Public Reason

CONFERENCE:  “Democratic Rights – Democratic Duties”

Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, New South Wales

3-4^th July 2013

The Faculty of Arts at Charles Sturt University organises a conference on the topic “Democratic Rights – Democratic Duties”. The event aims to bring together academics working in the humanities, to foster discussion over what rights and duties are bestowed upon citizens of democratic countries. Papers will cover topics such as political participation, the ethics of voting, just war theory, the language of democracy, human rights.

Speakers:

Jason Brennan (Georgetown, USA)

Tom Campbell (CAPPE)

Russell Daylight (Charles Sturt University)

Piero Moraro (Charles Sturt University)

Massimo Renzo (Warwick, UK)

Sarah Sorial (University of Wollongong)

Kevin Walton (University of New South Wales)

Academics interested in offering a response to one of the above presentations should send their CV and a short statement of how the themes of the conference bear on their research interests (150 words max.)  to Piero Moraro (pmoraro@csu.edu.au) by 15^th March 2013. Respondents’ accommodation and catering costs will be subsidised.

Starting today Crooked Timber is rolling out this seminar (review symposium) on Jack Knight & James Johnson The Priority of Democracy: Political Consequences of Pragmatism (Princeton UP, 2011).  Contributors are Chris Ansell (Berkeley), Melissa Schwartzberg (Columbia), Peter Boettke (George Mason), Ingrid Robeyns (Erasmus), Adrian Vermeule (Harvard), Henry Farrell (George Washington) and Cosma Shalizi (Carnegie Mellon). Knight (Duke) and Johnson (Rochester) reply.

University of Edinburgh - School of Social and Political Science

We seek to appoint an outstanding candidate for a Chair in Political Theory, with a focus on the normative dimensions of public and international affairs. The Chair will be located in the Politics and International Relations subject area of the School of Social and Political Science.

The successful candidate will be internationally recognised as a leader in the research field; will possess teaching and supervision skills and experience of exceptional quality; and will further the School’s international reputation for research and its commitment to excellence in teaching and administration.

The position is available from 1st August 2013.

This is a Grade 10 post (attracting a salary of between  54,826 – 75,109 per annum).

Closing Date: 8th March 2013

Vacancy Reference: 010123

Links:

http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AFY849/chair-in-political-theory/

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/human-resources/jobs

UCL DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

Research Associate (Post-Doctoral) x 2

Grade 7

Post/ Hours per week (%FTE) 2 Full-time posts / (at 36.5 hours per week)

Salary £32,375 – £39,132 per annum inclusive of London allowance (starting salary at £32,375 per annum)

Duties and Responsibilities

The School of Public Policy, UCL wishes to appoint two full-time Postdoctoral Research Associates to work with Professor Cécile Laborde on an ERC (European Research Council) funded research project entitled ‘Is Religion Special? Secularism and Religion in Contemporary Legal and Political Theory’. This 5-year-long project interrogates the special status of religion (ethics, epistemology and practices) in western political and legal theory, and assesses the normative implications of the contemporary shift towards ‘post-secular’ approaches for the relationship between politics and religion.

The successful candidates will be undertaking research duties in connection with the project; and pursue their own research in one of the following areas: (i) the intellectual history of politics and religion (ii) religion in legal theory (iii) secularism in political philosophy.

Please note that one post will be for 2 years and the other for 3 years. These full-time appointments are available from 1st September 2013.

Key Requirements

To be appointed as a Research Associate the successful candidates must hold (or be near completion of) a PhD in political philosophy, law, intellectual history or a related subject; have a broad knowledge of Theories of Religion and Politics and a good research project; and experience of planning and conducting academic research independently. They must also possess excellent writing, communication and organisational skills.

Candidates who have not yet completed a PhD will be considered. Please note that appointment at Grade 7 is dependent upon having been awarded a PhD; if this is not the case, initial appointment will be at research assistant Grade 6 (salary £28,338 – £29,881 per annum) with payment at Grade 7 being backdated to the date of final submission of the PhD thesis.

Further Details

Information about the Department of Political Science is available at www.ucl.ac.uk/spp. A job description and person specification are attached.

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Cécile Laborde (c.laborde@ucl.ac.uk ). If you have any queries regarding the vacancy or the application process, please contact Sydonnie Hyman, email s.hyman@ucl.ac.uk , tel +44 (0)20 7679 4944 quoting reference number 1308895.

Closing Date: 5pm, 31st March 2013

It is anticipated that interviews will be held in April 2013.

Professor Cecile Laborde

Director, Legal and Political Theory Programme

Department of Political Science

School of Public Policy

UCL

29/30 Tavistock Square

London WC1H 9QU

Tel +442076794945

Fax +442076794969

c.laborde@ucl.ac.uk

www.ucl.ac.uk/spp/people/cecile-laborde

Please note the new deadline for abstracts below:

RHETORIC, BETWEEN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF POLITICS

International Conference 

CEHUM, University of Minho

Braga, Portugal

June 21-22, 2013

Invited Speakers:

Benedetto Fontana (CUNY)

Bryan Garsten (Yale University)

Eugene Garver (St. John’s University)

Marco Geuna (University of Milan)

James Martin (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Kari Palonen (University of Jyväskylä)

Javier Roiz (Complutense University)

Call for papers

As one of the consequences of the lingering process of corrosion of the rationalist assumptions of the Enlightenment project, in the last decades we have witnessed an attempt in different areas of the humanities to revive the central role rhetoric used to have in antiquity. Despite its political origins, however, the contribution of political theory to this important endeavour has only come of late, as more and more theorists have started to expose the rhetorical nature of politics in multiple manners: showing how it can be used to offer more sophisticated accounts of public deliberation, more attentive toward emotive aspects and contexts; or revealing it as an important manifestation of practical reason; or studying its presence in canonical thinkers and critical moments in the history of political thought; or finally, taking it as an inspiring source for a post-foundationalist emancipatory political theory.

This variety of approaches testifies to the pervasiveness of the rhetorical dimensions in the whole realm of politics, from action to theory. The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars coming from disciplines such as political theory, philosophy, history, literature, or communication, to debate the multifaceted significance of rhetoric in politics and to explore new ways to incorporate a ‘rhetorical perspective’ in the study of political thought. Our hope is that this event could offer an important moment to assess and foster the still incipient revival of rhetoric in this area.

The conference will be organized in plenary and parallel sessions. Proposals for the latter are invited on, but not limited to, topics such as: rhetoric and the limits of rational deliberation, rhetoric as a manifestation of practical reason, rhetoric and civic education, rhetoric and the public intellectual, rhetoric and post-foundationalist political theory, rhetoric and political change, rhetoric and the symbolic space of politics, rhetoric in canonical political thinkers and in the history of political thought.
In order to propose a paper, an abstract of no more than 500 words should be sent to rhetoricandpolitics2013@gmail.com

(with “Rhetoric and Politics 2013 Submission” in the subject line of the message)

The deadline for the abstract is now 10 February 2013

In addition to the abstract, please include in your proposal your academic title, name, affiliation, and the title of your contribution

Website

https://sites.google.com/site/cehumfilosofiapolitica/destaques-1/upcoming-events/cfp-rhetoric-between-the-theory-and-practice-of-politics

Dear all,

I am interested in finding new work on experimental political philosophy that might be worth mentioning in a review article on the topic. Any references would be great.

All best, -Nicole

Ayn Rand devotees are now finding love connections at Atlasphere.com, but what is out there for philosophers whose tastes run less libertarian?  We need websites to fill the void.  For starters:  JohnRawlsMatch.com (“Maximizing the romantic potential of the least desirable Americans since 1971″)

More ideas here.

- SVM

The Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought (APT) is now recognised by HEFC as a learned society with the standing to be consulted on a variety of research issues. So members were able to defend the interests of political theory in the UK Research Excellence Framework – we nominated four people for the Politics panel and succeeded in securing the appointment of one of them – Richard Bellamy – thereby increasing the number of theorists by one.

We have been working on engagement with research councils – Jeremy Jennings has represented us at various meetings of the AHRC, and we submitted comments on the AHRC strategic plan. We also successfully nominated Richard Bellamy, Thom Brooks and David Owen to the Peer Review College of the AHRC. We have submitted suitably critical views on the Open Access proposals and will be nominating candidates for the ESRC research committee.

In the current climate it is increasingly important to build links with other groups, both nationally (members participated in a panel on refereeing at the PSA conference) and internationally –we maintain friendly relations with the US APT, some of us will of course be in Chicago at APSA and we are hoping to raise our profile there. We welcome input from members on these and any other initiatives they believe we should be making. In particular, if you are attending APSA, please get in touch via email, our webpage or Facebook.

Our Website is now live: http://www.associationforpoliticalthought.ac.uk and working well as an information clearing house for conferences, seminars and symposia, and for jobs. We are also using Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AssociationForPoliticalThought; And Twitter: @Polthought.

Archive appeal: If you have any past conference programmes and/or lists of participants, please send them to conference@associationforpoliticalthought.co.uk for inclusion on the archive pages.

The Political Thought Conference 2013, at St Catz Oxford, January 3-5, convened by Gary Browning and Elizabeth Frazer, was very successful – intellectually, socially, and materially. Academic convenors David Owen and Dan Butt put together a terrific progamme with papers of a very high standard by Duncan Bell, Alan Finlayson, Rob Jubb, Ruth Kinna, Patchen Markell, Margaret Moore, Anne Phillips, and Lea Ypi – they all did a great job responding to fearsome and challenging questions. The field of political thought is wide, and the audience for this conference diverse, and questions come from many different standpoints. Thanks to all the contributors.

AGM January 4 2013

As usual the AGM of the APT and the Conference was held on Friday afternoon Jan 4. We agreed that the conference needs to grow somewhat, and we need to make a particular effort to increase participation by younger professional political theorists and graduate students. The convenors will continue to work for increased attendance, and to build up financial resources and reserves by securing higher levels of sponsorship, while trying to maintain the traditional atmosphere of informality and plenary participation in single full length paper sessions. We agreed that from next year the conference will begin earlier – 2 p.m. rather than 4 p.m. Thursday, with a session especially aimed at graduate students on some aspect of professional political theory. We also agreed that there will be a competition over the summer, to select a doctoral student’s paper to be included in the conference programme.

Academic convenors for the conference 2014, to be held at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, January 9-11 2014, are Chris Brooke and Moya Lloyd

Call for Papers

Special Workshop at the World Congress of Philosophy of Law (IVR)

Belo Horizonte (Brazil), 21-28t July 2013

Transparency is everywhere, or at least talk of it is everywhere. The mainstream view is that transparency furthers accountability and offers an antidote against corruption, both in the private and the public sector. It is not any specific right or principle, rather a feature of institutions embedded in the ideal of open society and often considered a requirement for efficiency and good governance. As essential to guarantee authority and effectiveness of rules, but also democratic participation, it is fundamental to assure obedience to the law and trust in institutions. Conversely, the lack of transparency might contribute to arbitrary power. Does the introduction of ICTs higher the quality of epistemic processes and outputs into the legal and political system? Does greater transparency of the network, e.g., through e-government tools, lead to increased participation, more active and responsible citizen involvement in decision-making, on local, national and supranational levels? What impact does web 2.0 technologies have? What could be the effects of information overload in the long run?

This workshop offers a meeting point for scholars eager to share their findings in the field, enhancing comprehension between different approaches to law. The first Special Workshop Legitimacy 2.0 was held at the 25th IVR World Congress. This second meeting follows up the broad agenda that investigates the impact of ICTs in political and governance processes that seem elusive to be framed into the traditional theoretical settings based on legitimacy, normative authority, enforcement, nature of norms etc. The aim is to integrate the current state of the art with the toolkit of the analytical and normative perspectives of legal and political theory.

The best papers will be selected and published in revised form. An Open Access Publication will make the most interesting data readily available.

Guidelines for abstract submission

Abstract proposals should be 350-500 words in length. Please submit your proposals through the congress website at: http://www.ivr2013.org/hotsite/english/work.php. Preferably in RTF or Microsoft Word (doc).

The deadline for abstract submission is February 28, 2013. All proposals will undergo peer review and notifications of acceptance will be sent out by March 15, 2013. Paper submission deadline is June 30, 2013.

Patricia Mindus: patricia.mindus@filosofi.uu.se

Andrea Greppi: agreppi@der-pu.uc3m.es

Massimo Cuono: massimo.cuono@unito.it

I’d like to thank Sarah Conly and our commentators for raising an important set of questions about the book. In this post, I focus on Conly’s worry that reflective revision cannot include citizens who reject the core democratic values of freedom and equality. She suggests that reflective revision is largely relevant to people who already endorse the ideal of free and equal citizenship. But what about those people who simply reject these values? Moreover, what might democratic persuasion say to them?

An initial reply to this worry is that the number of people who reject the values altogether might be fewer than it first appears, and they may not be completely opposed to the values. Even groups that endorse hateful viewpoints might have at least some surface devotion to democratic values. Consider David Duke’s National Association for the Advancement of White People. The organization purports to endorse an ideal of equality in claiming that they are not for the unequal treatment of African Americans but rather only support the equality of Caucasians.

Of course genuine reflective revision is not likely in Duke’s case or for people like him. But the fact that there is a thin embrace of the values might serve as a hook for democratic persuasion. The act of persuasion might consist in pointing to the contradiction between the rejection of basic civil rights for African Americans and the supposed endorsement of an ideal of equality.

Of course in some instances at least some people and groups might reject the values outright. Reflective revision will be less likely in such cases. What might democratic persuasion aim to accomplish then?

I have two responses. The first is that I think some democratic persuasion might need to given an explanation of why these values are important in a liberal democracy. One form of democratic persuasion might be a national discussion about the reasons to endorse democratic values.

Second, democratic persuasion can still have value in convincing third parties. Democratic persuasion, although often formally addressed to those who reject the values of free and equal citizenship, might work to promote reflective revision for those who already endorse the values but might be tempted to abandon them.

RHETORIC, BETWEEN THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF POLITICS

International Conference 

CEHUM, University of Minho

Braga, Portugal

June 21-22, 2013

Invited Speakers:

Benedetto Fontana (CUNY)

Bryan Garsten (Yale University)

Eugene Garver (St. John’s University)

Marco Geuna (University of Milan)

James Martin (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Kari Palonen (University of Jyväskylä)

Javier Roiz (Complutense University)

Call for papers

As one of the consequences of the lingering process of corrosion of the rationalist assumptions of the Enlightenment project, in the last decades we have witnessed an attempt in different areas of the humanities to revive the central role rhetoric used to have in antiquity. Despite its political origins, however, the contribution of political theory to this important endeavour has only come of late, as more and more theorists have started to expose the rhetorical nature of politics in multiple manners: showing how it can be used to offer more sophisticated accounts of public deliberation, more attentive toward emotive aspects and contexts; or revealing it as an important manifestation of practical reason; or studying its presence in canonical thinkers and critical moments in the history of political thought; or finally, taking it as an inspiring source for a post-foundationalist emancipatory political theory.

This variety of approaches testifies to the pervasiveness of the rhetorical dimensions in the whole realm of politics, from action to theory. The aim of this conference is to bring together scholars coming from disciplines such as political theory, philosophy, history, literature, or communication, to debate the multifaceted significance of rhetoric in politics and to explore new ways to incorporate a ‘rhetorical perspective’ in the study of political thought. Our hope is that this event could offer an important moment to assess and foster the still incipient revival of rhetoric in this area.

The conference will be organized in plenary and parallel sessions. Proposals for the latter are invited on, but not limited to, topics such as: rhetoric and the limits of rational deliberation, rhetoric as a manifestation of practical reason, rhetoric and civic education, rhetoric and the public intellectual, rhetoric and post-foundationalist political theory, rhetoric and political change, rhetoric and the symbolic space of politics, rhetoric in canonical political thinkers and in the history of political thought.

In order to propose a paper, an abstract of no more than 500 words should be sent to rhetoricandpolitics2013@gmail.com

(with “Rhetoric and Politics 2013 Submission” in the subject line of the message)

The deadline for the abstract is 1 February 2013 

In addition to the abstract, please include in your proposal your academic title, name, affiliation, and the title of your contribution

Website

https://sites.google.com/site/cehumfilosofiapolitica/destaques-1/upcoming-events/cfp-rhetoric-between-the-theory-and-practice-of-politics

11^th Pavia Graduate Conference in Political Philosophy

9^th and 10^th September 2013

CALL FOR PAPERS

On the 9^th and 10^th of September 2013, the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Pavia (Italy), under the joint patronage of the Italian Society for Political Philosophy and the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy, will host the eleventh edition of the Pavia Graduate Conference in Political Philosophy. This two-day conference is meant to offer graduate students an opportunity to present papers, get helpful feedback in a friendly atmosphere, and exchange ideas both with peers and with leading academics in the field of political philosophy. In addition to parallel sessions devoted to students’ presentations, there will also be two plenary sessions. Plenary speakers in past editions have been: Hillel Steiner, Anna Elisabetta Galeotti, Peter Jones, Gianfrancesco Zanetti, Jonathan Wolff, Michele Nicoletti, Philippe Van Parijs, Sebastiano Maffettone, Giovanni Giorgini, Andrew Williams, David Miller, Alessandro Ferrara, Valeria Ottonelli, Adam Swift, Gerald Gaus, Serena Olsaretti, Thomas M. Scanlon. This year’s keynote speakers will be:

 Sebastiano Maffettone (LUISS, Roma)

Philip Pettit (Princeton University)

Graduate students interested in giving papers should send their contributions (max 2500/3000 words – in English) accompanied by a short abstract (max 300 words – in English), by Sunday 28^th April 2013. Papers may focus on any area within political philosophy, and presentations should take no longer than twenty minutes to allow at least another twenty minutes of discussion. Please note that the 28^th of April is also the deadline for registration for anyone who wishes to attend the conference without presenting a paper.

Conference registration is free of charge. Paper givers will be offered accommodation in local university colleges. Accommodation fees and details will be arranged individually. Anyone who wishes to attend the conference without presenting a paper can write to check availability. Details about meal arrangements and conference programme to follow.

Please address all correspondence (including paper submissions and additional inquiries) to the conference email address: pavia.gradconference@gmail.com

The conference is sponsored by the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Pavia (FIRB Research Project “Alimentare il rispetto”) and by the Department of Humanities of the Piemonte Orientale University in Vercelli (ESF Start-up Grant “URBANITAS”, Compagnia di S. Paolo, Torino).

Next year it will be 20 years since EU citizenship was first introduced. Much has happened. An international congress in Uppsala in March stock-takes and seeks out the challenges ahead: http://www.europeancitizenship.se/

Welcome!

Annual meeting of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy: “Immigration, Emigration and Migration”January 4th, 2013 Crescent Room 11th Floor, Westin, New Orleans Canal Place, 100 Rue Iberville, New Orleans,

8:00 AM-9:45 AM: Panel 1.

Chair: Nancy Rosenblum, Political Science, Harvard University
Principal Paper: “Law’s Migrations, Mobilities and Borders”
Author: Judith Resnik, Law, Yale.
Commentaries:
James Bohman, Philosophy, Saint Louis University
Jennifer Hochschild, Political Science, Harvard

10AM-11:45 Panel 2
Chair: Robin West, Law, Georgetown University
Principal Paper: “Why Do States Have the Right to Control Immigration?”
Author: Sarah Song, Political Science and Law, Berkeley

Commentaries:
Adam Cox, Law, NYU
Michael Blake, Philosophy, University of Washington

11:45: Box lunches and drinks available
12:00: Business Meeting

12:15-2:00 PM Panel 3
Chair: Jeremy Waldron, Law and Political Science, Oxford and NYU
Principal Paper: “Immigration and Legitimate International Institutions”
Author: Tom Christiano, Philosophy, University of Arizona

Commentaries:
Arash Abizadeh, Political Science, McGill
Cristina Rodriguez, Law, NYU

For information on attending, please e-mail azakaras@uvm.edu

In the following piece, recently published on the Foreign Policy website, I discuss the implications of my account of free speech for the controversy surrounding The Innocence of Muslims, the anti-Islam video made in California. I focus on how my view might respond to international controversies involving hate speech:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/12/born_free_but_not_indifferent

The ‘Beyond-GDP’ discourse as to how to understand and measure social progress is no longer confined to social-scientific development researchers or other academics. Policy makers and civil society at national, inter- and transnational levels are engaged in discussing and devising concepts and indicators that would facilitate assessing social progress domestically and globally. What is striking about these processes of opinion and will formation is how little attention they pay to theories of (global) justice.

The workshop aims at filling this gap by bringing together political philosophers and theorists as well as scholars working in development economics and social-scientific development research so as to exchange their understandings of both justice and development.

Attendance of the workshop is free. Places are limited, and will be assigned on a first come, first serve basis.

More on the information on the workshop can be found here:

http://www.justitia-amplificata.de/en/events/workshop-on-justice-and-development.html