The Dynamics of Citizenship in the Post-Political World

Workshops

POST-POLITICAL PARTICIPATION focuses on citizen action. It asks how citizens individually and collectively put their civil, political, and social rights of citizenship to work in the processes of de-politicization and politicization. It seeks theoretical and empirical papers that help facilitate a comparison of participation on the issues and in the arenas characteristic of these two processes and that study how citizens react to and engage in post-political arenas from the local to the global levels and through a wide variety of tools for political involvement.

This workshop focuses on: (1) the de-politicization of the parliamentary sphere of politics; (2) politicization as responsibility-taking for global problems, and (3) politicization as responsibilization of the social rights of citizenship. Interesting paper topics are, for instance, whether and how the de-politicization process affects citizen engagement and trust in the large-scale democracy of the parliamentary sphere of politics and what the politicization process of responsibility-taking and responsibilization implies for the arenas and tools of politics and for citizens’ motivations for involvement in them.

Another important topic is how the twin processes of post-politics are affecting citizen engagement in the small-scale democracy of the domains of everyday life? Do we, for instance, see changes in how citizens view and engage in user democracy (i.e., voicing concerns and fears about welfare service provision) and view their role and responsibility as consumers? More generally, what is the relationship between the surge in citizen deliberation in public decision-making, political consumerism and consumer choice editing, demonstrations for global green justice and welfare service, protests against taxation and migration, NIMBY activism, internet activism, and lifestyle politics and the twin processes of post-politics? Do we see effects from the privatization and marketization on citizen engagement in politics? How effective is post-political participation in bringing its message across, influencing societal and political change or stability, and promoting the democratic norms of political equality, political responsibility, and political representation? 

Workshop organizers:
Professor Michele Micheletti, Stockholm University (for information and questions on the workshop), and Associate Professor Dietlind Stolle, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Last update: Maj 14, 2010