is debatable but which remains an important
source of political legitimacy in the world today
* rule of law: if political community is about authority exercised
in the name of community, how does it relate to the idea of
authority being subject to law?
- in relation to CISRUL’s ongoing research projects:
* what is the role of education (historically and in the present)
in shaping senses of political community in young people (see
below our Sense of Political Community project)?
* what are the dynamics of political community when valuable
resources (such as oil and gas) are at stake (see below our
Energy Politics Forum project)?
- the significance for political community of minority nationalism,
multiculturalism, indigenous rights movements, urban citizenship,
cosmopolitanism, global civil society, etc.
- the extent to which recent socio-political movements such as Occupy
or the Indignados are proposing alternative forms of political
community, as well as whether the European Union (and other such
arrangements) represents a new departure in political community.
As in all CISRUL activities, our approach is fully inter-disciplinary
and our interests include but go beyond contemporary Europe and North
America. To give an idea of our range of interest, speakers at our
June 2013 Political Community workshop presented on 18th-century
Ireland and on contemporary Argentina, Mexico, Israel-Palestine and
Canada, as well as on political community in theology, philosophy,
post-colonial studies, and constitutional and international law.
We welcome your comments on the CfP and other thoughts on the topic –
the best way is to contribute to our Political Community email
discussion list.
Instructions
Prospective speakers are invited to email abstracts of around 200-400
words, together with a CV, to langlit.sch...@abdn.ac.uk by 28th
February 2014.
We ask that you read the online summaries of our June 2013 workshop
prior to submitting your abstract.
Speakers will have up to 15 minutes. We are not necessarily looking
for polished research papers but for provocative responses to our
questions that will help to spark energetic discussion among a very
diverse group of participants from across the humanities and social
sciences. It is anticipated that the workshop will push speakers
beyond their previous work and that papers may thus be somewhat
speculative. At least half the workshop time will be set aside for
discussion.
Accommodation will be provided for speakers, once accepted, but
please indicate if you also wish to apply for funds to cover travel
costs. We would normally expect you to obtain some funding of your
own, but we can often provide the first £250 of travel costs for
accepted speakers. For information about travel and about the city
and region, see http://www.abdn.ac.uk/maps/index.php
We normally expect funded speakers to stay for the two-day PhD summer
school, which will be held immediately after the workshop, on
Thursday 26th and Friday 27th June, at The Burn, a country house set
in a beautiful estate in rural Aberdeenshire. In previous years we
have enjoyed presentations by a select group of outstanding PhD
students from across Europe. The summer school doubles as an
opportunity to reflect further on the workshop themes.
Logistical questions should be directed to langlit.sch...@abdn.ac.uk
Questions about the academic content should be directed to the
academic coordinator Trevor Stack, t.st...@abdn.ac.uk.
Website of the workshop:
http://cisrul.wordpress.com/political-community-workshop-2014-cfp/
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http://interphil.polylog.org
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