SANTIAGO 2009: WORLD CONGRESS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

LOCAL ORGANIZING Committee SESSIONS
(GLOBAL DISCONTENT AND BEYOND? CHILE AND LATIN AMERICA)

The LOC is organizing a set of sessions, oriented toward the current state of the Latin American and Chilean political studies, as well as an offer of cultural activities in the opening and closing ceremonies, which would include a cycle of political Latin-American cinema, concerts of classic and folklore music and samples of Chilean painting. The cultural program will appear in the web in the next months.

All these activities intend to mobilize all the Chilean and latin American political and social scientists who study the political themes with regard t an overall assessment and general debate, particularly in light of the upcoming bicentenary in many countries of the region.

The LOC’s program is divided in panels and special sessions.

I. Panels and convenors:

1. Quality of democracy
Convenor: Manuel Antonio Garretón
Post-transitional democracies in Latin America in a comparative perspective
Quantity vs. quality of democracy
Compared indices of measurement of the quality of democracy

2. Political Theory
Convenor: Tomás Chuaqui
Liberalism, republicanism and democracy
Biopolitics
Political discourse

3. Public opinion

Convenor: Miguel Ángel López
Methods of measurement of public opinion
Public opinion and electoral behaviour
"Use" and "abuse" of polls in politics and Political Science.

4. Executive – legislative relations

Convenor: Ricardo Gamboa
Legislative coalitions and the functioning of the presidency
The state of the art of “Latin American presidentialism”
Comparative legislative powers

5. The State and public policies in Latin America and Chile.

Convenor: Fabián Pressacco
State reform: debates, models and evaluation
The Nation State and local governments
The Nation State and globalization

6. Media and Politics in Latin America and Chile

Convenor: William Porath
The media and political campaigns
Concentration of ownership of the media
The internet and politics: uses and actors of the web

7. Political models and leadership in Latin America and Chile
Convenor: Marcela Ríos
New political leadership: personal, technocratic, ethnic, etc.
New forms of relationships between the State and society
Gender and political leadership

8. Constitutional debates and processes in Latin America
Convenor: Óscar Godoy
Processes of constitutionalization and new constitutional moment
Models: Constituent assemblies, referenda, etc.
Comparative institutional designs in new constitutions

9. Political Parties: crisis or transformations?
Convenor: Stéphanie Alenda
How should we study political parties?
The Lefts and social movements
The Chilean Right in comparative perspective

10. Methodologial Approaches

Convenor: Juan Pablo Luna
The numbers we use and the world we see: evaluating transnational data bases
Methodological debates in Latin American Political Science
Qualitative methods and their contribution to the development of Political Science

11. Armed Forces and Democracy

Convenor: Augusto Varas
The transformation of the Armed Forces and civilian control. Future challenges and new topics
Armed Forces, terrorism and new threats / risks
Military Education

12. Populism and neo-populism

Convenor: Robert Funk
Neo-populism: A new Left in Latin America?
Economic policy and the political discourse of neo-populism
Populism- neo-populism: continuities and ruptures

13. International Relations

Convenor: Claudio Fuentes
The present status of integration processes in Latin America
The environment and the globalization of justice: repercussions in Latin America
Bi-national tensions in the region

14. Crime and Security

Convenor: Hugo Frühling
Public policy perspectives on public safety
Public safety and social protest
Public safety and human security.

15. Citizenship and social capital

Convenor: Marco Fernández
Political consequences of citizenship deficit in Latin America
New citizenships and cultural identity
Social capital, trust and citizenship

16. Electoral systems and their political effects

Convenor: Ena Von Baer
The binominal system: effects and alternatives
Mechanisms of direct democracy in comparative perspective
The representation of minorities, quotas and other mechanisms

17. Politics and knowledge society in Latin America and Chile

Convenor: Alfredo Joignant
Political uses of science and knowledge
Technocracy and democracy
Government sciences and State legitimation

18. Bicentenaries and politics in Latin America

Convenor: Manuel Antonio Garretón
Political development in Latin America (is there a Latin American political tradition? centenary and bicentenary: comparative analysis; Keys and landmarks in Latin American political evolution)

Independency and Dependency (dependency theory revisited; globalization and interdependency; towards a new Latin American regionalism)

Compared Bicentenaries (symbolic and discursive analysis of the bicentenaries; Bicentenaries: prospective and retrospective; the Chilean bicentenary)


II. LOC Special Sessions:

Latin American responses to globalization.
State of democracy in Chile
Political dimension of global warming
Political parties; leadership and society.

MÁS INFORMES:

http://www.congresomundial2009.com/