Learning from Global Democratic Challenges and Innovations Mini-Conference II: When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty and Liberal Democracy

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Part of Mini-Conference

• Learning from Global Democratic Challenges and Innovations Mini-Conference II

Session Description

The ideal of popular sovereignty, which has served to ground the liberal-democratic order and legitimize power in the modern world, has come under increasing pressure in recent decades. On the one hand, the rise of populist parties and movements, often illiberal or authoritarian, has eroded constitutional checks on the exercise of power. On the other, the expansion of international institutions and greater reliance on market, courts, and non-governmental organizations have gradually insulated large areas of policymaking from democratic contestation and popular control. Together these developments cast doubt on the viability and the very coherence of liberal democracy as a constitutional model.

"When the People Rule: Popular Sovereignty in Theory and Practice," a new interdisciplinary open-access volume that came out last November as part of the SSRC/Cambridge “Anxiety of Democracy” series, contends that comprehending the political crises of our time and ensuring the prospects for government that is both genuinely democratic and committedly liberal requires a radical rethinking of popular sovereignty. To be fruitful and effective, such rethinking must grapple with the long history and contested theory of popular rule, and learn from the diversity of institutional and civic practices it has spawned in different contexts.

This roundtable would convene the editors and several contributors of the volume alongside one of its institutional architects for a discussion scrutinizing the work’s core findings. Staging ‘live’ as it were the scholarly and civic conversations comprised in the book, the event would be an opportunity to reconsider from a variety of disciplinary perspectives how to preserve and revitalize liberal democracy in an increasingly volatile world. In addition to discussing the theory and practice of popular sovereignty across time and political cultures, and its relevance today, the roundtable would also raise questions about the current state of political science research, its institutional architecture, and how to make its work more socially meaningful and civically engaged – a task, for which the volume sought to serve as a model.

Format
The roundtable would proceed as a free-flowing conversation pivoting around three main topics. It would begin with presenting the questions and findings of the volume grouped around six themes: ‘legitimacy,’ ‘peoplehood,’ ‘fiction,’ ‘populism,’ ‘practices and institutions,’ ‘liberalism vs. democracy’; and probe the book's contention that popular sovereignty is a valuable heuristic for understanding political phenomena both historical and contemporary. The conversation would proceed by bringing these findings and contentions to bear on this year’s APSA topic “Democracy: Retrenchment, Renovation, & Reimagination,” by considering the current status and future prospects of popular self-rule. It would conclude with discussing the promises and challenges of collaborative research and pedagogy, and their role in promoting civic conversations and educating democratic citizens for the 21st century.

Participants
Chair: David Bateman (Associate Professor of Government, Cornell University)
Discussants: Ewa Atanassow (Associate Professor of Politics, Bard College Berlin), Thomas Bartscherer (Peter Sourian Senior Lecturer in the Humanities, Bard College), Julia Azari (Professor of Political Science, Marquette University), Ron Kassimir (Senior Advisor at Columbia World Projects, and former Vice President of Programs at the Social Science Research Council); Matthew Longo (Assistant Professor of Political Science at Leiden University); Nicole Mellow (Chair and Ephraim Williams Professor of Political Science, Williams College); Carol Nackenoff (Richter Professor Emerita of Political Science, Swarthmore College, Political Science, Swarthmore); Andrew Perrin (Chair and Agora Professor of Sociology, Johns Hopkins); Ornit Shani (Associate Professor of Politics and Modern Indian History, University of Haifa).

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Cosponsor

• Division 1: Political Thought and Philosophy

Chair

• David Alexander Bateman Cornell University

Presenters

• Ewa Atanassow Bard College Berlin

• Julia Rezazadeh Azari Marquette University

• Ronald Kassimir Columbia University

• Matthew Longo Leiden University

• Nicole Mellow Williams College

• Elizabeth Markovits Mount Holyoke College

• Carol Nackenoff Swarthmore College

• Andrew J. Perrin Johns Hopkins University

• Oranit Shani University of Haifa

• Thomas Bartscherer Bard College