• DemocracyNet.eu workshop: “Justice and Democracy: Assessing Political Legitimacy”

    The workshop “Justice and Democracy: Assessing Political Legitimacy,” the first of two workshops organized within the “Democracy: Bridging Facts and Norms” events series, took place at the University of Zurich on February 18-19. 12 participants (PhDs and Postdocs) presented papers and obtained feedback from our three discussants, Philippe Van Parijs (Université Catholique de Louvain), Monica Ferrin (University of Zurich), and Marco Steenbergen (University of Zurich). Lively and inspiring discussions took place among the participants and discussants on the presentations and on the ways to bridge theoretical and empirical research. Please find the report of this workshop here. Check the Call for Papers for our next workshop!

  • Call for Papers: Graduate workshop “Contextualizing Democracy: Culture, Capitalism, Inequalities”

    University of Zurich, June 9-10, 2016 Democratic ideals and norms need to be substantially defined, interpreted, and adapted to actual contexts. Compromises between different actors, and between ideals and practices thus become necessary. This highlights the importance of context for democratic politics: Democracy is always bound to specific cultures, forms of economic organization, and power structures. This observation raises diverse and interrelated questions: Are there contexts in which democratic ideals cannot be realized? Does the realization of democracy require specific shared cultural values? To what extent do democratic norms of self-governance conflict with other norms and ways of life in real-existing democracies? Is a certain level of wealth required for…

  • “Democracy: Bridging Facts and Norms” series officially launched

    The events series “Democracy: Bridging Facts and Norms” has now officially started – with a promising start! The opening discussion about the Limits of Democracy took place on Wednesday, November 18, 2015 in the Aula of the University of Zurich. Many of the topics we intend to touch upon in our 2015-2016 project were introduced and debated in a very thoughtful and interesting way by our speakers and moderator – Daniele Caramani, Francis Cheneval, Rosmarie Quadranti, Rudolf Strahm, and Daniel Binswanger. We are very thankful to them for sharing their perspective on this important topic, as well as to the large audience for coming and participating! Those who couldn’t make…