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CALL FOR PAPERS

Panel "Anti-Democratic Development"

Annual Conference of the Development Studies Association (DSA),
"Development's Invisible Hands", Church House, Westminster, London, 8
November 2008
http://www.devstud.org.uk/conference.htm

Anti-democratic thinking is one of the most important factors
impinging on the success or failure of social and economic development
efforts in developing countries. Terms like "good governance" and
"political development" are often used, in the development discourse,
synonymously with "democracy" and "democratization." At the same time,
modes of anti-democratic thought are seldom studied seriously in
either development studies or related disciplines such as political
science and international relations. This is all the more surprising
as in an historical and cross-cultural perspective the fact cannot be
denied that most democracies failed. Many formerly democratic
countries do not have a democratic government now. Many countries have
never known democracy. Only western democracies for a short while –
maybe to be dated from the fall of Soviet communism to the rise of
radical Islam – believed themselves invincible. It is therefore
expedient to think about political alternatives once more and to study
threats to democracy from within and without as well as common modes
of failure of democracy and democratization.

This panel will assess the ways in which anti-democratic thought
shapes social and economic development. It will study cases of
successfully developing countries, such as China, that are openly
hostile to democratic values. Is the social and economic development
discourse about to be delinked from the democracy agenda? Can we
understand cases like Zimbabwe without understanding the inherent
opposition between ethnic- and clan-based politics in Africa and
liberal parliamentarism? And what role do fundamentalist
interpretations of religion play in the formation of anti-liberal (and
thus anti-parliamentarian, anti-capitalist and anti-democratic)
thought in the Middle East and elsewhere? Can a model of "development"
be found that takes anti-democratic thought (and the public support
for it in many developing countries) seriously? What is the role of
countries with an arguably less than democratic approach to politics
(such as Russia and China) in Africa's, Asia's and Latin America's
development? The panel welcomes theoretical as well as empirical
contributions.

The process of deciding on the panels for this conference was highly
competitive. Conference organisers are particularly keen on
participation by scholars and experts from outside development studies
with important messages for the development studies community. The
process of selection of papers for the panel will also be competitive
and peer reviewed both at the stages of abstracts and full papers.

Please send paper proposals (abstracts of 750-1000 words) to:
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by 6 June 2008.

If your abstract is successful, you will need to submit a full paper
by 15 September.

Individual papers will be eligible for publication in Special Editions
of the Journal of International Development and European Journal of
Development Research. There may also be the option to publish joint
thematic review papers on panels or groups of papers as "policy fora"
in either of these special issues or other journals. The organising
committee will arrange a post-conference editorial system prior to any
publication and may make resources available to achieve high quality
publication in one of these ways.

Erich Kofmel
Managing Director
Sussex Centre for the Individual and Society (SCIS)
www.scis-calibrate.org