Université Paris Cité welcomes papers for its upcoming colloquium.

Far from being a mere riot, the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack marked a turning point in the history of the American Republic. For the first time, the peaceful transition of power between two presidential administrations was contested by the outgoing President, thus encapsulating the idea of “democratic backsliding” popularized in 2018 by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt in their book, How Democracies Die. The January 2025 transition may very well turn out to be peaceful, but as of now, the main trends of the U.S. election point towards a disputed outcome with a potential for all-too-real violent outbursts, whoever wins.

While crises may open up new political opportunities, they also contribute to developing new analytical frameworks. This forthcoming international conference – held at The University of Chicago in Paris on January 23-24, 2025 and co-organized with several French universities – seeks to explore the different facets of the ongoing American political crisis as well as the reasons for American democratic resilience against the backdrop of Trumpism. Since its founding, American democracy has survived no less than a civil war, many major international conflicts and countless social, economic and financial crises that elsewhere toppled stable governments and, more often than not, led to the demise of political regimes. “Resilience” – a concept originally used in the field of physics to mean a material’s capacity to withstand pressure until breaking point – has now taken on another meaning in social sciences, where it tends to refer to the ability to reinvent or rebuild itself, something the United States has largely demonstrated.

How to submit

The nature of this conference will be transdisciplinary in order to allow a dialogue between different approaches. We are expecting papers from a variety of fields including political science, history, law, sociology, economics, international relations and American studies.

Paper proposals (which should include the title of the paper, author(s), and a 10-line abstract) must be submitted before October 2, 2024, to the following address: USdemocracyjan25@gmail.com

Acceptance will be notified by October 21, 2024.