"Empires of Norms and Laws," Joint Sessions of the European Consortium for Political Research, Lisbon, April 14-19, 2009.

Directors: Professor Michael Baurmann (University of Dusseldorf) Email: baurmann@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de Dr Nicholas Southwood (Australian National University /Jesus College, Oxford University) Email: nfs@coombs.anu.edu.au Call for abstracts: Politics, we are told, consists of systematic power and authority in human affairs. One important context in which such power and authority are manifest is in the formal institutions of coercive law. But there is a second highly significant context in which power and authority are also manifest, namely, in the structures we call social norms. The first has received considerable attention from political theorists. Indeed, there is even a branch of political theory – jurisprudence – that is charged specifically with the task of investigating the kind of power and authority that law possesses (analytical jurisprudence), and considering how and to what extent it helps realise, or might be made to help realise, things we have reason to want (normative jurisprudence). Norms, by contrast, have not received anything like the same kind of sustained attention, an omission that would seem to have the consequence of excluding a crucial part of the proper subject of political inquiry. The aim of this workshop will be to bring together individuals from diverse perspectives in order to try to develop a better understanding of the kinds of power and authority manifest in social norms, and in what ways, and to what extent, they might they be made to help realise things that we have reason to want. We are particularly interested in papers that can help us develop a better understanding of the relation between norms and law: the different kinds of power and authority at issue; their respective strengths and weaknesses as regulatory tools; and how they do and ought to work alongside one another. Submission deadline: 1 December, 2008 Please send a brief abstract by email to both baurmann@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de and nfs@coombs.anu.edu.au no later than December 1, 2008. Further information is here: http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/events/jointsessions/index.aspx.