Dear Colleagues (apologies for cross-posting)
Final Call for Papers: Interpretative Policy Analysis (IPA) Conference in Vienna (3-5 July, 2013).
Organisers:
Ross Beveridge, Leibniz Institute for Regional Development and Structural Planning (IRS), Erkner/ Berlin, Germany ([log in to unmask])
Philippe Koch, Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich ([log in to unmask])
CFP:
This panel focuses on depoliticization, an emerging literature and an increasingly important concern in public policy research. Viewed variously as an outcome of neo-liberalism, new public management/ managerialism, scientization of policy or the new post-democratic/ post-political settlement, depoliticization is the attempt to reduce the formally political character of decision-making through shifting it to other arenas beyond the formal political system (Flinders and Buller, 2006). As such it is seen as a feature of new forms of governance, which seek to preclude conflict and plurality. Strategies of depoliticization include, inter alia, strengthening of technocratic authority, the framing of "common sense narratives" or the discursive construction of "necessity" and denial of "contingency" (Hay, 2007).
Until now depoliticization scholars have focused mainly on policy-making at the level of the nation state, especially economic policy. This panel seeks papers which explore depoliticization at the urban and regional level. As a result of new modes of governance (e.g. participatory governance, public-private partnerships, regional governance arrangements), urban/regional policy-making is increasingly dispersed across territorial units, public/private actors and decision-making arenas. Thus far these governance innovations have been studied largely in isolation, and from different theoretical approaches. Our contention is, however, that they share a common rationale, which is the depoliticization of urban politics via shifting the resolution of political conflicts from traditional/formal to non-traditional/informal arenas.
In the panel we address two concerns. (1) Developing knowledge about patterns of conflict resolution in these (depoliticized) arenas: What is the role of non-elected actors in these arenas and the narratives and knowledge they advance? What types of conflicts are excluded from these arenas and consequently what actors, styles of contestations, knowledge? (2) Learning more about how and why certain issues are assigned to these non-traditional arenas in the first place; who is authorized to shift arenas? What strategies are pursued to shift arenas? What is the role of non-authorized actors and their narratives in this process?
Abstract Submission: until 28 February
Please Submit abstracts up to 500 words via the conference website:
https://ipa2013.univie.ac.at/call-for-papers/#irfaq_3_0a4ea
Please get in touch if you have any questions.
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