Citizens’ Resilience in Times of Crisis

How are the meaning and practice of citizenship renegotiated in times of crisis? The multiple crises of Europe have arguably stretched the idea of European citizenship as a stabilizer of an integrated European social, economic and political space beyond its limits. Instead of economic and social harmonization, the Euro crisis has exposed the thinness of European citizenship and the seemingly insurmountable differences that divide the people of Europe. Has citizenship now come to symbolize again the cleavages and tensions among the people in Europe? Or can we observe that citizens, who are most affected from crisis, develop new forms of activism in political life? Are there new forms of activating European or transnational citizenship rights in times of crisis, e.g. through the boost of social mobility (e.g. young people moving to the North) or through the emergence of new movements of social and political protest? The panel seeks to explore the conditions under which crisis perceptions and responses either lead to a new re-nationalising politics of exclusive rights and belonging or facilitate a new politics of transnational civil society that asks for the extension of rights, participation and democratic control of economic governance.

This roundtable (which could perhaps be a semi-plenary given the high profile of the speakers that have accepted to participate) will bring together leading scholars from both sides of the Atlantic whose research agendas may help us answer these questions from different disciplinary perspectives.

Michèle Lamont, the Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies at Harvard codirects the "successful societies" project. The project has explored how do communities or individuals sustain their well-being when exposed to challenges, and how do institutions and culture affect a society’s resilience in difficult times.

Neil Fligstein, Class of 1939 Chancellor's professor of sociology at UC-Berkeley, and the author of Euroclash: The EU, European Identity, and the Future of Europe. He will be able to revisit the thesis in Euroclash in these times of crisis.

Juan Diez Medrano, professor of sociology at the universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Department of Economic History and Institutions and the author of Framing Europeand has worked recently on the emergence of European social classes.

Marcos Ancelovici, professor of sociology at the university of McGill in Montreal who has extensively worked on contentious politics and the "no global" social movements and is studying the ongoing wave of anti-austerity protests in Canada, France, and Spain.

Rainer Bauböck, professor of Social Theory at the European University Institute in Florence who was among the very first to write on Transnational Citizenship (1994). 

Virginie Guiraudon, co-editor of Sociology of the European Union (2011) and who has worked on citizenship and transnational contention will chair and discuss. She will co-chair with Hans-Jörg Trenz, Professor at the university of Copenhagen who has worked extensively on the European Public Sphere democarcy and European collective identities. The other discussant is Ettore Recchi, professor at the university of Chieti-Pescara who has directed a number of projects on social and spatial mobility in Europe.