OPENING KEYNOTE

Julie SMITH (Baroness Smith of Newnham)

Cambridge University

Reader in European Politics and Director of the European Centre at the Department of Politics and International Studies, Cambridge University, and a Fellow of Robinson College, Cambridge. She previously ran the European Programme at Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs). Baroness Smith’s main research interests are in the history and politics of the EU. Her current work focuses on the UK’s relations with the EU; parliaments and the EU; and parliaments and budgetary politics. She is currently editing the Palgrave Handbook on European Referendums (due out in 2019). Recent publications include: The UK’s Journeys Into and Out of the EU: Destinations Unknown (London: Routledge, 2017; paperback edition May 2018). Read more

KEYNOTE

Christian W. HAERPFER

World Values Association, University of Vienna & United Arab Emirates

Current President of the World Values Survey Association, Founding Director in 1991 of the Institute for Comparative Survey Research “Eurasia Barometer” in Vienna (Austria), as well as recurrent academic and public policy advisor for the United Nations, UNDP, World Bank, European Commission, EBRD and OECD. His main fields of expertise are the social and political transformations in transitional Post-Soviet and Post-Communist societies; political participation and democracy; social and political capital; support for democracy and other political regimes; and political transition in countries of Middle East and North Africa.

KEYNOTE

Andrei POAMA

Leiden University

Currently Assistant Professor (with a focus on political philosophy and the ethics of public policy) at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University (Netherlands), as well as co-coordinator of the Centre for Public Values and Ethics, and member of the Centre for Political Philosophy, at the same university. His major research interests include the philosophy of punishment, the ethics of public policy, democratic theory (with an emphasis on juries and jury decision-making), and experimental philosophy. He has recently co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy, and has published in the American Political Science Review, European Journal of Political Theory, Criminal Law and Philosophy, Philosophy and Public Issues, Raisons Politiques, Public Reason, Swiss Political Science Review, and Studia Politica. He studied political science at the University of Bucharest (valedictorian, BA in Political Science, French-language section), University of Oxford (awarded the Willan Publishing Prize for Criminological Research, for the Best Performance in the MSc in Criminology and Criminal Justice - Research Methods) and SciencesPo Paris, from which he holds his PhD, with a thesis on corrective justice. He also held postdoctoral positions at the University of Montreal and the European University Institute in Florence (as Max Weber Fellow).

BOOK LAUNCHES

DOORENSPLEET, Renske (2019) Rethinking the Value of Democracy: A Comparative Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan.

Presented by:

Renske DOORENSPLEET (University of Warwick, UK)

Matthijs BOGAARDS (Central European University, HUNGARY & AUSTRIA)

This book is the first comprehensive analysis of the instrumental value of democracy in a comparative perspective. Based on extensive analyses of quantitative studies from different disciplines, it explores both the expected beneficial and harmful impact of democracy. Democracy’s reputation as delivering peace and development while controlling corruption is an important source of its own legitimacy. Yet, as this book acutely demonstrates, the arguments tend to be normatively driven interventions in ideologically charged policy debates. The book argues that we need neither a utopian framing of democracy as delivering all ‘good things’ in politics nor a cynical one that emphasizes only the ‘dangerous underbelly’ of this form of government. The author also raises critical questions about the value of the study of democracy: the choice for particular concepts and measures, the unknown mechanisms, and the narrow focus on specific instrumental values. This volume will be necessary reading for anyone interested in debates on democracy in the contemporary global context.

LAVER, Anabelle, Andrei POAMA, eds. (2019) Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy. Routledge.

Presented by

Andrei POAMA (Leiden University, NETHERLANDS)

What does it mean to do public policy ethics today? How should philosophers engage with ethical issues in policy-making when policy decisions are circumscribed by political and pragmatic concerns? How do ethical issues in public policy differ between areas such as foreign policy, criminal justice, or environmental policy?

The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy addresses all these questions and more, and is the first handbook of its kind. It is comprised of 41 chapters written by leading international contributors, and is organised into four clear sections covering the following key topics:

• Methodology: philosophical approaches to public policy, ethical expertise, knowledge, and public policy

• Democracy and public policy: identity, integration and inclusion: voting, linguistic policy, discrimination, youth policy, religious toleration, and the family

• Public goods: defence and foreign policy, development and climate change, surveillance and internal security, ethics of welfare, healthcare and fair trade, sovereignty and territorial boundaries, and the ethics of nudging

• Public policy challenges: criminal justice, policing, taxation, poverty, disability, reparation, and ethics of death policies.

The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, politics, and social policy. It will be equally useful to those in related disciplines, such as economics and law, or professional fields, such as business administration or policy-making in general.

RAVECCA Paulo (2019) The Politics of Political Science: Re-Writing Latin American Experiences. Routledge.

Presented by

Paulo RAVECCA (Universidad de la República, URUGUAY)

In this thought-provoking book, Paulo Ravecca presents a series of interlocking studies on the politics of political science in the Americas. Focusing mainly on the cases of Chile and Uruguay, Ravecca employs different strands of critical theory to challenge the mainstream narrative about the development of the discipline in the region, emphasizing its ideological aspects and demonstrating how the discipline itself has been shaped by power relations. Ravecca metaphorically charts the (non-linear) transit from “cold” to “warm” to “hot” intellectual temperatures to illustrate his—alternative—narrative. Beginning with a detailed quantitative study of three regional academic journals, moving to the analysis of the role of subjectivity (and political trauma) in academia and its discourse in relation to the dictatorships in Chile and Uruguay, and arriving finally at an intimate meditation on the experience of being a queer scholar in the Latin American academy of the 21st century, Ravecca guides his readers through differing explorations, languages, and methods. The volume offers an essential reflection on both the relationship between knowledge and politics and the political and ethical role of the scholar today, demonstrating how the study of the politics of knowledge deepens our understanding of the politics of our times.