Democratic responses and political pressures for change
Johns Hopkins University - Universitat Pompeu Fabra Public Policy Center
Universitat Pompeu Fabra – Ciutadella campus
Barcelona
14-15 July 2016
This two day seminar focuses on patterns of contestation, protest, alternative
forms of political participation, and how each of these have had an impact upon contemporary policymaking in political economy. This is part of the ESRC Seminar Series: Understanding the post-crisis landscape: assessing change in economic management, welfare,
work and democracy. The seminar focuses on a range of questions related to the relationship between democratic participation, protest, and political economy outcomes. How are changing forms of protest re-defining the contemporary political economy? To
what extent are we witnessing new political actors created through the activity of anti-austerity protest? How have policymakers responded to new forms of protest and dissent in the current age of austerity and anti-austerity?
Entry is free and welcome to all, but please register beforehand:
email Sam Warner: [log in to unmask]
http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/government-society/departments/political-science-international-studies/events/2014-16-esrc-seminar-series/index.aspxhttp://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/government-society/departments/political-science-international-studies/events/2014-16-esrc-seminar-series/index.aspx
Thursday 14 July
9.45am Introduction, Professor Vicenç Navarro, Director, JHU-UPF Public Policy Center
10.15 What hope for democracy in the crisis stage of neoliberal capitalism?
Jerome Roos (EUI/ROAR)
Followed by a response by Mònica Clua-Losada (University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley) and David Bailey (University of Birmingham)
11.30 tea/coffee
11.45 Against austerity: understanding the wave of anti-austerity protest
Cristina Flesher Fominaya (University of Aberdeen)
Pierre Lapin (Boycott Workfare)
Kelly Rogers (National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts, NCAFC)
Anti-austerities: the Student Movement and the Struggle Against Library Closures
Onder Sevimli (Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey)
The Medium and the Message: The Dynamics, Politics and Future of Gezi as Event
13.15 LUNCH
14.15 The struggle for social reproduction
Alejandra Araiza and Robert González (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo, México)
La Mainada: caring, collectivization and shared upbringing in front the post-austerity municipal policies in Barcelona
Marilena Simiti (University of Piraeus)
Kirsteen Paton, The University of Leeds and Vickie Cooper, The Open University
Everyday Evictions in the 21st Century
3.45 tea/coffee
4.00 Studying resistance
Olatz Ribera Almandoz (UPF, Barcelona)
Resistance from Below: The Household’s Role in the Contestation of the Multilevel State
Nicholas Kiersey (Ohio University)
Adam Fishwick (De Montfort University)
Working against austerity? The empresas recuperadas in Argentina
Luisa Rossini (University of Palermo / Technischen Universität Berlin)
Contesting urban transformation in Rome and Berlin
5.30 Panel: reflections on strategies and experiments for change
Led by Angela Wigger (Radboud University), Luke Stobart (University of Hertfordshire), and Nikolai Huke (Marburg University)
6.30 END
Friday 15 July
10.00 Communicating grassroots struggles
Luca Neve - photojournalist - www.lucaneve.com
Laura Melcion - book project manager, writer and artist - www.lauramelcion.com
Luca and Laura will present a slideshow of images captured over the last six years, depicting this key period in
British and European history through the lens of an independent photojournalist in London. From politicians to
protestors, economists to journalists, these images form part of the project “Austerity INC”, a long term photobook
project that begins with the explosive student protests in 2010 and ends with the question mark that now hangs
over us all, following the Brexit referendum of 2016. They'll discuss battling mainstream media censorship and the
“confusion” of the Internet.
Pollyanna Ruiz (University of Sussex)
On (not) Speaking YouTube; The communicative strategies of campaigners and policy makers in the public sphere
11.00 Comparing housing movements
Bill Perry and Claudia Firth (Radical Housing Network)
Albert Jiménez (Universitat Pompeu Fabra/PAH Sabadell)
Organized resistance to housing financialization in Spain: The Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH)
Galvão Debelle (UAB, Barcelona)
The criminalization wave of squatting in 2006 and the differentiation of the housing and the squatters' movement in Barcelona
Arnost Novak (collective Autonomous social centre Klinika/Charles University, Prague)
Klinika between the politics of act and the politics of demand
12.30 LUNCH
13.30 Theorising resistance and the role of the party
Simon Tormey (The University of Sydney, Australia) and Ramón Feenstra (Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain)
From street to party politics: a redefinition of participation and the political party form by “digital” activists?
Elio Di Muccio and Darcy Luke (University of Birmingham)
The communistic reproduction of the Marxist party-form as exigency for a revolutionary response to contemporary political pressures for change
Josep Maria Antentas, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Podemos, Strategy and the Spanish political crisis
4.00 tea/coffee
4.15 Linking protest to policy and politicians?
Georgina Blakeley (The Open University)
Political pressures for change: the 15MpaRato campaign’s challenge to impunity and corruption
Gregory White (University of York)
The return of the left? Post-crisis social movements, anti-austerity activism and social policy in the UK
Joshua Blamire (University of Liverpool)
“Just Simply Not Credible”?: Exploring the Transformative Political Potentialities of Anti-Austerity Resistance in Liverpool
5.15 Closing discussion: how to influence, who to influence, should we be aiming to influence?
6.00 END