CFP: Populism and Contemporary Democracy in Europe. Between Old Problems and New Challenges

The conference is one of the core activities of the Horizon 2020 Project ‘DEMOS. Democratic efficacy and varieties of populism in Europe’ and will be the occasion to present the scientific results of the first two years of the project. Organised in partnership with the Venice Commission for Democracy through Law, the advisory body of the Council of Europe in constitutional matters, and the Grupo de Estudio sobre Democracia y Constitucionalismo (GEDECO) of the University of Barcelona (Project “Counter Majoritarian Instruments in the Constitutional State (PID2019-104414GB-C32, Minister of Science and Innovation)) of the University of Barcelona, the conference aims to reflect upon the challenges posed by populism to constitutional democracy and the institutions of the rule of state, in particular on the counter-majoritarian ones, and how these challenges should be dealt with. The conference will provide a forum for DEMOS scholars to engage in a debate with the wider academic community about the impact of the populist phenomenon on European democracies. Moreover, the presence of the Venice Commission experts will provide an insight on the way populism is affecting constitutional law making and how European standards are adapting to it.

Call for papers

We invite young scholars interested in contributing to the conference to join the debate by presenting a communication. The communication should be related to one of the five main thematic areas of the conference. Within each thematic area, interventions can address any aspect of the topic, from an institutional, normative or doctrinal perspective. Papers may adopt an approach focusing on single national experiences as well as a comparative one, also looking beyond the European context.

Working Language

The languages of the conference are English and Spanish. Authors intending to partici-pate in Day 1 shall prepare their intervention in English. The working language of Day 2 will instead be Spanish. The text of the communication however may indistinctly be in English or Spanish.

Deadlines

Young scholars interested in presenting papers must submit before the 20th December an abstract (max. 500 words) in English, together with a CV, at the following e-mail address: m.a.simonelli@ub.edu Proposals will be selected by the Scientific Committee of the work-shop. Selection’s results will be notified before the 30th of December. Before the 15th of February the selected authors will have to send the full paper. Papers shall have a maxi-mum length of 7,000 words including footnotes.