Archive Page 19

Call for Papers – Autoritäre Politische Systeme

Autoritarismus reloaded

Autorenworkshop

11.-14.Juni 2009, “Haus auf der Alb”, Bad Urach

Der Workshop beschäftigt sich mit den unterschiedlichen Organisationsformenm Entwicklungsprozessen und Staat-Gesellschafts-Beziehungen in modernen autoritären Systemen. Ziel des Workshops ist die systematische Aufarbeitung einer Debatte, die in der Vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft trotz grosser empirischer Relevanz nur ungenügend geführt wird. AutorInnen haben die Möglichkeit, empirische und theoriegeleitete Beiträge zu präsentieren; Neben Einzelfallstudien sollen vor allem vergleichende und Regionen übergreifende Arbeiten diskutiert werden.

Der Workshop wird veranstaltet von Holger Albrecht (Assistant Professor, American University in Cairo, Department of Political Science) und Rolf Frankenberger (Wissenschaftlicher Angestellter, Universität Tübingen, Institut für Politikwissenschaft) in Zusammenarbeit mit der Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg.

Anmeldung:

Wir laden AutorInnen ein, eine kurze Zusammenfassung ihrer Beiträge (ca. 400 Wörter) bis spätestens 10.Februar 2009 einzureichen bei: rolf.frankenberger@uni-tuebingen.de und albrecht@aucegypt.edu

Beiträge für den Workshop haben einen Umfang von ca. 7000-8000 Wörtern und sind bis 31.Mai 2009 einzureichen

Veranstaltungsort ist das Haus auf der Alb, Tagungsstätte der Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg. Kosten für Unterkunft und Verpflegung werden durch die Landeszentrale übernommen. Die Veranstalter bemühen sich um weitere Fördermittel.

Hier kann der komplette Call for Papers heruntergeladen werden

Thematik des Workshops:

Autoritäre politische Systeme sind außerhalb der OECD-Welt auch im neuen Jahr-tausend ein bedeutsames empirisches Phänomen. Zum einen scheinen sie entgegen aller Hoffnungen der Demokratisierungsforschung in den 1990er Jahren eine Kon-stante der real existenten politischen Systemtypen zu bleiben. So werden von Free-dom House 2007 43 Länder (22%) als ‚nicht frei’ eingestuft; weitere 60 (31%) Länder gelten als ‚teilweise frei’.

Durch die kritische Auseinandersetzung mit einem engen Transitionsparadigma, das systemische Transformationsprozesse weitgehend auf Demokratisierungsprozesse reduziert hatte, wandte sich die politikwissenschaftliche Systemforschung hauptsäch-lich der Ausdifferenzierung verschiedener Analyseraster für Demokratien mit Adjektiven zu. Mit dem Fokus auf die Qualität von Demokratie wird jedoch die Tatsache ausgeblendet, dass eine Vielzahl empirischer Fälle gar keine Demokratien ausgebil-det haben oder politische Liberalisierungsprozesse bereits im Ansatz scheiterten und deren Ergebnisse durch die Analysemuster der Demokratie- und Demokratisierungs-forschung kaum analytisch fassbar sind. Durch die Konzentration auf die „helle Seite” einer wahrgenommenen Grauzone zwischen Demokratie und Diktatur wurde lange Zeit die „dunkle Seite” vernachlässigt.

Ziel des Workshops ist es, diese dunkle Seite zu beleuchten. Mögliche Kernfragen der Beiträge lauten: Welche Funktionslogiken liegen den Strukturen und Institutionen autoritärer Systeme zugrunde? Durch welche Systemerhaltungsmechanismen zeich-nen sich autoritäre Systeme aus? Warum überdauern manche autoritären Systeme, andere nicht? Was sind die autoritären Kerneigenschaften politischer Systeme, und in welcher Weise dominieren diese in Transitions- und Hybridsystemen? Wie äußert sich die Interdependenz formeller und informeller Mechanismen in der Funktionswei-se politischer Institutionen?

Ein weiteres Ziel ist die Diskussion über konzeptionelle und begriffliche Lücken in der Autoritarismusforschung; dies erhält seine Bedeutung vor allem im Zusammenhang der typologischen Abgrenzung autoritärer Systeme – gegenüber Demokratien, aber vor allem gegenüber ‚hybriden’ Regimetypen.

Der Workshop trägt damit der Fragmentierung unterschiedlicher Forschungsansätze über autoritäre Systeme Rechnung. Gleichzeitig sollen Ideen und Ansätze sowie em-pirische Erkenntnisse gebündelt werden, die den Weg für eine weitere Beschäftigung mit dem Thema weisen könnten. Demnach lassen sich die Beiträge in drei Kernbe-reiche kategorisieren:

1. Die strukturelle Dimension von Systemen, Regimen und Institutionen
2. Das Verhältnis von Staat, Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft in autoritären Systemen
3. Wandel und Reform: Die prozessuale Dimension autoritärer Systeme

Es ist geplant, die Ergebnisse des Workshops in einer Buchpublikation zusammenzu-fassen, die sich entlang der geschilderten Teilbereiche gliedert. Darüber hinaus ist mit dem Kooperationspartner, der Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg, ein Sonderheft einer Fachzeitschrift geplant.

2009 Conferences in Social Sciences – some links and resources

In 2009 there will be a lot of conferences, workshops and meetings in the social sciences on diverse issues. Thus it could be helpful for scholars to sum up some of the main sources to find out what is going on in the fields of political science, sociology, and psychology. remember that this is neither a full list of all meetings, conferences and workshops nor one of all associations and societies in these fields. But still, the main events might be covered at a glance. The first link refers to the association, the second one on the conferences site:

Political Science:

Sociology

Political Psychology

Psychology

Last but not least, my collegue Michael Arfken has collected a lot of links to Conferences and Meetings in the fields of Psychology and Political Science that are related to his research and teaching interests.

Instead of greeting cards…

… I would like to send out some words. If you are celebrating the birth of Jesus in one of the following days then I wish you a Merry Christmas. And if you are using the gregroian calendar as your preferred counting system, then I wish you a Happy New Year 2009. If you neither do the one nor the other, then I would like to wish you peaceful and prosperous times.

Christmas

As I use the gregorian calendar the year 2008 is coming to its end. It was a busy year with lots of  impressions and experiences that changed my world in a more or less dramatic but surely intense way. This included personal as well as professional encounters and experiences. Actually I was travelling a lot to conferences and jobs in Paris, Moscow, Hamburg and to lovely holidays on the Island of Rügen with my beloved wife and children. And I was working on several issues as consumer culture and postmodern power structures, authoritarian political systems and their emergence and development in Russia and Venezuela, constructionist and phenomenological methods and theories in social research.

Looking forward to 2009 there will be some continuities in my work. Originating in an evening  in Paris, when I was discussing with Michael Arfken and Orsoyla (actually I do not know her last name, but she’s a psychologist from Budapest, Hungary)  in a little street café in St.Germain, we were – amonst other issues – talking about subjectivity, identity and intersubjectivity from our professions’ points opf view and were deciding to meet again in Dublin in 2009. This actually resulted in the proposition of two panels to the ISPP 2009 Conference dealing with intersubjectivity, identity and culture. Second, I will continue to work on authoritarian systems and a more sophisticated contribution to theory building in this area of research. Together with my collegue Holger Albrecht  from the American University in Cairo, I will prepare a workshop on authoritarian political systems. The aim of this workshop will be to discuss new and more functionalist, structuralist, institutionalist, and actor-centered approaches to the issue in a comparative perspective. The worksho will take place in June 2009 at the “Haus auf der Alb” in Bad Urach and will be supported by the “Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung Baden-Württemnberg”, namely Siegfried Frech. Third, I will try to do more theoretical and empirical research on postmodern culture and power structures in advanced societies. And last but not least, if can find some more time I will continue to read and study some of the interesting literature of Merleau-Ponty, Glasersfeld, Schuetz, Husserl… And at the end of 2009 we will see what has been realized.

lights

Listening to Johnny Cash and his American Recordings cycle while writing this, it came to my mind that now I should stop writing about me and listen more carefull to this wonderful and affecting music. I hope to meet one or the other of you (again) in the future.  May there always  be a guiding light for you. Live long and prosper!

Best day ever – Cheru Jackson and alphainventions.com

Surprise, surprise: Best day ever regarding clicks on my blog. Why? Because I wrote such an interesting article? Dream on! Doing a little second of research in my blog-statistics showed the referrer alphainventions.com as main source of users. What the hell of an adress is that, I asked myself, and discovered Cheru Jackson and his project of “supervising” blogs that are actually updated. When I understood it right, alphainventions is a kind of scanner searching for blogs updated at the respectively actual moment people are visiting it. According to Jackson it is the main aim to bring together boggers in realtime to foster communication and exchange. Really interesting and striking, as it has risen traffic from an average of 8 a day to currently 61 (17:59, GMT +1)  for today, with tendency rising.

To overlook news in the blogsphere thus seems to become more easy and comfortable. Fine. Let’s see where this development will lead to.

As I am a political scientist, I actually see some other facets of this project that are by far not deliberative. As authoritarian political systems are in need for knowing what is going on in their interior in order to preserve themselves from being surprised by the uprising of opposition forces, they always look for new technologies to control and monitor all subversive activity. As we know from some authoritarian regimes, e.g. Iran and China, there is a vital blog-culture in which underground and opposition forces are active and inform us of developments in these rather closed systems. Thus alphainventions could be used in different ways: On the one hand, it can make such blogs (amongst others) more popular and powerful, but on the other hand, this tool can be used for repression as well. From a surveillance studies point of view I would strongly suggest Cheru to keep the codes of alphainventions topsecret. What a powerful tool to monitor such activities. Combined with IP-trackers: perfect tool.

But enough of being the “Bedenkentraeger”, which is an excellent german word for seeing all from its’ negative side: Another positive aspect seems to be that the blogsphere becomes more lively in a sense that with alphainventions more instant “contacts” between bloggers are possible. The world again comes closer together, or in Sloterdijks terms, globality is once more enforced and brought closer to the people. I like this approach, even though I am sceptical about the quality of communication in a world of simulations and simulakra.

ISPP 2009 Conference – Call for Papers

We are interested in organizing several panels for the ISPP 2009 Conference in Dublin, Ireland and would like to encourage any scholars interested in the following topics to submit an abstract by December 15, 2008. If you need any additional information, please don’t hesitate to contact either of the panel organizers.

Section 6: Political Culture, Identity, and Language

Processes of change often referred to as globalization have a significant impact on the everyday experiences of individuals throughout the world. To the extent that these experiences contribute to particular individual and collective identities, we may be witnessing an unparalleled transformation in the fabric of political culture. While much research within political science and
psychology has focused on attitudes, value orientations, and political preferences, there has been relatively little research on the way globalization gives rise to unique political subjects and cultures.

The purpose of this panel is to bring together scholars interested in discussing theoretical and empirical innovations at the intersection of globalization, political culture, and subjectivity.

If you are interested in participating in this panel, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words to the panel organizer:

Dr. Rolf Frankenberger
University of Tübingen
Institute for Political Science
rolf.frankenberger@uni-tuebingen.de

Section 10: New Theoretical and Methodological Developments

The idea of the subject has played a crucial role in politics and psychology. While other disciplines may explore the historical circumstances that give rise to modern political institutions or the economic conditions that favor one form of government over another, the concept of the subject enables political scientists and psychologists alike to focus on the psychological processes that contribute to specific interpretations of social/political reality.

Yet within political psychology, the very idea of the subject rarely undergoes significant scrutiny. This is particularly troubling as various conceptions of the subject may inadvertently support specific political institutions rather than serve as a point of departure for interrogating the dominant features of modern society.

The purpose of this panel is to bring together scholars interested in discussing the role that subjectivity plays in political psychological theorizing. In particular, we encourage proposals that draw attention to the concept of intersubjectivity.

If you are interested in participating in this panel, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words to the panel organizer:

Dr. Michael Arfken
University of Prince Edward Island
Department of Psychology
marfken@upei.ca

2009 International Society of Political Psychology Conference
Dublin, Ireland
July 14-17, 2009


Panel Submission Due: December 15, 2008


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