The research workshop “Citizenship and Democracy,” organized by DemocracyNet.eu and the Doctoral Program Democracy Studies (DPDS), took place at the University of Zurich on September 11-12.
It enabled all 17 participants to engage in interdisciplinary academic discussions with other DPDS students, members of the association DemocracyNet.eu, and other researchers working in the field of democracy studies.
Three panels
The academic discussions were structured in three panels: Citizenship in (Non-)Democracies, Patterns of democratic participation, and Challenges to democracy. The 7 papers presented offered a variety of approaches and focused on different issues regarding citizenship and democracy. Each speaker received detailed and constructive feedback from their discussants and from all the participants to the workshop, who engaged in insightful discussions.
Working sessions
Next to the panels, all participants were invited to adopt an active role and to start thinking about projects and collaborations they would like to develop with or without the association DemocracyNet.eu. The working sessions aimed at fostering collaboration and team-work among researchers by exchanging ideas, creating a network of researchers in the field, and sharing knowledge. The second working session was specifically devoted to developing new projects.
Participants 
Hans Asenbaum (University of Westminster, London), Palmo Brunner (University of Zurich), Alice el-Wakil (University of Zurich, ZDA), Lea Heyne (University of Zurich, ZDA), Deborah Kalte (ZDA), Matteo Laruffa (LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome), Spencer McKay (University of British Columbia, Vancouver), Henri-Pierre Mottironi (University of Lausanne), Masakazu Ogami (University of Zurich), Koray Özdil (University of Zurich), Sarah Perry (University of Mannheim), Lukas Peter (University of Zurich), Marco Radojevic (University of Zurich), Martha Sandoval (University of Zurich, ZDA), Michael Strebel (University of Zurich), Jinyu Sun (University College London), Rebecca Welge (University of Zurich)