POLITICAL SCIENCE

The Political Science Track is focused this year on the topic Democracy and democratisation: institutions, processes and practices. It follows from the idea that traditional approaches to democracy and democratisation processes are to a large extent directed at answering the following questions: How to best define democracy? What are the factors that make democracies endure? Dominant explanations focus on political cultural, civil society, mode of transition, economic and social development, characteristics of the political institutions, and the international context as key factors, along with aspects such as the impact of the antecedent regime and democracy assistance. Beyond the comparative study of national political systems, the same concepts and explanations are to be found in the approach to supra-national democracy (the study of the EU political institutions, processes and practices) and the comparative study of local government and politics. Beyond transition and democratic consolidation, the focus seems to shift on aspects such as the quality of democracy, accountability, transparency, participation, and governance. This section of the conference welcomes paper proposals on these topics, but it is also open to contributions focused on related topics.