Conference organisation

International Conference on

Equality and Electoral Democracy

Sciences Po Paris

November 28-29, 2022

The conference has focused on issues of equality and electoral democracy that have underpinned the work within the REDEM project. This included topics such as the consequence for voters of different electoral systems in Europe, the possibilities of combining direct and representative forms of democracy; the challenges of organising elections during Covid; and the impact of immigration and new technologies on voters. A special emphasis was placed on understanding how elections might be used to reduce, rather than increase, the different forms of inequality that plague our societies, and what it is that distinguishes democratic commitments to the equality of citizens from alternative political ideals.

International Workshop on

Satire and Democracy

Sciences Po Paris

October 14, 2022

How should democracies approach the moral, political and legal challenges posed by satire? Satire can speak truth to power, but it can also vilify minorities and intensify prejudice. Democracies can benefit from satire’s ridicule of élite hypocrisy, corruption, incompetence and self-regard. But savage anger, outrage and bitter contempt for the objects of satire can prove difficult for democracies to handle, especially when their targets are citizens, rather than rulers. So, what do democratic commitments to the freedom, equality, solidarity and security of citizens tell us about the nature and value of satire, the ways in which it can or should be regulated, and the degrees to which different national traditions of satire should be celebrated or, simply, tolerated? This workshop has tried to map out answers to these questions.

International Conference on

Reconstructing Democracy in Times of Crisis - A Voter-Centred Perspective

Sciences Po Paris

February 5-6, 2020

The inaugural REDEM conference was the first in a series of interdisciplinary workshops and conferences to be organised throughout the project. Its purpose was to introduce the project partners and external participants to each other's work in areas related to the REDEM project. The programme included presentations on the latest social scientific and philosophical research on political abstention and alienation, populism, political parties, referenda and social inequality and their relevance to debates about electoral ethics, democratic legitimacy and the challenges posed by new technologies for political transparency, inclusion and accountability.

International Conference on

Race and Racialisation - International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives

University of Geneva

October 28-29, 2016

The conference brought together some of the leading scholars of race and racialisation from the United States and Europe. The aim of the conference was two-fold. First, it sought to present a wide-variety of academic studies on race, conceived as a socio-political rather than a biological category, to Swiss students, faculty and the general public, who may not have had the chance to encounter them before. Secondly, it introduced Swiss controversies about race, and Swiss research on race, to international scholars in order to broaden the range of theoretical perspectives and examples available for academic research.

International Conference on

Moral and Political Perspectives on Democracy

University of Geneva

June 27-28, 2012

What difference does it make – normatively or empirically - whether a government is democratic or not? And what information do we need to answer this question? Democratic governments come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and embrace a variety of seemingly incompatible political ideals and policies. Nor does there seem much agreement over which institutions, values and decision procedures are necessary in order to describe a government as democratic, and which are desirable or optional, rather than necessary.

If we look back, briefly, at the major developments in normative political theory since the 1970s, it is easy to see why the flowering of democratic theory has generated as many puzzles as those which it has put to rest. On the one hand we have the new conceptions of power and powerlessness, of liberty, equality and rights associated with feminist and antiracist political movements, and the critical and substantive theories which they inspired. On the other, we have the revival of interest in Rousseauian conceptions of democracy, and the effort to distinguish democratic ideals of political participation from populist and authoritarian variants. This conference was organised to facilitate reflection on these two aspects of contemporary democratic thought, and the tensions and synergies between them.

International Conference on

Philosophy and Intellectual Property

London School of Economics and Political Science

May 29-30, 2009

The Philosophy and Intellectual Property Conference brought together an internationally renowned group of philosophers and legal theorists. It was motivated by the difficulty of determining whether intellectual property, as currently conceived, has any philosophical or legal coherence that distinguishes it from other forms of property, or other rights that people might have in their bodies, ideas and in the world. Intellectual property rights give their holders considerable powers to withhold life-saving inventions and medicines, to prevent the dissemination and sharing of books, music and art work and to charge fees for licensing and use that only the wealthiest individuals and governments are able to pay. Therefore the aim of the conference was to promote dialogue between lawyers and philosophers over the solution to shared conceptual and normative problems in the treatment of intellectual property.