LIST OF PANELS

For years, academics and practitioners have raised debates on many social injustices, such as racial discrimination, equity, diversity, and gender equality. Recently, debates over citizenship and affirmative action have raised questions about integrating socially and politically excluded citizens and how public policy frames address such integration and empowering communities (Paiva, 2012). The citizenship debate has divided policymaking, political theories and practices between universal and particular rights, especially on policies addressing politically underrepresented citizens’ needs (Lizer, 1998; Cooper, 2018). However, the connections between affirmative action and policymaking still lack a more comprehensive understanding, opening another debate about how co-production can be a path allowing the alignment between policy design objectives and target groups’ needs (Bell, 2021). In addition, citizens’ self-initiatives have co-created social innovation in response to the lack of government actions to tackle social injustices (Moulaert & MacCallum, 2019). Therefore, social innovations have become possible solutions when translated into public policies and creating a bottom-linked governance approach (Galego et al., 2022; Moulaert & MacCallum, 2019). Citizens’ participation in co-producing public policies highlights the importance of public participation in policymaking (Brandsen et al., 2018; Fischer, 2006). Thus, allowing to development of more effective solutions for socially and politically excluded communities. Moreover, other factors may also be determinants for the positive effects of affirmative action policies, such as institutional, contextual, and political conditions. Therefore, seeking to understand how citizenship and affirmative action, contextually embedded, contribute to overcoming social injustices by linking socially and politically excluded communities with the policymaking process, this panel proposal raises the following questions:

1.       How are social injustices addressed in affirmative action policies?

2.       Social policies have addressed what types of social injustices?

3.       How are social innovation initiatives tackling social injustices?

4.       How is citizenship related to social injustices?

5.       How have universal and particular citizenship debates evolved through affirmative action policies?

Scientific relevance

In response to the debates over citizenship and social injustices, this panel is to explore the many policy issues surrounding the topic with a policy study perspective. Such a perspective combines theoretical and practical debates to capture better a panoramic view of public policy’s contribution to tackling social injustice worldwide.

References

Bell, E. (2021). Deserving to Whom? Investigating Heterogeneity in the Impact of Social Constructions of Target Populations on Support for Affirmative Action. Policy Studies Journal, 49(1), 268–299. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12347

Brandsen, T., Steen, T., & Verschuere, B. (Eds.). (2018). Co-Production and Co-Creation: Engaging Citizens in Public Services. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315204956

Cooper, F. (2018). Citizenship, Inequality, and Difference: Historical Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Fischer, F. (2006). Participatory Governance as Deliberative Empowerment: The cultural politics of discursive space. The American Review of Public Administration, 36(1), 19–40. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074005282582

Galego, D., Moulaert, F., Brans, M., & Santinha, G. (2022). Social innovation & governance: a scoping review. Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research, 35(2), 265–290. https://doi.org/10.1080/13511610.2021.1879630

Lister, R. (1998). Citizenship and Difference: Toward a Differentiated Universalism. European Journal of Social Theory, 1(1), 71–90. https://doi.org/10.1177/136843198001001006

Moulaert, F., & MacCallum, D. (2019). Advanced Introduction to Social Innovation. Cheltenham, UK; Northampton, Massachusetts, USA: Edgar Elgar Publishers.

Paiva, A. R. (2012). Citizenship, Racial Inequality and Affirmative Action Policies. The Latin Americanist, 56(4), 91–109. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1557-203X.2012.01179.x

George Floyd’s assassination and the Black Lives Matter movement contested and re-raised many debates over social injustices, for example, racism, citizenship and social integration of politically underrepresented communities such as black, LGBTQ+, indigenous, and disabled people (Szetela, 2020). Social injustices debates are not new, but they lack an assessment of the effective impact on promoting social change from a policy perspective. Although many public policies have been formulated to tackle social injustice issues, much of a concern is whether the policies reflect or not the real-life need of excluded communities. Therefore, a few questions are addressed to understand the relationship between citizenship, affirmative action and public policymaking leading to social changes for a better society for socially and politically excluded communities.

1. What is citizenship in terms of affirmative action policies?

2. What are the policy issues addressed in affirmative action policies?

3. What are the policy implementation instruments used in affirmative action policies?

4. Who are the actors co-producing affirmative action policies to tackle social injustices of excluded communities such as LGBTQ+, black, indigenous, disabled peoples, and others?

5. How effectively are public policies tackling social injustices in democratic societies?

This panel aims to advance theoretical and empirical knowledge on effective public policymaking to tackle local, national and international social injustices. Also, this panel welcomes empirical, conceptual and theoretical papers addressing issues related to citizenship and affirmative action from a public policy perspective.

References

Szetela, A. (2020). Black Lives Matter at five: limits and possibilities. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(8), 1358–1383. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2019.1638955