CFP
Call for Proposals
Migration and Discrimination: A Normative Exploration Workshop
Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination, Aarhus University,
28 September 2022
Connected to the Good Integration Project Workshop on 29-30 September 2022
Deadline for abstract submission: 30 April 2022
Notification of admittance: June 2022
Confirmed Speakers:
- Sahar Akhtar (University of Virginia)
- Sarah Fine (University of Cambridge)
- Chandran Kukathas (Singapore Management University)
- Désirée Lim (Penn State)
- José Jorge Mendoza (University of Washington)
- David Owen (University of Southampton)
Call for Proposals:
When it comes to the ethical dilemmas of immigrant admission and integration, it is not clear whether or to what extent discrimination is relevant. On the one hand, the citizens of migration origin are proper subjects of discrimination, and various state policies such as access to labor market, welfare state benefits and social services should not be organized in a way that discriminate them. On the other hand, when it comes to would-be immigrants and resident foreign nationals, theories of discrimination seem to be less well suited to address the issue of people who are ‘formal non-members’. By recognizing explicitly traits such as sexual orientation, race, and religion, but not so much “citizenship” and “nationality”, the literature on discrimination is implicitly limited by the domestic scope of justice.
Against this background, ethical questions of migration include both domestic and global scopes of justice. Hence, they raise normative challenges to the literature in discrimination. Scholars working on ethics of migration do not hesitate to argue that for various reasons, state policies treating people differentially according to their citizenship are directly or indirectly discriminatory. Yet, it is not clear what normative added-value discrimination have vis-à-vis the arguments based on e.g. equality of opportunity or human rights.
This workshop addresses issues of migration and integration – both from the perspective of theories of discrimination and from the perspective of migration ethics. We specifically welcome contributions that articulate conceptual advantages, challenges and refinements of linking these separate debates. Also, we encourage reflection on fundamental questions such as:
- Is the existence of differential right regimes between status citizens and foreigners (a) in and of itself; or (b) under certain specific circumstances or (c) never an instance of wrongful discrimination? Why?
- Given the existence of the differential distribution of migration and mobility rights at the global level—e.g. Henley Passport Index, does the global migration regime wrongfully discriminate against certain groups of people? If so, what is the moral wrong at stake?
- Which specific types of discrimination (numerical, institutional, structural etc.) are relevant to capture the various questions (naturalization, citizenship tests; linguistic proficiency-accents; access to social services) in the ethics of immigration debate?
Practically: We aim for a one-day workshop based on pre-circulated papers, and aspire to publishing these in a special issue with a leading journal in moral or political philosophy. The workshop is organized in connection to another event of Good Integration Project 29 and 30 September 2022; to which the participants are warmly welcome. Please send an abstract of max. 600 words to by 30 April 2022. Successful applicants will be informed early June 2022. For candidates lacking funding, while we cannot guarantee, we might be able to reimburse a part of costs related to travel and/or accommodation. We kindly request that you specify in your application if you are in need of this funding.
The workshop is co-organized by The Institute of Citizenship Studies, University of Geneva (NCCR-On the Move); Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination, Aarhus University and Pluralism, Democracy and Justice Research Group, Arctic University of Norway.
Organizers: Esma Baycan-Herzog; Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen; and Annamari Vitikainen.
Call for Papers
Conference
(In)visibility:
The aesthetic dimension of political participation
University of Zurich (Switzerland)
June 30 – July 2 2022
Confirmed speakers
- Christine Abbt (Graz)
- Emmanuel Alloa (Fribourg)
- Tina Chanter (Newcastle)
- Josef Früchtl (Amsterdam)
- Liliana Gómez (Kassel)
- Hana Gründler (Florence)
- Jonathan Havercroft (Southampton)
- David Owen (Southampton)
- Davide Panagia (UCLA)
- Danielle Peterbridge (UCD)
- Ludger Schwarte (Düsseldorf)
- Cecilia Sjöholm (Stockholm)
Description
Contemporary democratic subjects are participants in ocularcentric societies that privilege vision and are characterized by the ubiquitous availability of images, driven by technological and cultural changes on a global scale. Contemporary citizens, then, are viewing subjects; they use languages and technical objects that are imbued with metaphors and practices of seeing and visibility. But what does it mean to be a viewing subject in a democratic society, and what does it mean to be visible to others? What are the aesthetic, social and political presuppositions and implications of seeing and visibility in today’s democracies?
Our vision, our ability to see, is, as Marx noted, a disposition that is a product of our historical circumstances. The production and presentation of images and our corresponding habits of seeing are culturally, economically, politically, and aesthetically mediated and can never achieve anything like total visibility: our ability to see is always aspectual (Wittgenstein) and partitioned (Rancière) and therefore prone to blind spots and aspect- or soul-blindness (Cavell) to other people and the nonhuman world. This is what the unnamed narrator in Ralph Ellison’s novel The Invisible Man speaks of when he speaks of his own social invisibility as an effect of the blindness of the “inner eyes” of those with whom he comes into contact, those eyes with which they view reality through their physical eyes. If one follows this metaphor of the inner eye, then making a person or the non-human world socially and politically visible does not consist in perceiving them more acutely or observing them more closely, but depends fundamentally on people’s individual and collective aesthetic-moral disposition – their inner eye – which guides their ways of seeing.
This metaphor of the inner eye suggests that questions of social and political participation and belonging – questions of social justice and democratic participation – are not adequately addressed when theorized in terms of distribution of resources, rights, or opportunities, or in terms of epistemic, moral, and legal recognition and representation alone, but that they must also be theorized in terms of (in)visibility and its aesthetic, social, and political conditions. But what does it mean for a critical political philosophy to think about questions of social justice and democratic participation in terms of visibility and invisibility?
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in such questions in practical philosophy and political theory. The aim of this conference is to present new work on such questions, by bringing together political and social philosophers, political theorists and scholars from cultural studies pursuing diverse approaches to such questions. The conference includes contributions on questions and topics including:
- What does it mean in aesthetic, moral, or political terms to say that someone/something is socially or politically invisible or visible, and how do the aesthetic, moral, and political dimensions of visibility or invisibility intersect or differ?
- Does invisibility constitute a failure of recognition or acknowledgement by others?
- Can we distinguish different conceptions of seeing and visibility, based on which we can discern a possible democratic “ethics of seeing”?
- How does the mediation of seeing in the medium of images and its conditions of production affect our political dispositions to see?
- What can we learn from the history of philosophy and the history of political ideas about the concept and practice of vision and visibility?
- What are the distinct character and distinctive socio-cultural and political functions of vision in the modern democratic age? To what extent is ocularcentrism a political and social problem in our modern culture?
- Contributions that map the ambivalent relationship between political philosophy/democratic theory and aesthetic questions and aesthetics/aisthesis
Submission
Proposals must contain an abstract of 300–500 words (including footnotes and appendices but excluding references) prepared for blind peer-review and, in a separate file, a brief CV of 100– 200 words. Co-authored abstracts are admissible for submission.
We particularly encourage proposals that foster gender–equality and diversity, from researchers at diverse stages of their professional careers, with different geographical origins, and from underrepresented groups.
Please email proposals to by March 13, 2022. Decisions will be communicated by March 31, 2022.
Accepted contributors will be allotted 45 minutes for presentation plus 15 minutes for Q&A.
Funding: Support for travel and accommodation may be available for contributors without institutional funding. Please contact the organizer about travel support once your abstract has been accepted.
Organization: This event is hosted by the Center for Ethics (University of Zurich) and organized by Michael Räber (Zurich). It is funded by a Scientific Exchanges Grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
Currently, we plan for this event to be held in person, but if circumstances dictate, it may be held partially (hybrid) or fully online.
Contact: Please direct any queries to:
Important dates
Deadline for abstract submission: March 13, 2022
Deadline for notification of acceptance: March 31, 2022
Conference: June 30 – July 2 2022
Call for Papers is availabe here
Call for paper/panel proposals
Political Theory and Democratic Failures
Political Theory Standing group Section, ECPR General Conference (University of Innsbruck, 22-26.08.2022).
Deadline: 16 February 2022.
Section details (including currently approved panels) available at https://ecpr.eu/GeneralConference.
Section themes include:
- Populism and the polarisation of the electorate
- The influence of private capital on public institutions
- The fragility of the party system and participation deficit
- The role of expertise and the threat of technocracy
- The erosion of trust and civic friendship
- Growing inequalities and the failure of social integration
Section chairs: Emanuela Ceva (University of Geneva) and Maria Paola Ferretti (Goethe University Frankfurt)
To submit a pape or a panel (including 3/5 papers) proposal, please login with your MyECPR credentials at
https://ecpr.eu/MyEcpr/Forms/PanelProposalForm.aspx?EventID=185.
-----------------------------
Entre idéaux et réalités institutionnelles
Ideals and Institutions
Université de Lausanne | University of Lausanne
7-8 juin | June 2022
|
Les organisatrices de la deuxième rencontre du Réseau francophone de théorie politique normative sollicitent des contributions portant sur quatre interrogations spécifiques :
Nous invitons à proposer des contributions traitant d'une ou plusieurs des questions ci-dessus avant le 15 février 2022, à l’adresse électronique suivante : . Les résumés ne doivent pas dépasser 500 mots ; ils peuvent être rédigés en français ou en anglais. Les papiers sélectionnés pourront être soumis en anglais ou en français, mais seront présentés en français dans le cadre de la conférence. Les professeurs Candice Delmas (Northeastern University) et Daniel Weinstock (McGill University) seront les keynote speakers de la conférence. Cet événement, accueilli par le Centre de droit public (Université de Lausanne), est co-organisé par Sandrine Baume (Université de Lausanne) et Emanuela Ceva (pour le Geneva Colloquium in Political Theory--GECOPL, Université de Genève). Il est financé par un Scientific Exchanges Grant du Fonds national suisse de la recherche scientifique (FNS). |
The organizers of the second meeting of the Francophone Network for Normative Political Theory invite contributions broadly addressing the following four specific questions:
We invite scholars wishing to present a paper on one or more of the topics above to submit an abstract by February 15, 2022, to the following email address: . Abstracts should not exceed 500 words; they can be written in French or in English. Selected papers may be submitted in English or French, but will be presented in French at the conference.
Professors Candice Delmas (Northeastern University) and Daniel Weinstock (McGill University) will be the conference keynote speakers.
This event, hosted by the Centre for Public Law (University of Lausanne), is co-organized by Sandrine Baume (Lausanne) and Emanuela Ceva (for the Geneva Colloquium in Political Theory--GECOPL, University of Geneva). It is funded by a Scientific Exchanges Grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).
|
Appel à contribution se trouve ici | Call for Papers is availabe here
-------------
2021
The conference is a forum for PhD students to present their works in progress, receive constructive feedback in a supportive atmosphere, and exchange ideas both with peers and with leading academics in the field of political philosophy worldwide. The GECOPOL_Graduate is structured in parallel sessions for students’ presentations, and two plenary sessions hosting two keynote lectures. The keynote speakers in the past editions were Ralf Bader (Université de Fribourg), Francis Cheneval (Zürich), Fabienne Peter (Warwick), and Lea Ypi (London School of Economics and Political Science). This year’s keynote speakers are:
Jason Brennan (Georgetown University)
All correspondence (including paper submissions and additional inquiries) should be addressed to the GECOPOL_Graduate email address:
For more information on the GECOPOL activities, please see our website https://www.unige.ch/gecopol/ and Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Gecopol-106384257678909.
Call for Papers
Vested Interests and Democracy
Research Workshop
with a keynote lecture by Prof. Emanuela Ceva (University of Geneva)
Dates: Thursday, December 9 and Friday, December 10, 2021
Location: University of Zurich, Switzerland
Co-hosted by the Doctoral Programme Democracy Studies and DemocracyNet
Organized by
Olivier Ruchet (University of Zurich, Department of Political Science) and
Odile Ammann (University of Lausanne, Faculty of Law, Criminal Justice, and Public Administration)
Topic of the Workshop
The institutions and mechanisms of democratic politics make it possible for a variety of interests to be included in decision-making and law-making processes. This can happen through formal processes like public consultations and formal hearings, but also through informal contacts between interest holders/interest representatives and political decision-makers. Yet, in the past decades, the regular occurrence of corruption scandals and lobbying affairs (such as, most recently, the COVID-19 mask affair in the German Bundestag) have fueled public distrust in democratic politics. Skeptical voices have argued that contemporary democracies are broken or corrupt because politicians are subservient to a narrow circle of societal actors instead of serving the public interest. Although the complexity of modern democratic politics may justify that politicians seek input from interest groups, the potentially excessive influence of such groups raises concerns about the integrity of politics and political decision-makers. The blurred line between legitimate interests that are a necessary component of democratic politics and illegitimate (“vested”) interests that corrupt democracy and the political discourses and practices surrounding it will be at the center of this workshop.
The aim of this workshop is to explore the role of (“vested”) interests in a democracy and to highlight the manifold theoretical and empirical issues that this topic raises from the perspective of democracy studies broadly defined, such as:
- What does an “interest” mean conceptually? To what extent does it differ from related concepts, such as “opinions” and “perspectives”? Is there such a thing as a “public interest”, the “common good” and, finally, “vested interests”? How are these various concepts defined philosophically, legally, etc.?
- Can qualitative and quantitative empirical approaches help us operationalize and measure the aforementioned concepts? What can these approaches tell us about political decision-makers’ (“vested”) interests?
- Who are the actors who hold and who represent interests in a democracy? How can these interests be identified? Are the interests of ordinary citizens, civil society organizations, corporate actors, trade unions, political parties, public officials, non-citizens, foreign actors, and non-human entities (e.g., animals and the environment) equally important from the perspective of democratic decision-making, or should they be weighed differently?
- What does the critique of vested interests (e.g. corruption, lobbying, and state capture) tell us about democratic politics? What are the normative criteria that make it possible to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate interests/interest representation in democratic politics? At what stage do interests corrupt democracy?
- What influences the success or failure of specific interest holders/interest representatives in democratic politics, e.g. in terms of agenda-setting, articulating and defending viewpoints, and gaining the support of political decision-makers? What legal and institutional mechanisms enable the inclusion or exclusion of specific interests? How does interest representation differ in democratic and non-democratic contexts?
- What institutional arrangements can help to prevent the emergence of vested interests and to include other relevant interests in democratic politics?
This workshop aims at bringing together researchers from various disciplines (including, but not limited to, political science and political theory, law, philosophy, history, and sociology) in academic discussions about the topic of the workshop. The aim of the workshop is for early career researchers (including PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers) to present their working papers or project proposals and to gain feedback from all participants as well as from senior scholars. Last but not least, we are delighted to announce that the workshop will also include a public keynote lecture by Prof. Emanuela Ceva (University of Geneva).
General Information and Guidelines for Participation
The research workshop is part of the Doctoral Programme Democracy Studies (DPDS) at the University of Zurich and is organized by DemocracyNet. The workshop is open to early career researchers (including PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers) working in this field. We encourage applications from researchers from a broad range of disciplines who are interested in democracy studies in general, and in the study of interest groups and interest representation in particular. Each participant is invited to present a current research paper, which will be shared with the participants ahead of the workshop. Participants are expected to attend the whole workshop.
We aim to hold the workshop physically at the University of Zurich. However, further adjustments may be necessary due to the epidemiological situation.
Doctoral students may be awarded 1 ECTS for successful participation. Conditions for participation include attendance at the entire workshop (including the keynote), active participation, and the provision, ahead of the workshop, of written feedback to two speakers.
Application
Researchers interested in participating as presenters can apply by sending an abstract of up to 500 words and a short CV to by Friday, September 10.
Researchers interested in attending the workshop without presenting can apply by sending an email to by Friday, October 1. As the number of spots is limited, the selection will be on a first come, first served basis.
Costs and Grants
The workshop is free of charge. As a matter of principle, travel and accommodation are at the expense of participants. We will do our best to cover the travel and accommodation costs of a small number of participants who cannot get funding via their institution. Please contact us as soon as possible if you would require such funding.
Further Information
DemocracyNet is a non-partisan and non-profit association of researchers in democracy studies that was founded in 2011. For more information about DemocracyNet, its members and other project activities, please visit http://www.democracynet.eu/.
Call for Abstracts
Institutional Trustworthiness
MANCEPT Workshops, 7 - 8 September 2021
Convenors: Emanuela Ceva, Michele Bocchiola and Marta Giunta Martino (University of Geneva)
What does it mean that a public institution is trustworthy? The contemporary philosophical debate in institutional theory offers two main resources to delineate the contours of institutional trustworthiness. One resource, widely accepted across the social sciences, comes from the competence view of public institutions. Public institutions are defined by their capacity actually to fulfil the function and achieve the purpose for which they were created. In this view, institutional trustworthiness can be investigated by adopting an ‘exogenous perspective’, which analyses the external reactions to institutional functioning and its failure (e.g., citizens’ trust in representative institutions). Another resource comes from looking at public institutions through a deontological lens, which focuses on the normative commitments that model and guide the actions of institutional members. In this view, we access an ‘endogenous perspective’ on institutional trustworthiness, which focuses on the internal reactions of officeholders to institutional functioning and its failure (e.g., officeholders’ disobedience). This panel aims to discuss institutional trustworthiness from a philosophical perspective; analyze its conceptual and normative grounds; compare and contrast various normative views of institutional trustworthiness. Papers will engage, inter alia, with such themes as:
- the conceptual links between institutional (dys)functions and institutional trustworthiness;
- the normative relation between internal answerability practices (e.g. transparency requirements, whistleblowing) and institutional trustworthiness;
- the difference between responsive and reliable institutions and trustworthy institutions;
- the relation between institutional trustworthiness and other significant properties of public institutions, such as integrity, accountability, or transparency.
Submissions
Abstract (500 words max), anonymized for blind review, should be submitted to by 2nd May 2021. Notification of acceptance will be sent within two weeks.
Papers will be pre-circulated 10 days prior to the event.
Registration for the conference opens in May. All participants must register in order to attend. This year’s fees are:
- Academics: £45
- Graduate students, retirees, and unaffiliated attendees: £20
- Non-speaker/non-presenting attendees: £15
Mancept will offer a small number of fee waiver bursaries. The deadline for bursary applications (available to current graduate students only) will be the 15th June, and successful applicants will be informed by the 22nd June. Only people accepted to present on a panel should apply for bursaries.