Nicosia 2017

Democratization and Constitutional Design in Divided Societies

This conference will bring together three IPSA research committees (14, 13 and 28) to examine the challenges of designing democratic institutions in divided societies.

The conference will provide an opportunity to examine the role of different factors (e.g., ethnicity, gender, class, political institutions, efficacy of multi-level governance, the intersection between peace and democratic stability) in fostering democratization in the context of regional and global integration. We welcome contributions that focus on democratization as an open-ended process driven by either internal or external factors, embedded in local, regional, or global dynamics as well as social, economic and legal legacies of the past.

The conference will be convened in Nicosia, Cyprus at the time when the country is undergoing a complex and historic process of designing political institutions to bridge the gap between the island’s divided communities. In particular, we welcome proposals that reflect upon the constitutional design process in Cyprus as well as proposals that develop case studies or comparison of issues of democratization evident in any part of the world or those which engage a theoretical perspective on institutional and constitutional designs in ethnically, religiously, nationally and linguistically divided societies.

Organizing committee: Timofey Agarin, Queen’s University Belfast, UK; Allison McCulloch, Brandon University, Canada; Bartłomiej Zdaniuk, University of Warsaw, Poland; Melba Nyabereka, Monash University, South Africa; Paolo Dardanelli, University of Kent, UK; Thomas D. Lancaster, Emory University, USA; Maria Hadjipavlou, University of Cyprus

Inquiries can be directed to the organizers at: ipsa.colloquium2017@gmail.com

For more information about the IPSA Research Committees, please see:

Politics and Ethnicity (RC 14)

Democratization in Comparative Perspective (RC 13)

Comparative Federalism and Multilevel Governance (RC 28)

For more information about IPSA, please see: International Political Science Association

You can find the conference programme here https://ipsacolloquium2017.wordpress.com/conference-programme/