[ecrea] Remembering Europe: Civil Society Under Pressure Again, CfP

*Remembering Europe: Civil Society Under Pressure Again

*Academic/practitioner workshop

*History Department, Central European University, Budapest and BlueLink.net

*December 8 – 9, 2017

*Call for Papers/Presentations

From the Baltics to the Black Sea and back the legitimacy of critical 
civic institutions, organisations and movements of civil society is 
under pressure. They constitute an important check on political and 
economic power that many in government, politics and business are 
willing to eliminate. Political and opinion leaders in EU member states 
such as Hungary, Poland and Bulgaria contest civil society participation 
and oversight of democratic institutions with increasing intensity.

Disrespect, intolerance and outright aggression against progressive, 
humanist, democratic and environmentalist values of the EU and the civil 
society voices that uphold them gradually become mainstream. The voices 
of environmental, human and gender rights and democracy advocates and 
their organizations are increasingly ostracized in mass media and on 
social networks. Pejorative hate-speech labels like “foreign agents", 
"sorosoids", "green racketeers", “liberasts”, “EuroGays” are spreading 
within, and increasingly also beyond social media networks and 
communities. A popular discourse of denial and marginalization of entire 
sectors of civil society is shaped and imposed, reducing public 
sensitivity towards legislative and other forms of pressure against them.

But ostracising civil society is not new in European history. Critical 
voices of civil society have been under pressure by non-democratic 
regimes throughout Central and Eastern Europe’s pre-EU past. The crucial 
importance of independent civic institutions, citizens’ organizations 
and independent journalism, for the state of European democracy has been 
established through important historical lessons learned during the pre- 
and interwar periods, the Cold War, and during EU accession.


* ACADEMIC/PRACTITIONER WORKSHOP


Our purpose is to foster knowledge exchange among academic researchers, 
civil society leaders, policy makers and journalists to:

- bring up the memory, knowledge and analyses of  these historical 
legacies; and

- generate ideas for effective practical and policy responses to today’s 
growing pressure against critical and independent civil society and 
media voices that uphold Europe’s human rights, environmental and 
democratic values.


To accomplish these goals a transnational workshop will be held in 
Budapest by the Department of History at the Central European University 
on December 8 – 9, 2017, in partnership with the BlueLink Civic Action 
network. The organisers will present focused research which maps pre-EU 
practices of ostracism and loss of citizenship, and civil society 
responses to them in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, and other CEE members of 
the EU. Position papers and multimedia/oral presentations from scholars 
in multiple academic fields, civil society representatives, journalists 
and policy makers from EU member states in CEE are invited.


* SCOPE OF POSITION PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS

The workshop participants will be expected to  contribute research 
findings, analysis and experience, and compare them analytically to the 
methods and rhetorics that undermine critical civil society voices and 
EU values today. Special attention will be paid on the opportunities 
offered by European citizenship and democratic citizen participation on 
Union level. All participants will be expected to demonstrate how their 
findings and research can be useful in designing effective action and 
policy responses against civil society ostracism today. Contributions 
may address Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, as well as other CEE members 
states of the EU.

Possible areas of analysis and debate include, but are not limited to:

·       parallels to historical turning points in developments of civil 
society and its structural embeddedness in changing state structures; 
for instance 1918 and the end of the WWI – the rise of nation states; or 
1968 protests and civil rights movements with their divergent outcomes;

·       lessons learned from anti-state activism, dissident traditions, 
and other past forms of civil society opposition to ostracism and loss 
of citizenship under non-democratic regimes;

·       the changing role of the EU in respect to civil society, state 
institutions and governments;

·       present time strategies, methods, and actions by civil society 
actors in resistance and defence of their stands and of European values 
– whether successful or not; and

·       findings and developments from related fields, such as watchdog 
journalism; independent judiciary; democratic institutions; academic 
freedom etc., which affect civil society’s strength and viability.


* WORKSHOP DETAILS AND SUBMISSIONS

The workshop will be held at The Central European University, Budapest, 
on December 8-9, 2017. Invited participants are expected to arrive in 
Budapest by the evening of Thursday, December 7, 2017 and depart on the 
afternoon of Saturday, December 9, 2017.


300 words-long abstracts for position papers or presentations need to be 
submitted by email to: remembering_eu (at) bluelink.net 
<mailto:(remembering_eu /at/ bluelink.net)>.

Proposals will be accepted until Sunday, November 5,  2017 and will be 
reviewed on ongoing basis. Notification of acceptance will be issued 
latest by Monday, November 6, 2017.

Participants are expected to prepare ready-made short position papers 
 (3-5 pages) or multimedia presentations, which shall be distributed 
among participants in advance. The workshop is an all-read-all event. 
Speakers are invited to give a brief oral/multimedia presentations of up 
to 15 minutes, building upon their position papers. Presentations will 
be followed by discussion with all the participants.


Completed papers and presentations by accepted participants will need to 
be submitted by Tuesday, November 30, 2017.


No participation fees will be charged for accepted participants.


A collection of selected and expanded inputs will be published as a 
widely distributed analytical report.

The organizers will cover meals for all participants (details to 
follow). Justified applications for reimbursement of travel and 
accommodation costs will be considered by applicants without 
institutional support.


The workshop is part of a Remembering Europe: Civil Society Under 
Pressure Again project of BlueLink.net, supported by the Europe for 
Citizens programme of the European Union.


* ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Prof. Balazs Trencsenyi, Head, History Department, Central European 
University

Kristof Szombati, Policy Advisor and Strategist, Greenpeace Hungary

Pavel P. Antonov, PhD, Executive Editor, BlueLink Foundation / 
Affiliated member, Open Space Research Centre, UK

Veronika Mora, Executive Director, Ökotárs, Hungary

Wiktor Marzec, PhD, Research Associate, BlueLink Foundation


* INQUIRIES

For more information:

  *

    Dr. Wiktor Marzec, Research Associate, email remembering_eu (at)
    bluelink.net <mailto:(remembering_eu /at/ bluelink.net)>,

  *

    Monika Nagy, Research Project Coordinator, email NagyMo (at) ceu.edu
    <mailto:%(20NagyMo /at/ ceu.edu)>.



---------------
The COMMLIST
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier. Please
use it responsibly and wisely.
--
To subscribe or unsubscribe, please visit http://commlist.org/
--
Before sending a posting request, please always read the guidelines at
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://nicocarpentier.net
---------------