Preliminary Programme

Tue 26 February
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 27 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 28 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 29 February
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Sat 1 March
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

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Tuesday 26 February 2008 16.30
L-2 POL23 European citizenship and civil society II
Room 5.1
Network: Politics, Citizenship, and Nations Chair: Jose Reis Santos
Organizers: - Discussant: Jose Reis Santos
Veit Bader : Conplex legitimacy in ‘compound polities’: the case of the EU
Legitimacy-claims (by institutions, leaders, policies) and legitimacy-beliefs (of citizens, consumers, clients etc.) are complex (Bader 1989). I distinguish between input-, throughput-, and output-legitimacy, and between liberal and democratic legitimacy.
Democratic input-legitimacy in multi-level-polities (MLP) can be characterized as double legitimacy, combining direct and indirect electoral or republican representation (Héritier 2003:815) ... (Show more)
Legitimacy-claims (by institutions, leaders, policies) and legitimacy-beliefs (of citizens, consumers, clients etc.) are complex (Bader 1989). I distinguish between input-, throughput-, and output-legitimacy, and between liberal and democratic legitimacy.
Democratic input-legitimacy in multi-level-polities (MLP) can be characterized as double legitimacy, combining direct and indirect electoral or republican representation (Héritier 2003:815) based on one citizen/resident one vote (in the EU: referenda and EP-elections), with executive representation of governments of sub-units (in the EU: Member States in the Council) based on equal or proportional number of votes for the respective sub-units. Democratic input-legitimacy in institutions of social/functional or corporate representation also follows the latter principle.
Democratic through-put legitimacy concerns the fairness and quality of deliberations and negotiations in the respective bodies and commissions on all levels.
Output-legitimacy should not be called democratic (vs. Scharpf 1999) but concerns, firstly, the guarantee of rule of law and basic rights (liberal legitimacy, Weiler 1999) and, secondly, the effectiveness and efficiency in realizing aims (for the EU: peace, security, economic performance, sustainability etc.).
It is common knowledge that liberal legitimacy often seriously conflicts with efficiency and effectiveness (e.g. in guaranteeing ‘security’) and with democracy, and that (particularly direct and exclusively ‘political’) democracy is unable to solve basic structural problems of time-, information-, and qualification-constrains that reduce actual problem-solving capacities of democratic deliberations and decisionmaking. Not only ‘voters’ (weak publics) but also MPs and governments (and also, increasingly, civil servants) lack adequate practical knowledge and information. In this article, I first analyze the complexity of legitimacy in compound polities and search for new and more appropriate ways to increase the liberal and democratic legitimacy of the EU. In the second part, I elaborate proposals by associative democrats to increase democratic control, transparency, accountability, publicity and inclusiveness of European Governance Arrangements in social/functional and minority representation. The article is based on my: (2007b) ‘Komplexe Bürgerschaft.’ in: Zurbuchen, S. (ed) Bürgerschaft und Migration. LIT: Münster, 53 – 90. (Show less)

Daniel Melo : The third sector and the city: public policies, citizenship, and sustainability in Portugal
The issues surrounding local and sustainable development, social capital and social inclusion, have acquired an increased relevancy in the European policies and represent one of the main funding destinies of Community Support Frameworks.
This paper aims to study the voluntary associations that develop their activity in Portuguese urban and metropolitan contexts, ... (Show more)
The issues surrounding local and sustainable development, social capital and social inclusion, have acquired an increased relevancy in the European policies and represent one of the main funding destinies of Community Support Frameworks.
This paper aims to study the voluntary associations that develop their activity in Portuguese urban and metropolitan contexts, seeking to contribute to public policies, citizenship, sustainability, and to an improvement in the quality of life, namely by dynamizing or revitalizing (social, cultural and economically) the areas where they are sited or the metropolitan areas.
It will identify and analyse the generic formulation of public policies, field implementation strategies, and also, the consequences drawn from local formation of social capital networks.
For that reason, it is crucial to register and analyse the reflexive discourse of associative leaders, taking into consideration the way they build, from their own personal narratives, the itineraries of the organizations they represent and in which they participate, namely their contribution to local development and public policies. It is also relevant to identify the partnerships these associations establish with analogous institutions, the civil society in its whole, the State and European Community organizations.
Furthermore, it is essential to understand to which extent and in which manner the content of European policies adapts itself to the local needs, and to identify the level of appropriation of those policies (national and European ones) and of communitarian action projects, by the agents involved (civic movements, non-governmental organizations, citizens). Finally, it is fundamental to acknowledge networks of social capital relatively autonomous, and to inquire the contribution of associative intervention to the reinforcement of social cohesion.
Building on the above stated premises and considering the principles and practices of sustainable development, it aims to ascertain to which extent these associations contribute to social and territorial cohesion and civic participation. (Show less)

Thomas Pfister : From activated to active citizenship. The need for participatory citizenship practices in new modes of governance
This paper presents and develops the theoretical and normative conclusions of a larger research project on the gender equality dimension of the European Employment Strategy (EES) and its reception in Germany, Hungary and the United Kingdom. Taking a citizenship perspective, it argues that the EES and other new modes of ... (Show more)
This paper presents and develops the theoretical and normative conclusions of a larger research project on the gender equality dimension of the European Employment Strategy (EES) and its reception in Germany, Hungary and the United Kingdom. Taking a citizenship perspective, it argues that the EES and other new modes of governance in the EU should be understood as sites and processes of conceptual debate rather than immediately influencing policies. This conceptual debate also plays a crucial role in constituting the discursive and political context in which national citizenship formations are contested and renegotiated. Thereby, the construction of knowledge at the EU level can have far-reaching effects on the every-day life and the existential situation of European citizens.

Against this background, the paper explores the need to open up such conceptual debates to citizens' participation. I argue that extended participation is necessary on two grounds. First, given the relevance of substantive EU-level discourses for individual citizens, participation in the latter is a necessary requirement for democracy in diverse societies. Second, citizens' possess unique knowledge that is based on direct experience. Including this knowledge in conceptual debates within substantive policy areas could even enhance the very quality of these debates and their effects. Most important, such knowledge is indispensable to detect and to prevent exclusion and inequality as a result of such conceptual debates. (Show less)

Maryse Ramambason : Democratization in Russia The 1993 Constitutional Conference : The stakes of the installation of a new space of deliberations
Is the democracy issued? Is it enough, like on December 12,1993, to adopt a constitution posing the institutional bases of a democratic mode to break off the political practices of the ex-USSR? The election to the Russian Congress of People's Deputies (1990), the presidential election by universal suffrage in the ... (Show more)
Is the democracy issued? Is it enough, like on December 12,1993, to adopt a constitution posing the institutional bases of a democratic mode to break off the political practices of the ex-USSR? The election to the Russian Congress of People's Deputies (1990), the presidential election by universal suffrage in the Russian Federation (1991), the end of monopartism, as well as increase in places for public expression let us consider that Russia has become a democracy like Western democracies.
From now on, the decisions related to the whole nation are being adopted as a result of parliamentary debates which are made public by various means (newspapers, broadcasting, etc.) where contradictory opinions can be expressed freely. If the institutions of the Russian Federation demonstrate a process of ‘democratization’, then we have to bring up a question: how one can explain the creation of the Constitutional Conference whose mission clearly goes “to be superimposed” by the mission delegated to the parliamentary assembly.
In fact, the mission of the Conference has three main goals. First, the Conference is involved in discussions of the constitutional project presented by the President Boris Yeltsin. Second, the activity of the Conference consists in debates and proposals of different issues concerning the Constitution and the procedure of its adoption. Finally, the Conference is to debate and submit proposals for a completely new law on the deputies election. How then to understand the establishment of the Constitutional Conference as a new space for deliberations, interfering into the parliamentary sphere?
Here, we will be interested more particularly in the internal organization of the Constitutional Conference opened on June 5, 1993 in order to show that use of the deliberation practice is a part of the legitimation process of the preeminence of the presidential institution over the parliamentary assembly. Summarizing, this preeminence should take a central part of the text of the new Constitution and thereby be legally confirmed. The constitutional project in question is not a project having emerged from an unknown source, but is a draft drawn up by the president, who is also the iniator of the Conference. It is not so much a question of producing or discussing a new constitutional text, but of the ratification of the existing text that the president has brought forward to "public" discussion.
By creating his own space of deliberation, the stake for President Boris Yeltsin is to register the constitutional process within a “democratic” framework. (Show less)

Anne van Wageningen : Citizens as members of a state; an institutional approach concerning multiple citizenship
To be send before the first of april.



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