LIST OF PANELS

The world is in transition. The polycrisis (Morin & Kern 1999) confronting modern democracies combines inter-related crises such as climate change, poverty, economic inequality, health crises and increasingly visible racial injustices, among others. These crises have exposed weaknesses of contemporary forms of governance, resulting in deep challenges to their legitimacy. The polycrisis, thus, suggests a fundamental challenge underlying many policy arenas: the ability to adequately address policy problems. This failure of governing institutions in our present moment can be likened to a period that Gramsci famously called an interregnum (Gramsci/Hoare & Smith 1971/2022) whereby the old ill-adapted system of governance will not die and the new system that could address contemporary problems cannot be born, leaving a vacuum in leadership and governance. In this vacuum, many “morbid symptoms” appear, including possible ascendence of authoritarian rulers and other illiberal groups seeking to fill the vacuum, and who may exacerbates the polycrisis.

This panel poses that climate change and other major policy problems must be seen within this context to fully grasp the challenges of the present moment. Global warming then does not only constitute an isolated “wicked problem”, which is difficult to solve. It is rather turned into a wicked problem due to the predominant focus on natural science and climate dimensions and its isolation from broader ecological, social and political transformations. These problems are emblematic of the difficulty policy makers face today precisely because they are consequences of the failures of (neo)liberal democracy; that is, they share a common root in the failures of market centered governance. Gramsci’s theory of hegemony offers important analytical tools to address the interregnum period from a long-term strategic point of view, to not only understand the interregnum, but also strategies to fill the leadership vacuum to avoid the “morbid symptoms” of authoritarian rule, among others. A “new hegemony” in Gramsci’s terms would need to offer an alternative ideology and set of corresponding institutional arrangements to regulate the political economy – including well-articulated policy instruments – that become broadly supported as legitimate and, at least partially, implemented. 

The purpose of this panel is to bring together theoretical and empirical research that uses critical theoretical and methodological tools to addresses the following research questions:

·      How do specific policy challenges (e.g., climate change) relate to the polycrisis or interregnum? How should those policy challenges be addressed (theoretically) – or how are they being addressed (empirically) – within that broader understanding?

·      How should scholars characterize the present interregnum period, as it relates to specific policy challenges?

·      What would it take for there to be a new hegemony for climate change (or other policy crisis)? What is a new possible hegemony for organizing the political economy generally, or for organizing a specific policy issue? What governing institutions are needed? What ideology or new “common sense”? Who should lead them? What key alliances – or new “historic bloc” – are needed?

·      What are current efforts to create a new hegemony, even if partial, and what forms do they take? Where are their successes and limits?

We welcome papers that draw on a variety of critical theoretical and methodological traditions to respond to questions about the polycrisis and interregnum period and how it affects public policy and public policy making, and the ability for policy makers to deal with individual or inter-locking policy crises. We are especially eager to include papers from a range of geographical areas around the globe, so the panel can explore the unique and similar ways that the polycrisis and interregnum period are affecting policy making, and the ways in which civil society organizations, political parties, and others are (or are not) organizing to create a new hegemony, and where promising new opportunities lie. We welcome papers that are purely theoretical, that are empirical, and that span the boundaries between academia and the world of action.   

Panel – can be a hybrid to encourage participation, the co-chairs will be in person.

References:

Gramsci, A. (1971/2022). Selections from prison notebooks. Hoare, Q., & Nowell-Smith, G. (Eds.). Lawrence & Wishart.

Morin, E., Kern, A. B., Kelly, S. M., & LaPointe, R. (1999). Homeland earth: A manifesto for the new millenium. Hampton Press.