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SCOPE: SCIENCE OF POLITICS 2018

5th edition of the international interdisciplinary conference of political research


18-19.05.2018, University of Bucharest

Contemporary democratic societies are currently facing fundamental challenges to democratic values that encompass women's rights and political representation, the rights and freedoms of minorities, freedom related to individual choices about different forms of living together, sexuality or assisted reproduction. Since Joan Scott’s early writings (1986), various theoretical approaches to gender have emphasized the political stakes and power dimensions underpinning the social construction of gender that are at the heart of the social institutions and processes such as family/filiation, care and paid work, sexuality, human reproduction, but also the legitimation of political and social hierarchies, the (re)configuration of the professional ethos.


Women's political under-representation has often been described as a deficit of democracy revealing the crisis of representation. At the same time, it is also indicative of the quality of democracy: both questions are at the core of the current debates and controversies in the field of political science (Marques-Pereira, 2002: 74). The development of new categories of thought and the production of knowledge are also vital to the construction of sex and gender, whereas contextualised knowledge requires a fresh and critical epistemological view on any research object (Haraway 2007).


The theme "Gender and politics" thus appears as major challenge to the global society: on the one hand, it questions a number of contemporary political and social subjects, as well as numerous research objects (many of which have traditionally remained gender blind or gender neutral); on the other hand, there are always different ways of approaching gender through the lens of history: whenever analysing post-communist societies, post-colonial societies or Western democracies, one has to take into consideration the similarities and differences of these socio-political areas. Furthermore, we are required to raise new questions and develop innovative theoretical approaches. Norms within global society are usually formed at the intersection of two types of dynamics and injunctions: international norms and institutions and also norms that derive from national contexts.


The aim of this conference is precisely to privilege both comparative (inter)disciplinary perspectives, developed by scholars working in the fields of political science, sociology, anthropology, history, as well as other approaches coming from a large variety of geographic and cultural areas. It thus encourages a strong regional and international participation.

This edition was jointly organized by the Centre for the Study of Equal Opportunity Policies (CPES) of the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Bucharest (FSPUB) and Research Committee 4 (Sociology of Gender) of the International Association of French-Speaking Sociologists (CR4 AISLF), with the support of the EGALES network, le Centre Régional Francophone de Recherches Aavancées en Sciences Sociales (CEREFREA), Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie and the Alumni of the University of Bucharest Association. The working languages were English and French. The event took place at Casa Universitarilor, a historical building of the University of Bucharest, located in the city centre, close to most touristic landmarks.

OPENING KEYNOTE

The Cost of Doing Politics? Analyzing Violence and Harassment against Female Politicians


Mona Lena KROOK

Rutgers University


Mona Lena Krook is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University. She has written widely on the diffusion and implementation of electoral quotas for women, including Quotas for Women in Politics (Oxford University Press, 2009) and The Impact of Gender Quotas (Oxford University Press, 2012). She just completed a multi-year project funded by the National Science Foundation on the impact of quotas on democracy and gender equality, involving fieldwork and data collection across nine countries in Western Europe, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa, which inspired her interest in resistance and backlash against women’s greater inclusion in the political sphere. She currently serves as technical adviser to the National Democratic Institute on its #NotTheCost campaign to stop violence against women in politics. In 2017, she was awarded an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship to conduct further fieldwork in seven countries and write a book on violence and harassment against women in politics.

KEYNOTE

Le droit à l’avortement dans l’Union européenne: Droits et pratiques de citoyenneté dans un cadre multi-niveau


Bérengère MARQUES-PEREIRA

Université libre de Bruxelles


Bérengère Marques-Pereira est actuellement professeure de l’université à l’Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) en sciences politiques et sociales et est membre du centre METICES à l’Institut de sociologie de cette même université. Elle a dirigé le Centre d’études latino-américaines et le centre de sociologie politique à l’Institut de sociologie. Elle a été présidente de l’Association belge de science politique et elle y a créé le groupe ‘Genre et Politique’ qu’elle co-préside aujourd’hui. Elle a également été présidente de l’Université des Femmes (organisme d’éducation permanente reconnu par la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles). Elle est l’auteure de nombreuses publications ayant trait à la citoyenneté des femmes et à la politique latino-américaine. Elle a dispensé plusieurs enseignements à l’étranger, notamment à l’Institut d’études politiques de Paris, à l’Université de Montréal, à l’Université Laval, à l’Universidad Academia Humanismo Cristiano à Santiago du Chili, à l’Université de Brasilia, à l’Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México .

KEYNOTE

Understanding the Right-Wing Populist Challenge: A Superordinate Intersectional Perspective


Ov Cristian NOROCEL

Université Libre de Bruxelles


Cristian Norocel is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow in the Atelier Genre(s) et Sexualité(s), Institut de Sociologie (IS), Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium); and affiliated researcher in the Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN), University of Helsinki (Finland). Norocel holds the titles of Docent in Political Science (Dosentti/Docent), and Doctor of Social Sciences in Political Science (Valtiotieteiden tohtori/Politices doktor) from the University of Helsinki (Finland). He is Finnish MC in COST IS1308 Populist Political Communication in Europe, and chair of RN32 Political Sociology, the European Association of Sociology (ESA). Norocel’s research interests concern the study of right-wing populist parties in Northern and Central and Eastern Europe from a comparative intersectional perspective (focus on gender and sexuality; social class; ethnicity and race). He has published in such international peer-reviewed journals as Critical Social Policy, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, International Journal of Communication, NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Studies, NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, and Problems of Post-Communism. .

KEYNOTE

Créer des miracles: Résistances des mouvements féministes en Turquie face à la violence extrême de guerre


Pinar SELEK


Écrivaine, essayiste, féministe turque, Pinar Selek est sociologue, docteure en science politique, docteure honoris causa de l’ENS de Lyon. Maîtresse de Conférence associée en Science politique à l’Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, elle est membre de l’URMIS (UMR 8245). Dernières publications : « Le rôle du mouvement feministe dans l’émergence d’un nouveau cycle de contestation en Turquie », Mouvements, no : 90, été 2017. « Comment le féminisme peut-il contribuer à la création de la politique ? », in Anthologie politique de Turquie, Vienne, Vienna Institute for International Dialogue and Cooperation, 2016 ; « Quand les Apatrides et les Infidèles contestent : territoires, conflits, innovations », Cultures &Conflits, été 2016.

SCOPE 2018 Academic coordination team


Convenors

Ionela BĂLUȚĂ

Dean, Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest, ROMANIA

(ionela.baluta@fspub.unibuc.ro)


Nicky LE FEUVRE

University of Lausanne, SWITZERLAND

(Nicky.LeFeuvre@unil.ch)


Natalie LAPEYRE

University of Toulouse, FRANCE

(lapeyre@univ-tlse2.fr)



Local coordination

Anca DOHOTARIU

Vice Dean, Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest

Simona NECULA

Centre Régional Francophone de Recherches Aavancées en Sciences Sociales (CEREFREA)


International advisers

Laurence TAIN

Emeritus Professor, Université Lumière Lyon 2

Julie JARTY

Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès - Le Mirail


Logistics coordination team


Fundraising

Cosmin Ștefan DOGARU

Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest


Communication

Denisa FOCARU

Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest

Larissa LUICĂ

Centre Régional Francophone de Recherches Avancées en Sciences Sociales (CEREFREA), University of Bucharest

Alexandra OPREA

Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest


Coordination of volunteers

Alexandra OPREA, Silvia RADU

Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest