At the Annual Convention of the Study of Nationalities, I'm a speaker at a book panel about Marci Shore's The Taste of Ashes: The Afterlife of Totalitarianism in Eastern Europe (Random House 2013). The conference takes place at the Harriman Institute, Columbia University. The panel is from 5:10 to 7:10pm. More information on the website of the ASN.

On April 8, 2013, I'm speaking at the conference "Realizing Roma Rights: Addressing Violence, Discrimination and Segregation in Europe", which brings together policymakers, academics, and activists from across Europe and the United States to address the inter-related themes of extremism, structural discrimination and youth disempowerment. The conference is jointly organized by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, the Mahindra Humanities Center, the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR).

For the conference agenda and participants, please click here and here.

Is deliberation becoming a core feature of our transforming democracies? A large and growing list of scholars have theorized about the ‘second transformation of democracy’, as liberal representative political systems move beyond being top-down polyarchies to new models that seek to engage in more bottom-up processes involving deliberation among citizens. Although the idea of deliberative democracy is not new - for decades theorists have argued that democracy should be based not just on votes but also on the incorporation of public debate – in the last few years we have seen an upsurge in the number of practical initiatives aimed at realizing this theoretical claim. Notable examples are We the Citizens in Ireland, the Icelandic Constitutional Council, the British Columbia Citizens’ Assembly, the Dutch Citizens’ Forum, and the Belgian G1000 Citizen Summit. This conference brings together some of the top researchers worldwide on this topic. They will investigate both the theory and the practice of recent deliberative innovations. 

Plenary speakers include David Farrell (University College Dublin), Jane Suiter (University College Cork), Eoin O'Malley (Dublin city University), Kimmo Grönlund (Åbo Akademi University), André Bächtiger (University of Bern), Seong Min (Pace University), Juan Ugarriza (El Rosario University, Colombia), Henk van der Kolk (University of Twente), Kenneth Carty (University of British Columbia), Benoît Derenne (Foundation for Future Generations), Stef Steyaert (Levuur), David Van Reybrouck (G1000), and others.

Date: December 13, 2012
Location: Leuven Institute for Ireland in Europe, Janseniusstraat 1, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Find the complete programme here [ PDF]

To register click here

On Friday, 5 October 2012, I'm speaking at the panel "Reclaiming Public Space - Democratic Practices Reinvented", organized by the European Cultural Foundation. The panel explores alternative models for democratic practice in Europe, starting from an artistic perspective. I will, among other things, discuss deliberative democracy and the G1000. Other participants are Tiffany Jenkins and Juan Freire. At De Balie, Amsterdam. For more information, see: http://www.culturalfoundation.eu/imagining-europe/programme#reclaiming_european.

On 15 March 2012, I'm presenting a paper at the symposium Beyond the Ballot: forms of citizen engagement between democratic elections, which will take place at University College Dublin, National University of Ireland, NUI offices, 49 Merrion Square, Dublin. The symposium will include panels on: deliberative experiments and innovations, and civil society participatory approaches to civic engagement. I'll speak about deliberative democracy in Belgium and, in particular, about the G1000.

Update: read a short article about the event here.

From 13 to 17 August I'm at the 2010 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. As part of a special panel on "Citizenship, Nationalism, and Identity in Eastern Europe and Russia", I'm presenting a paper called "Backdoor Nationalism", which I co-authored with Jon Fox (University of Bristol). See this link (Session 40) for more information.

On 27 and 28 May 2010, I'm participating in the workshop "Bosnia: looking beyond the institutions".
The academic debate about post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina has often revolved around the question of the viability of the current state institutions. This workshop wants to broaden the discussion and examine a broad variety of political phenomena that take place outside the realm of the official state structures. Topics include post-ethnic activism, civil society initiatives that crosscut internal boundaries, alternative forms of political mobilization and recent developments in the politics of memory and transitional justice. Key-note speaker is Florian Bieber. The full programme is available here.
The workshop takes place in Brussels, at the Palace of the Academies, 1 Rue Ducale. Participation is free, but registration is required. For more information contact Heleen Touquet.

On 14 and 15 January I'm participating in a conference on "Romani Mobilities in Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives", organized by the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. The programme can be found here. My paper is called "Between Europeanization and Discrimination: The Roma as a Special Focus of EU Policy". And this is the abstract:

Since the accession of ten post-communist countries to the European Union (EU), various EU institutions have expressed their concern about the precarious social position of the Roma in these new member states. The EU has singled out this group for extra attention. This strategy is based on the assumption that the Roma need support "from above" because they - in contrast to other minorities in this region - have no clear national lobby or external homeland to defend their interests. The EU is thus considered to be the Roma's best ally. This paper sets the benefits of such special EU concern against the problem of its politicization. The EU has managed the put the Roma on the political agenda by considering them a category of people who are exceptionally vulnerable and therefore in need of special attention; but this EU attention - although well intended and, in certain aspects, not unlikely to produce some positive effects - can have problematic unintended consequences once it becomes politicized in the domestic arenas of countries where politicians try to mobilize voters on an ethnic basis and seek to win the support of Euroskeptic citizens.