Governance and its alternatives
International governance is centrally concerned with the principles, laws, processes and institutions (governments, organisations etc.) that address issues of global or international significance. The aim of this strand is to explore alternatives to this framework, by focusing on the politics of everyday life. Everyday politics occurs in the lives of people making decisions and playing roles not necessarily anticipated or recognised by formal governance structures. By means of example, migration flows and migrant behaviours in host communities can challenge the assumptions of nationality and community that typically frame both national and international policy-making agendas. Civic action, often in defence of perceived minorities, also offers alternative perspectives on the functioning of political communities at a daily level, whether national or global in scale. Then there are the issues and ideas that have come to prominence in recent alter-globalisation debates, in the rise of leaderless, horizontal organisations, the development of community-based, grass-roots networks and affinity groups and the evolution of indigenous activism.
In a separate development, citizens have expressed dissatisfaction with the kind of political representation offered to them, particularly on gender grounds, giving rise to world-wide changes in party and national rules so as to ensure that legislatures and governments contain a balance of women and men. The relationship of citizens with those tasked with representing them is in question after demands for descriptive and sociological representation based on race, ethnicity and disability, as well as gender.
Current and planned projects include:
- ‘The simulation of governance’: The project applies everyday ideas to the formal rules of governance in a controlled setting. It is conducted as a student-centred simulation exercise; in the first instance applied to the entente cordiale (the Franco-British relationship); in a later phase, applied on a larger-scale to questions of EU-decision-making.
- ‘Intra-EU migration’: Who moves, why, and with what consequences for the daily lives of the migrants and their host communities? In the first instance, a workshop will be held on the subject of Franco-British flows, in conjunction with the Franco-British Council.
- ‘Gendered Citizenship in a Multicultural Europe’: This project is funded by the EU Commission, DG Research, Framework Programme 6. £200,000 has been granted to the Department for Dr. Monica Threlfall to work on political citizenship as part of a 10-country team project, which seeks to identify the missing building blocks for the construction of more effective and inclusive forms of citizenship practices suitable for multicultural contexts. Dr Threlfall is researching citizens' experiences of political representation, specifically the subjective perceptions of men and women, ethnic minority citizens, EU migrants, as well as third country nationals and other residents lacking voting rights, regarding the way they are politically represented by parliamentarians as well as their actual or perceived lack of political represention.
- A series of seminars, workshops and invited lectures on the following themes:
- Radical politics in a time of globalization
- Participatory economics
- Contemporary anarchism and direct action politics
- Intentional communities
Contact
Professor Moya Lloyd Direct line: +44 (0)1509 223656 |
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Dr Helen Drake Direct line: +44 (0)1509 222989
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