From the last decades, citizens increasingly disengage from traditional party politics and voting as a way to express political views, values and beliefs. Recent years have seen diverse forms of political protest, social and artistic activism movements, flourish both offline and online, targeting the various territorial level of democratic politics: EU, national, regional and local. Simultaneously, political institutions at the various levels of government have introduced new mechanisms for direct citizen participation in the political process, such as participatory budgeting, public consultations, citizen juris or mini publics.

This Blended Intensive Program will critically examine the topic of democracy, citizens and new forms of civic engagement from a multilevel, cross-country and multidisciplinary perspective, including political science, law, sociology and urban studies. It aims to provide students with the theoretical and analytical tools to recognize the various forms of civic engagement, understand the interplay between institutional and extra-institutional domains of citizen participation, and maintain a critical view regarding the scope and limitations of the different form of civic engagement with regard to political impact and democratic transformation.

The physical mobility session will take place between 27-31 January 2025.

This program will be delivered through a mix of seminars, deliberative workshops, roundtables, and guided visits to Madrid with a range of activities over the five days. The focus will be first on the new forms of civic engagement at the local, national, and European level, then on the coexistence of those forms with representative politics. This will result in a critical understanding of the taxonomy of old and new forms of civic engagement as well as an in-depth knowledge of study cases.

Activities in Madrid include the following visits:

• Visit to the Spanish Parliament (Congreso de los Diputados) where students will be able to learn about the political experience of MPs. This provides them direct knowledge of representative democracy.
• Visit to a neighborhood popular assembly (self-managed social centre) where student will talk to local activists. This provides them with an in-depth understanding of non-institutional collective civic engagement.
• Visit to different places in Madrid to identify expressions and situations of street politics as well as a gathering with activists of immigrants’ associations.

There will be two roundtables for presenting and discussing different forms of civic engagement from the most individualized and artistic expressions to the most institutionalized through channels of either representative or direct democracy. Among participants there will be representatives of the EU Parliament in Madrid, experts in the design and implementation of digital and deliberative democracy mechanisms, social movements activists (XRebellion, PAH anti-eviction), representatives of local and regional neighborhood associations, and activists of artistic and performative collectives (Homo Velamine).

After each roundtable, a deliberative workshop will take place in order to critically analyze and reflect about the experiences previously presented and looking for drawing some basic conclusions.  

Finally, there will also be a half-day seminar that will allow students to present their work in a friendly atmosphere, discussing with lecturers and classmates, leading to improve their teamwork assignment before the final submission.

18/10/2024, 15:00 – 17:00 CET

1st virtual session ∕∕ Theory and history of representative democracy and civic engagement. An introduction ∕ Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.

25/10/2024, 15:00 – 17:00 CET           

2nd virtual session ∕∕  A subjectivistic turn? Meanings of Democracy and Participation ∕ University of Tübingen, Germany.

08/11/2024, 15:00 – 17:00 CET

3rd virtual session ∕∕ Conceptualization and taxonomy of old and new forms of civic engagement ∕ Autónoma University of Madrid, Spain & University of Tübingen, Germany.

15/11/2024, 15:00 – 17:00 CET

4th virtual session ∕∕ Digital citizen participation and the stakes for representative democracy ∕ National and Kapodistrian university of Athens, Greece.

22/11/2024, 15:00 – 17:00 CET

5th virtual session ∕∕ Citizen participation in the EU ∕ Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain & Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.

29/11/2024, 15:00 – 17:00 CET

6th virtual session ∕∕ Democratic channels for immigrant minorities ∕∕ Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.

06/12/2024, 15:00 – 17:00 CET

7th virtual session ∕∕ Civic engagement & urban democracy ∕ University of Glasgow, Scotland.

13/12/2024, 15:00 – 17:00 CET

8th virtual session ∕∕ Virtual Program wrap- up and connection with the Physical Week Program ∕ Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain.