CALL
FOR PAPERS
Extended deadline, December 7, 2012
Democracy
Promotion: Hegemony, Resistance and the Shifting Discourses of Democracy in
International Relations
February 1, 2013
Senate House,
University of London
The
School of Advanced Study’s Institute
for the Study of the Americas and the University of Westminster’s Department
of Politics and International Relations are jointly hosting an
international conference on democracy promotion at Senate House, University of
London on February 1, 2013.
Despite the backlash against
democracy promotion and the crisis of liberalism, including the current world
financial crisis, democracy in international relations has demonstrated
remarkable staying power. While the times of grand declarations of the spread
democracy in the world seem to have passed, democracy has remained integral to
international policy concerns. It is inextricably linked with policy areas such
as development, conflict management and state-building. Recently, events in the
Arab world seem to have reinvigorated debates on democracy as an international
policy concern. These developments, therefore, provide a unique moment in time
to revisit the discursive and political aspects of democracy promotion.
This conference critically
examines contemporary conceptions of democracy in discourses and practices of
major international actors and examines shifts and continuities in the
rationalities as well as modalities of its promotion. It wishes to explore what
current and historical perspectives on foreign-induced democratization reveal
about world order, state-society relations and the exercise of power in
international relations.
The keynote address will be by Professor
Laurence Whitehead (University of Oxford). Professor Whitehead will be
discussing what conception of democracy is implied when it is claimed that
democracy can be “exported”. He considers that if such “exports” persist,
regardless of the outcomes, this will affect how democracy is imagined and evaluated.
The
conference is supported by the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.
Potential publication options of selected papers will be considered, such as a
special issue or an edited volume.
Paper proposals
We invite paper proposals on any topics
related to the conference theme (see below). Please submit paper proposals of
350 words to Matthew Alan Hill at matthew.hill@sas.ac.uk and Jessica Schmidt at j.schmidt@westminster.ac.uk. Any questions about any aspects
of the submission process should also be directed to the academic convenors.
The deadline for abstract submission
is December 7, 2012. An earlier submission is encouraged. Successful submissions
will be notified by December 10, 2012.
The deadline for paper submission is January
18, 2013.
The conference will evolve around
the following topics and questions:
Democracy Promotion:
Continuity and Change
· How
do past experiences with promoting democracy, such as the Marshall Plan reconstruction
of Europe or the third wave of democratization in Latin America, affect
contemporary approaches?
· How
is democracy promotion historically related to US and Western interests more
broadly?
· How
has the conceptualization of democracy promotion shifted in the post-Cold War
era?
Institutional
Differences in Democracy Promotion
· Which
conceptualisations of democracy underpin the policy and practices of major
actors in the field such as the US, EU, IOs and IFIs?
· What
is the role of the ‘governance turn’ for the promoters’ understanding of
democracy and how has the rise of governance affected the vision of democracy
and the modalities of its promotion?
· How
has the shift away from conditionality affected the discourses and practices of
democracy promotion, and how has it affected power relations between donors and
recipients?
Resistance and
Challenges to Democracy Promotion
· What
accounts for past and present difficulties in externally-induced
democratization?
· Does
the Arab Spring constitute new limits or opportunities to democracy promotion?
· How
have resistance and challenges to democratization affected its practices as
well as the understanding of democracy?
The Future of
Democracy Promotion?
· Is
the emblematic phrase “no state, no democracy” (Linz & Stepan 1996) still –
or again – valid for the promotion of democracy today?
· How
have the perceptions and/or construction of state-society relations changed,
and what are their effects on the role and understanding of democracy and its
implementation?
· Do
(new) approaches and concepts such as empowerment, participation and local
ownership have emancipatory potential?
· Are
there links between narratives of resilience and sustainability and
contemporary democracy promotion? If so, how can we conceptualise these links?
How do they manifest themselves?
· What
has been the impact of the recent backlash against democracy promotion on the
democracy agenda of Western countries?
