States of Exception? Political Conflict, Culture & Populism in the Trump Era

Friday, August 9, 2019 in New York City

The ASA Political Sociology section is pleased to announce a mini-conference to be held prior to the ASA annual meeting in August. The morning sessions will center on populist politics, examining the rise of populist leaders and how they have transformed the political landscape, considering cases such as Donald Trump, Brexit populists Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico. The afternoon sessions will have a number of open panels, depending on submissions. We welcome papers on topics related to the historical rise of labor, political parties, gender and/or race politics, immigration issues, the media in politics, social movements, and other topics related to the current political situation. We similarly welcome papers that take a comparative and/or historical perspective, or that investigate questions in other countries going through challenging political processes.

The Negotiating Agreement in Congress Research Grants are aimed at scholars who seek to understand the conditions under which political negotiation can be achieved (or not achieved) in Congress and other legislative arenas. The grants provide up to $10,000 of funding for each awardee, to be used for up to one year of research and writing. Applicants must have a PhD in hand by the application deadline and must hold an affiliation with a college or university based in the United States. For more information, please visit www.ssrc.org/nacg or contact democracy@ssrc.org.

ISA session being organized — “Non-union class struggles from below” — Session of the ISA World Congress of Sociology, July 2018, Toronto. Organized by Marcel Paret (University of Utah and University of Johannesburg)

While many observers lament the declining significance and political power of organized labor, unions were never the only protagonists of resistance from below. Historical accounts include numerous examples of struggles by working classes and other economically marginalized groups. Similar examples of non-union resistance from below are rampant in the contemporary period of widespread economic insecurity. Groups that scholars consider to be especially “precarious” or even “surplus” to global capitalism – the unemployed, part-time and temporary workers, those eking out a living through “informal” activities, etc. – are prominent within these struggles. These struggles from below often connect economic demands to issues of citizenship, nationalism, and community.