What Demos for the 21st-Century?

The American University of Paris acts as a hub of engaged scholarship. Through both teaching and research, AUP faculty work at the forefront of global issues, asking questions with wide-ranging implications and focusing on solutions. Throughout 2021, the Center for Critical Democracy Studies (CCDS), a research center working to promote the practice, study and life of democracy, is hosting a series of lectures, workshops and roundtable discussions titled Demos21, asking researchers to engage with practical and theoretical questions concerning contemporary democracy. The convocation aims to explore how we may build political and social solidarity within and beyond the nation in order to confront today’s fundamental challenges, including climate change, racial injustice and global inequality.

The series’ inaugural talk – a lecture from French philosopher Étienne Balibar, who presented his response to the fundamental democratic question “What is engagement?” – took place in December 2020, and events are scheduled through to Spring semester 2022. “Broadly speaking, a demos is a social formation that requires self-government,” says Professor Stephen Sawyer, Director of CCDS. “It’s a politically constituted society – one in which members’ relationships to one another are shaped by collective obligation as well as individual liberty.”

Given the ambitious scope of its theme, Demos21 breaks down the subject into three key sections. The first, “Race, Law and Justice,” explores judicial struggle around race and racism in legal history. Examples include the legal implications of France’s colonial legacy and the growing US prison abolitionist movement. “The idea was to bring together French and American scholars to discuss race, law and social justice in different periods and different countries,” says Professor Miranda Spieler of the Department of History and Politics who organized the series for CCDS. “There’s a rejection of research on race and law in France that is done in the name of the Republic. The US context is very different.” The seven symposia that made up the series were accessible to students and interested members of the public.

A second section, organized by Professor Julian Culp of the Department of History and Politics, tackled “Contemporary European Democratic Theory,” asking whether Europe and European political tradition have specific contributions to make to theorizing democracy in the 21st century. “The boundaries of democratic states are not determined democratically, yet the decisions made by citizens of democratic states profoundly affect the livelihoods of members of other states,” explains Culp, citing migration policy as a key example. The series explores cutting-edge research on a number of topics, including the so-called “democratic boundary problem,” with a particular emphasis on the European Union. The themes explored in this section will also form the basis for a book, coedited by Culp and Sawyer.

The final section, “Digital Demos,” will begin in Fall semester 2021. “We’re asking hopeful, critical questions about how emerging technologies can affect and potentially help with practicing democracy,” explains Professor Jessica Feldman from the Department of Communication, Media and Culture. The planned events will engage practitioners such as policymakers and

members of international organizations and grassroots movements alongside academics. Topics will include the ways in which political ideology and opinion formation in democracy overlap with social media, targeted marketing and artificial intelligence. “These are ancient questions about how we make choices and take care of each other as a community, but these technologies change our understanding of how we might respond,” says Feldman.

Demos21 asks participants to consider the shape that various publics vital to dynamic democratic life may take in the decades to come. “Race and law, the boundary problem and emerging technologies: these are three key topics with huge implications for centuries-old questions,” says Sawyer. “AUP’s position as an internationally focused institution allows us to attract scholars and practitioners with a variety of perspectives, across languages, cultures, disciplines and media.” Demos21, which will continue into the year of AUP’s 60th anniversary, is proof of the power of engaged research to generate change in the world.