Society-State Relations in Post-Democracy: Illiberalism and Populism and their Alternatives

This session addresses several topics crucial for political sociology, regarding severe threats to the liberal democratic political order brought on by the emerging illiberal nationalist and populist agency in different European countries. These new threats on the political scene build up their ideological and practical challenges from being against a set of heterogeneous and interchangeable targets, such as established national and EU political elites, global economic powers, migrants and refugees, underserving people, minorities, intellectuals, and others. In addition, growing social inequalities increasing risks and uncertainty, and the crisis of the political representation of different social groups create a specific context in which these tendencies have proliferated. New digital technologies offer innovative instruments and patterns of communication with the electoral body, and are often well used by nationalist and populist leadership. What will be the political consequence of these post-democratic illiberal trends? How do these challenges transform the relations between society and state? What kinds of alternative political discourse are emerging to contest these phenomena? The ubiquity of these transformations posit challenges not only in terms of empirical knowledge but also in terms of a new theoretical reflection, re-assessment, and renewal. For instance, what can social theory say about populism in confrontation with the new forms of nationalism? How do populism and nationalism alter the European supra- and trans-national integration? How do they reshape the European and global borderscapes? In what ways do these new trends affect the most vulnerable social groups? How might we rethink political dis-engagement and re-engagement of individuals and groups in our societies? In what ways do new technological tools and their ordinary uses challenge the significance of expertise? Finally, what political and social alternatives to the illiberal trends can be identified today in the European context? These questions will frame the focus of the session, but others may be proposed as well. This Section invites Panel proposals from various disciplinary angles and multiple methodologies to address key theoretical debates and empirical research in political sociology regarding the challenges of illiberalism and populism. Potential Panel Chairs & topics: Laura Landorff (Aalborg University) – Panel: (EU) Political Elites & their responses to the crisis of political representation Cecilia Biancalana (University of Lausanne) – Panel: Populism, Identity Politics, and Mass Media Carlo Ruzza (University of Trento) – Panel: Institutionalisation of Ethno-Nationalist Movements Tatjana Sekulic (University of Milano-Bicocca) – Panel: Transnationalisation of Democracy & Ethnocratic Discourse Hans-Jörg Trenz (University of Copenhagen) – Panel: Euroscepticism & Digitalisation Niilo Kauppi (University of Jyväskylä) – Panel: A Reflexive Political Sociology of the European Union David Swartz (Boston University) – Panel: Social Scientists Reactions to Populist Politics Oscar Mazzoleni (University of Lausanne) – Panel: EU Responses to Anti-Establishment Movements