Politics and Society Workshop Series 2022

The Individual and Contextual Effects of Economic Scarcity on Political Integration

17-18 March, 2022 (Milan) and 6-7 October, 2022 (Duisburg)

The Institute for Socio-Economics at the University of Duisburg Essen and the ERC-funded project “Deindustrializing Societies and the Political Consequences (DESPO)” at the University of Milan are happy to announce their collaboration to host a two-part workshop on the theme: The Individual and Contextual Effects of Economic Scarcity on Political Integration

The Spring workshop will be held at the University of Milan on the 17-18 March, 2022 while the Fall workshop will be held at the University of Duisburg-Essen on the 6-7 October, 2022. Applications for both or only one of the two workshops are possible.

A large and growing literature is concerned with the questions of how economic hardship impacts turnout, party preferences or different forms of alienation from the political system. Overall, we believe that research on the link between politics and economic hardship is too fragmented in separate debates about specific outcomes. Rather than addressing apathy, radicalization, populism, and preferences in isolated research strands, they could be jointly theorized. This would help us to understand the conditions in which individual economic hardships favor one of these outcomes over another. Our goal is to bring together cross-disciplinary research exploiting the richness of different methodological angles. We welcome in particular presentations that adopt qualitative and mixed-methods approaches to study economic problems on the level of families, communities and individual biographies (including descriptive work). We also strongly encourage presentations using longitudinal data of individuals or communities as well as experimental approaches. Finally, we would like to emphasize our openness for transnational approaches and theoretical contributions.

Although the two workshops can be attended singularly, we encourage attendants to try to attend both meetings to present the progress of the presented work. The Spring workshop is, hence, particularly suitable for more preliminary research ideas. However, we are open as well to more advanced papers.

Submissions and any clarifying questions should be sent via email to Franco Bonomi Bezzo (franco.bonomi@unimi.it ). Submissions are considered for both workshops and should take the form of an abstract (maximum 500 words) and they should be sent by 10 January, 2022. Although we would like to encourage participation in both events, it is also possible to apply for only one of them. Notification of acceptance for presentation will be sent by 20 January, 2022.

There are no participation fees and we aim to cover as much as possible of travel and accommodation expenses, granting preference to junior scholars.

The organising committee: Anne-Marie Jeannet (University of Milan), Paul Marx (University of Duisburg-Essen), Franco Bonomi Bezzo (University of Milan)