Section on Political Violence: final details of panels at the 2018 ECPR General Conference

Full and final details below of all twelve panels in our section on Political Violence at this year’s ECPR General Conference in Hamburg. The papers and panels are particularly strong this year.

S56 P512	Violence and the City I: Global Encounters, Capitalism, and Spatio-Temporal Practices of Violence Thursday 09:00 – 10:40 (23/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 3 Room: 30
S56 P176	Functional logics of political violence Thursday 11:00 – 12:40 (23/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P513	Violence and the city II Thursday 11:00 – 12:40 (23/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 3 Room: 30
S56 P198	How Political is Sexual Violence? Consequences and Responses Thursday 15:50 – 17:30 (23/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P401	Right-wing violence and modus operandi Friday 09:00 – 10:40 (24/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P402	Right-wing violence II Friday 11:00 – 12:40 (24/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P199	How Political is Sexual Violence? Debates on Causes Friday 14:00 – 15:40 (24/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P270	Mobilization, repression, and violent escalation Friday 17:40 – 19:20 (24/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P289	New Perspectives on Civil War and Political Violence Saturday 09:00 – 10:40 (25/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P091	Contentious locations and spaces of violence Saturday 11:00 – 12:40 (25/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P442	The escalation of violence in the context of street demonstrations Saturday 14:00 – 15:40 (25/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29
S56 P511	Violence and non-violence Saturday 16:00 – 17:40 (25/08/2018) Building: VMP 9 Floor: 2 Room: 29

 

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The European Union and the Northern Ireland Peace Process. A symposium at NUI Galway 27 April 2018

Venue: O’Donoghue Theatre, National University of Ireland Galway

Time:  27 April 9.45am-5.30pm

Architects of the European Union peace programmes in Northern Ireland will come together for the first time in twenty years to reflect on the role the EU played in the Northern Ireland peace process at a unique symposium in the O’Donoghue Theatre in the National University of Ireland Galway on Friday 27 April. They are joined by academic experts on the European Union and key figures active in cross-border cooperation to explore the significance of the EU role in the peace process and discuss the future of the Good Friday Agreement and the Irish border. The symposium will discuss the challenges posed by Brexit twenty years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, at a time when EU involvement in the Peace Process and cross-border relations in Ireland are at the centre of public debate.

This is a free event but advance registration is essential: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-european-union-and-the-northern-ireland-peace-process-tickets-4275400538

Speakers include:

Mr Carlo Trojan, former Secretary General of the European Commission and Head of the 1994 Northern Ireland Task Force

Mr Hugh Logue, former EU Commission official from 1984. In 1994 he, along with two colleagues, was asked by President Jacques Delors to consult all parties in Northern Ireland. Their recommendations became the blueprint for the first EU PEACE Programme.

Ms Jane Morrice, former head of the EU Commission Office Northern Ireland. She was involved in the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and was a member of the Standing Orders Committee which set the initial rules governing Assembly procedures post-devolution

Mr Colm Larkin senior official of the EU Commission from 1974-2004 and special advisor in the Office of First and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 1998-2001

Andy Pollak, founding Director of the Centre for Cross Border Studies in Armagh

Tom Arnold, Current chair of the All Island Civic Dialogue on Brexit and former chairman of the Irish Times and member of the Royal Irish Academy

Dr Katy Hayward, School of Sociology, Queen’s University Belfast,

Dr Mary C. Murphy, Department of Government, University College Cork,

Dr Giada Lagana, Dr Brendan Flynn and Dr Niall Ó Dochartaigh, School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland Galway

The event will be opened by Noel Dorr, former Secretary General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and former Irish Ambassador to the United Nations and the United Kingdom. Professor Alan Ahearne, Director of the Whitaker Institute, will make closing remarks. Professor Daniel Carey, Director of the Moore Institute and Dr Michelle Millar, Head of the School of Political Science and Sociology will act as Chairs.

The symposium originates with the PhD thesis of Dr Giada Lagana on the Europeanization of the Northern Ireland peace process and brings together several of the people she interviewed for the thesis.

This unique and innovative event is organised by the Conflict, Humanitarianism and Security Research Cluster of the Whitaker Institute, National University of Ireland Galway, in partnership with the Moore Institute and supported by the Irish Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Academic Association for contemporary European Studies (UACES).

This is a free event but advance registration is essential. Register at

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-european-union-and-the-northern-ireland-peace-process-tickets-42754005381

Conference programme available at: https://eupeacenuig.weebly.com/

 Contact: Giada Lagana G.LAGANa1@nuigalway.ie or Niall O Dochartaigh niall.odochartaigh@nuigalway.ie

Nationalisms Old and New: Dubrovnik May 2018

We have a fantastic line-up of speakers at the annual Divided Societies course for PhD students and other postgrads in the Inter-University Centre in Dubrovnik this year. It includes guest speakers Miguel A. Centeno (Princeton) on ‘Talking Past Each Other: Political Rhetorics in Recent Elections’; Deborah Kaple (Princeton) ‘The Importance of Nationalism in Chinese Communism’; David Pickus (ASU) ‘A Fence around Nationalism: On the anti-Populism of Mid Twentieth Century Jewish Intellectuals’ and course co-director Siniša Malešević (UCD) on ‘Beyond Old and New: Nationalism and the Privatisation of Military Power’. My own lecture is on ‘Nation and Neighbourhood: Nationalist Mobilisation and Local Solidarities’. Full details are at the end of this post.

The course runs from 6-13 May 2017 and the fee is a modest 50 euro. There are regular direct flights from Dublin to Dubrovnik (for those traveling from Ireland)  and there is plenty of hostel accommodation in the city for those on a limited budget. One way to keep costs down is to stay in the lively, attractive Lapad area which has lots of good restaurants and cafés where prices are considerably lower than in the old city. Accommodation is cheaper there too. The area has very good, frequent bus connections to the old city.

During the Cold War the Inter-University Centre was a meeting place for scientists and scholars from east and west and its first director was the pioneering scholar of peace and conflict studies, Johan Galtung. After the violent break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s a group of academics came together to establish this course on divided societies at the IUC. It is now in its 21st year.

The IUC is just a few minutes walk from the spectacularly beautiful walled city of Dubrovnik.

If you are interested in attending please contact the IUC (details below)you can register at //www.iuc.hr/course-details.php?id=1076 but feel free to also email me at niall.odochartaigh[at]nuigalway.ie and let me know. I am a co-director of the course and will try to answer any queries you may have. Deadline for application via course website: 6 April 2018

INTER-UNIVERSITY CENTRE DUBROVNIK
Don Frana Bulica 4, HR-20000 Dubrovnik, Croatia
Tel: + 385 20 413 626 / 627, Fax: + 385 20 413 628, E-mail: iuc(at)iuc.hr
Participants of IUC programmes may obtain reduced rates in some Dubrovnik hotels. Please check http://www.iuc.hr/accomodation.php

Post/graduate Course: ‘Divided Societies XXI: Nationalisms Old and New’
6– 13 May 2018, Dubrovnik, Croatia

The recent dramatic rise of populist, nativist and nationalist movements throughout the world, and particularly in Europe and the US, has prompted lively debate on their character and their causes. The largely unexpected victories of Donald Trump in the 2016 US elections and the UK’s referendum leading towards the decision to leave EU, together with the proliferation of far-right parties in several European countries, have led many commentators to conclude that these developments are best characterised as ‘new nationalism’. The argument is that the main features of the new nationalist ideology include strong resistance towards immigration, anti- globalisation, preference for the introduction of economic protectionism, support for populist leaders and nativist policies and general hostility towards cultural and religious differences. This ‘new nationalism’ is often contrasted with the ‘old nationalism’ of 19th and 20th centuries. While ‘old nationalism’ has traditionally been associated with the struggle for political independence from the imperial rule, popular sovereignty and the political unification of co-nationals living in different polities the ‘new nationalism’ has become a synonym for nativism and populism.
The main aim of this course is to problematise this dichotomy and explore the dynamics of nationalism, populism and nativism in the contemporary world. More specifically the ambition is to provide answers to the following questions: Why has nationalism proved to be such a potent, protean and durable force in the modern age? Why has the nation-state established itself as the central organising mode of social and political life in the last two hundred years? What role globalisation plays in generating populist and nativist backlashes? Do contemporary populist and nativist movements differ from their 19th and 20th century counterparts? The course will also analyse the origins, historical transformations and inherent malleability of nationalist ideologies.
We encourage the participation of students and scholars in the social sciences, law and humanities and other fields and disciplines studying social phenomena such as divisions, cleavages, conflicts, borders, ethnicity and diversity.
This post/graduate course will be organized as a rigorous academic interdisciplinary programme structured around lectures, workshops and conference-oriented presentations of scholarly research. Course participants will engage in active discussions on the theoretical, methodological and practical issues of research in divided societies. Graduate and postgraduate students’ presentations are also welcome. In addition, the course offers personal inter-cultural experiences of students and faculty from other contexts in an unforgettable setting of a city that was itself the target of a destructive conflict.

Lecturers

1. Saša Božić: Nationalist Interaction Ritual Chains in the 21st Century
2. Miguel A. Centeno: Talking Past Each Other: Political Rhetorics in Recent Elections
3. Emilio Cocco: New Nationalism and the European Boundaries in the Balkans
4. Lea David: New nationalism and standardization of memory
5. Neli Demireva: Economic protectionism as a new form of nationalism in immigration societies
6. Deborah Kaple: The Importance of Nationalism in Chinese Communism
7. Simona Kuti: Title TBC
8. Siniša Malešević: Beyond Old and New: Nationalism and the Privatisation of Military Power
9. Niall O’Dochartaigh: Nation and Neighbourhood: Nationalist Mobilisation and Local Solidarities
10. Nadan Petrović: Old and new refugees in Europe
11. Nikola Petrović: Title TBC
12. David Pickus: A Fence around Nationalism: On the anti-Populism of Mid Twentieth Century Jewish Intellectuals
13. Brad Roth: Statehood, Nationality, and the Self-Determination of Peoples in International Law
14. Michal Vašečka: Nation Branding of Central and Eastern European Countries between Neo-liberal Communication and Traditional Nationalism
15. Daphne Winland: Title TBC
16. Mitja Žagar: Nationalism revisited: majority and minority nationalism in the beginning of the 21st century
17. Viera Žuborova: Worskhop – Looking ahead to the future: the journey to youth radicalization

Negotiating Defence in Belfast and Derry: Violence Studies Oxford, Fri 9 February

I’m giving a talk at 5pm on Fri 9 February in a panel on ‘Do We Need Defending? The History, Tactics and Modern Relevance of Antifascist, Antiracist and Antisectarian Resistance in the United Kingdom’ with Nigel Copsey (Teesside) Akwugo Emejulu (Warwick) and Stephen Ashe (Manchester). Organised by Adam Brodie and Violence Studies Oxford. Details below of the panel and my paper.

‘This panel will seek to investigate the rationales that have led many groups, throughout the four nations of the UK, to forcefully counter actions by racists, far right organisations and the police. By comparing different mobilisations across time and space, this panel will seek to answer the question of why people deem such actions to be necessary, and whether such actions can indeed make us safer.’

‘Negotiating Defence in Belfast and Derry’, Niall Ó Dochartaigh, NUI Galway

Broad-based local Defence Associations and Committees were set up in nationalist areas of Derry and Belfast as violence surrounding the civil rights campaign escalated in Northern Ireland in 1969. They characterized their role as defending local neighborhoods against both loyalists and the unionist-dominated state security forces. They were broad coalitions, encompassing conservative Catholics and moderates as well as leftists and Republicans who sought to abolish the Northern Ireland state. This paper analyses the negotiated character of their defensive role and the extent to which it involved both tacit and explicit compromises and agreements with state forces. It outlines how these local defence associations engaged with the police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and how they subsequently cooperated and co-existed with the British Armed forces deployed in those neighborhoods in August 1969. Examining the factors that led to a breakdown in these relationships over the following 18 months it uses this case to explore the negotiated character of local defence associations. It seeks to explain how even groups that seek to overthrow the state can develop strong cooperative relationships with state forces.

Details here: http://www.ox.ac.uk/event/do-we-need-defending-history-tactics-and-modern-relevance-antifascist-antiracist-and

 

Laughter in a time of violence: cartoonists and the Northern Ireland conflict

I’m giving a Public talk at 4pm Fri 27 Oct in the Black Gate Cultural Centre, Francis St Galway as part of the first ever Galway Cartoon Festival on ‘Laughter in a time of violence: cartoonists and the Northern Ireland conflict’. Some details below.

Cartoonists took all sides and none during the thirty year conflict over the political status of Northern Ireland that broke out in 1969 and in which more then 3,600 people were killed. This talk analyses some of the most striking and insightful cartoons that emerged from the conflict, drawing out the recurring themes and arguments that cartoonists sought to advance through strong and sometimes shocking imagery. Cartoonists viewed the conflict from very different political perspectives and sought to advance conflicting arguments. The talk considers the extent to which cartoonists reinforced and validated enmities and hostile caricatures or sought to challenge them. It pays special attention to those cartoonists who sought to unsettle mainstream assumptions and question the rhetoric of dominant forces. It concludes by looking at contemporary portrayals of the violent past and the continuing arguments over how to deal with the legacy of conflict.

Niall Ó Dochartaigh is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland Galway. He has published extensively on the Northern Ireland conflict and on mediation, peace negotiations and territoriality. Recent publications include the co-edited books Political Violence in Context (ECPR Press 2015) and Dynamics of Political Change in Ireland: Making and Breaking a Divided Island (Routledge 2017). He is currently completing a monograph on the negotiating relationship between the British state and the IRA during the Northern Ireland conflict. He is a founding convener of the Standing Group on Political Violence of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) and the Specialist Group on Peace and Conflict of the Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI). Further information at niallodoc.wordpress.com.

Political Violence Panels at ECPR 2017 – timetable and full details

S46 P082 Dealing with the Past I: How States Deal with the Memory and Legacies of Political Violence Thursday 09:00 – 10:40 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P083 Dealing with the Past II: Memories of Political Violence Thursday 11:00 – 12:40 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P137 Former Combatants, De-Radicalisation and the State – co-sponsored with S56 Thursday 15:50 – 17:30 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P142 From Rebellion to the Emergence of Quasi-states. Alternative Modes of Governance among Jihadi-Salafist Groups Friday 09:00 – 10:40 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P312 Rebel Governance, Alternative Orders, and Contested Sovereignty Friday 11:00 – 12:40 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P253 Paramilitaries, Militias, and Self-defense Groups: The Fluid Boundary between State and non-state Armed Actors Friday 14:00 – 15:40 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P242 Negotiations, Peace Processes, and Violence Friday 17:40 – 19:20 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P298 Post-conflict Transitions, Legitimacy and the Effects of Violence Saturday 09:00 – 10:40 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P229 Militant Mobilisation and the State Saturday 11:00 – 12:40 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205 S46 P313 Recent Trends in European Counterterrorism: A Comparative Perspective Saturday 14:00 – 15:40 Building: BL16 Georg Morgenstiernes hus Room: GM 205

 

Daniel Sokatch of NIF speaking at NUI Galway Thurs 18 May: ‘#50isEnough: Israeli Civil Society Confronts the Occupation’

Looking forward to talking to Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund at NUI Galway this Thursday about Israeli Civil Society and the Occupation. All are welcome.

#50isEnough: Israeli Civil Society Confronts the Occupation
Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund
Date/Time: 1.00pm-2.30pm Thursday 18 May
The Bridge, Hardiman Research Building, NUI Galway

The Occupation is now 50 years old and the current political leadership in Israel seems intent on silencing Israelis who want to see it end. Indeed, the debate over the Occupation – and the damage it is doing to both Palestinian society and Israeli democracy – has been removed from the center of public discourse in Israel.  But no problem that is swept under the rug will ever be solved, and Israeli activists are pushing back. We will examine the roots of the conflict and of the Occupation, discuss the impact it has had on both Palestinians and Israelis, and survey some of the strategies Israeli civil society organizations are implementing to challenge the status quo during these challenging times.

Bio
Daniel J. Sokatch is the Chief Executive Officer of the New Israel Fund (NIF), the leading organization committed to equality and democracy for all Israelis. Before joining NIF, Sokatch served as the Executive Director of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, the Peninsula, Marin and Sonoma Counties. Prior to his tenure at Federation, he served as the founding Executive Director of the California-based Progressive Jewish Alliance (now known as Bend the Arc).
In recognition of his leadership, Sokatch has been named to the Forward newspaper’s “Forward 50,” an annual list of the fifty leading Jewish decision-makers and opinion-shapers, in 2002, 2005 and 2008 and 2010.
Daniel has an MA from the Fletcher School at Tufts University, a JD from Boston College Law School, and a BA from Brandeis University. He is married with two daughters and resides in San Francisco.

http://mooreinstitute.ie/event/50isenough-israeli-civil-society-confronts-occupation-talk-daniel-sokatch/