Reshaping Democracy? Citizens and Politics in Times of Crisis

Abstract

In political science, the idea of representative democracies going through critical times is a frequently discussed issue. Some social indicators have proved this trend: abstention, distrust towards the political institutions, “ordinary citizens” being critical of politics, new modes of political participation that short-circuit the traditional modes of involvement, recent claims and protests of movements such as the “Indignados” or “Occupy Wall Street”. Could we conclude though that our representative democracies are going through a crisis? This panel would aim at thinking through the modes, evolutions and manifestations of the different kinds of crises undergone by democracies. The question will be analysed through different fields of the social and political worlds, but also through multiple angles such as the representation and the institutions of the representative democracies, the distrust and disaffection towards politics, the political conflicts and crisis within democracies, the borders and limits of the representative democracy, the usage of the Web and social network online in developing the so called “e-democracy”, the limits and the forms of participative democracy and so on, and so forth. Supported by empirical case studies, this panel would aim at discussing the transformations of representative democracies. More specifically, we would collectively argue the usages of the notion of field in order to study various evolutions of the representative democracy. The panel would particularly take into account a comparison of different studies on similar issues in order to broaden the national work frame on framework for analysing democracy.

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