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Call for Papers "Autonomy: Imagining Democratic Alternatives in Complex Settings" Interdisciplinary Workshop Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Project (EDG), Queen's University Universidad Carlos III Getafe (Spain) 13-17 April 2010 __________________________________________________ While territorial and non-territorial forms of autonomy have been explored in the literature (ex. McGarry/Simeon), this workshop will further explore the political potentialities for autonomy in managing highly differentiated societies. This project builds on the work done by Yash Ghai, Ramon Maïz, Ferran Requejo, Miquel Caminal, Lindsay Paterson, David McCrone and Ilan Peleg. The workshop will be hosted by Institut d’Estudis Autonomics (IEA). Workshop co- ordinators Alain-G. Gagnon and Michael Keating will bring together researchers from the IEA, the Canadian MCRI project on Ethnicity and Democratic Governance, the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité au Québec and the Institut d’Estudis Autonomics, Catalonia. The concept of autonomy has entered into political debate, for example, in the platform of the Action Démocratique du Québec and in discussions about territorial devolution in Europe, as a category distinct from federalism and from decentralization in a unitary state. Spain is officially an Estado de las ‘Autonomías’, while the current British devolution settlement is neither federal nor unitary. Yet the concept is not well defined or theorised as a distinct form of political order. (Nor is the concept of territorial autonomy well linked to neighbouring concepts such as personal autonomy or group autonomy.) Belgium until 1993, the First nations in Canada, Tibet, Nepal, Äland Islands, Nunavut, Nunavik as well as Bolivia, Ecuador, Palestine and Kenya are also actual or potential sites for autonomy. This raises legal, institutional, normative and policy questions. An examination of autonomy as it currently exists in some states and as a potential means of managing diversity in other societies will enrich our conceptual understandings of forms of territorial government. This workshop will consider the political economy of autonomy, exploring how autonomous territorial developments can be constructed, rather than limiting ourselves solely to constitutional matters. The present global economic dispensation provides opportunities for new development regimes without acquiring the trappings of statehood. Here we will draw on the literature on the ‘new regionalism’ (a new region-oriented consciousness and cooperation, sometimes also accompanied by sweeping powers) in economic sociology and geography. As a group-based political regime, can autonomy provides powerful democratic alternatives to statist politics? Under what conditions can we establish real sensitivity to groups’ demands? To use Alan Keenan’s terminology, under what conditions can states allow for “a politics of questioning and openness”? Trust is at stake here. This workshop will help to expand our research around the themes of “blind”, “conditional” and “binding” trust to assess conditions of effective collaboration, examining several countries which possess more features representative of autonomy than of federalism. Of immediate interest to all four spokes of the Ethnicity and Democratic Governance Project, this workshop will include historians, sociologists, economists and international relations experts, including economists Miquel Caminal and Enrico Spolaore who are also sensitive to EDG research queries. In the field of international relations, contributions by Elisabeth Naucler (Finland), Anthony Regan (Australia), Ilan Peleg (US), and Fualing Hu (Hong Kong) would constitute major additions to our research efforts. The work of Lyndsay Paterson on autonomy (Scotland) deserves greater focus by team members. This project will contribute significantly to expand our analysis in ways that correspond to SSHRC mid-term analysis suggestions. Co-organizers: Alain Gagnon (Université du Québec à Montréal) Michael Keating (European University Institute) EDG members interested in this workshop should contact Alain-G Gagnon at: [email protected] Workshop website: http://www.queensu.ca/edg/CFP_autonomy.pdf __________________________________________________ InterPhil List Administration: http://interphil.polylog.org Intercultural Philosophy Calendar: http://cal.polylog.org __________________________________________________
