International Summer School - Demographic Imaginaries: Soft Authoritarianism, Majoritarian Identity Politics and Demographic Anxieties

Demographic Imaginaries: Soft Authoritarianism, Majoritarian Identity Politics and Demographic Anxieties

held on 15 – 20 July 2024 at the Budapest Campus of the CEU.

This Summer School aims at addressing the central role of demographic imaginaries that are currently facilitating soft authoritarian politics in different parts of the world. Conservative governments and far-right movements across different country contexts share a set of strikingly similar strategies including a backlash against progressive reproductive and women’s rights, same-sex marriage, and LGBT+ communities, the use of coercive policies and rhetoric against religious, ethnic, and other minorities, or anti-immigration policies. Demographic anxieties are nurtured by conspiracy myths such as the narrative of the “great replacement,” as well as by other forms of majoritarian identity politics which imagine the majority (be it: white, Christian and heterosexual, Hindu National, Turkish Sunni Muslim, or European etc.) as threatened by political, ethnic, religious, sexual and other minorities and their struggles for equal rights. Looking into the specific political, juridical, cultural, technological, and discursive practices in the different country contexts, the Summer School will approach this topic from an interdisciplinary and globally comparative perspective. It will examine how such practices underpinning demographic imaginaries are deployed today and the technological infrastructures and data-political presumptions they involve. The Summer School therefore has the overall goal of grasping the extent of these politics, their contradictions and effects, and the dangers that they entail for democratic and peaceful living together.

The faculty includes Payal Arora (Utrecht), Mukulika Banerjee (LSE), Zsolt Enyedi (CEU), Eva Fodor (CEU), Ulrike Flader (Bremen), Nuhak Polat (Bremen), Lipin Ram (Bremen), Shalini Randeria (CEU), Seda Saluk (Michigan), Joachim Scharloth (Tokyo), Hagen Steinhauer (Bremen) and Tyler Zoanni (Bremen).

We welcome applications from advanced MA students, PhD candidates and postdoc researchers in political, social or cultural sciences, geography, linguistics, law, international relations or related disciplines. Eligible participants may apply for a tuition waiver and/or a scholarship.

For complete call and further information please check our website