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Time 20:00–21:00, Wednesday 26 August
Location National Forum of Music, plac Wolności 1, 50-071 Wrocław
Grzegorz Ekiert Harvard University
The idea of civil society resurrected in the 1970s has been one of the most important concepts guiding reflection on political transformations of contemporary societies. The general interest in the role and functions of civil society has evolved into a multifaceted research program across many social science disciplines that generated thousands of empirical projects and publications and engender analytical innovations and debates.
The dominant neo-Tocquevillian view posited a close affinity between the strength of civil society and successful democratisation and subsequent consolidation of democracy. Yet there is growing evidence that strong civil society is a necessary foundation not only for democratic but also for authoritarian rule. This implies that civil society can be mobilised for either liberal or illiberal projects or that it has a pillarised nature that can be politicised along the lines of prevailing political cleavages.
In this address I will discuss various understandings of the concept and the asserted role civil society has in shaping political and economic outcomes. I will contrast the established consensus on the role of civil society as a political project and a set of normative principles with disagreements about how civil society is defined and measured, how it evolves over time, what dimensions of politics and public policy it shapes and what are the mechanisms through which it affects the quality of democracy, resistance to authoritarianism and consolidation of authoritarian rule. In short, I will discuss what we have learned during the four decades of studying civil society and its relation to states and political regimes and whether it is time to give up this research program.
Grzegorz Ekiert is Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Government at Harvard University, Director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and Senior Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies.
His research and teaching interests focus on comparative politics, regime change and democratisation, civil society and social movements, and East European politics and societies.
His current projects explore civil society development in new democracies in Central Europe and East Asia, state-mobilised contention in authoritarian and hybrid regimes, and patterns of political and economic transformations in the post-communist world.
Gregorz is the author or editor of six books, edited volumes and special issues of journals. His papers have appeared in numerous social science journals in the US, Europe and Asia, and in many edited volumes. He is also a Member of the Advisory Board of Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur Sozialforschung, External Examiner in Politics, Public Administration and Global Studies at the University of Hong Kong and Member of the Club of Madrid Advisory Committee.
Time
Location
Diego Garzia, University of Lucerne
Isabelle Engeli, University of Exeter
Speakers
Time13:45–15:15
Location
Dr. Meera Sabataran, School of Oriental and African Studies
Speakers
Time 13:45–15:15,
Location
Lisa Lechner, University of Innsbruck (tbc)
The digital age is everywhere, it’s growing, and it changes what is possible for researchers.” (Salganik, 2018: 2)
Change in technology allows us to collect massive amounts of data from a wide range of sources. As social scientists, we study people’s behavior. Never before have we seen such a detailed and broad collection of data on people’s behavior as we see it now in the age of the internet. Big data proponents see the potential to ask new questions that we were not able to answer before the availability of large-scale datasets. They also state that we are now able to process more information at a faster pace and might be quicker in understanding recent events and predicting potential future scenarios. However, big data is “no free lunch” and researchers are confronted with ethical questions on data protection and intellectual property rights. The roundtable offers a platform to discuss opportunities, but also challenges, of big data in political science. It involves answering (among many others) questions like:
The roundtable brings together speakers with extensive experience in using large scale-datasets. Participants are diverse in their research topics and methods; yet, they all use big data to answer exciting research questions.
Speakers
Time 13:45–15:15,
Location tbc
Andreas Maurer, University of Innsbruck (tbc)
Gaby Umbach, EUI, Florence (tbc)
There is an overwhelming consensus among the scientific community and most politicians across the globe that societies worldwide urgently need to adapt to dangerous climate change (IPCC, 2014).
At all levels of governance, adaptation and mitigation include national and trans-national, regional and local, individual, collective, and institutionalised efforts to increase the capacity for preventing and reducing vulnerability to, responding to, and recovering from adverse climate impacts in the current and future climate. Political science research on climate-change and related policy-making addresses various linkages: Taken as an independent variable, scholar analyse the nexus between climate-change on the one hand and socio-economic change, migration, security, gender, and youth on the other. Moreover, researchers look at individual-level factors affecting climate change perceptions to explain the validity of socio-political variables, notably values, fundamental belief systems, and political orientation, as key factors alongside demographic variables. Overall, climate-change and the analysis of its effects on policy-making, politics and polities evolve as a game changer for the analysis of society, governance and government.
Against this background, our roundtable intends to discuss climate-change and its implications for political research. Invited speakers include two lead authors of the last IPCC reports: Georg Kaser, Professor for Climate and Cryospheric Research, University of Innsbruck, and Oliver Geden, Head of the EU/Europe Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). As regards the nexus between Climate Change and Gender, we would like to invite Anne Jerneck, Professor at the Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies. The issue of migration and climate-change could be introduced by Silja Klepp, Professor at the Kiel Institute of Geography. Regarding the analysis of youth and social movements within the context of climate-change and policy, we intend to invite Harriet Thew from the Leeds School of Earth & Environment, and/or Karen O'Brien, Professor at the department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo. Wouter Poortinga, Professor at the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, and/or Linda Steg, Professor at the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, could be invited to present their findings on a Cross-European analysis of climate change perceptions. The roundtable would be co-chaired by Andreas Maurer, Professor for Political Science and EU integration, University of Innsbruck, and Gaby Umbach, Professor at the School of Transnational Governance, EUI, Florence.
Speakers