In this seminar, we will look at the triangle of democracy, social justice, and public policy in contemporary Europe. For long decades, this triangle had become an implicitness and a core pillar of European democratic self-understanding: representative democracy requires a certain level of social justice available to all citizens; public policies were imagined providing the needed services and socio-economic base for people to engage in matters of democratic co-determination. In the multiple crises of today, from migration, the climate crisis, soaring inequalities, or the effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the connection between the three sides of the triangle are more and more challenged from different sides of the political spectrum. Focusing mainly on European societies and institutions, we will carefully analyze in which way and in which social or societal spaces democracy, social justice, and public policy responsibilities are imagined as connected – and how these imaginations are changing. Who is advocating which idea of a nexus between democracy, social justice, and public policies – and who is challenging established notions of it? Who is mobilizing for a new social embedding of democracy, social justice, and public responsibilities and what are the alternative societies that are imagined for a future Europe? Which roles can EU institutions play in strengthening democracy and social justice?
Through various theoretical lenses of democratic theory, participation research, social movement theory and research on populism, we will first establish a theoretical toolbox for analysis, before we jointly scrutinize today’s challenges and challengers of the established triangle between democracy, social justice, and public policy.
- Instructor: Felix Butzlaff