Where is the colloquium taking place?

The colloquium is being held in Cerisy-la-Salle, FRA.

What is the duration of the event?

The event spans several days, from late September to early October.

Démocratie ou barbarie. La politique en temps de crise [2026]

Name: Démocratie ou barbarie. La politique en temps de crise [2026]
Start: 2026-09-25T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-10-01T00:00:00Z
Location: Cerisy-la-Salle

Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2026Cerisy-la-Salle, FranceIn-person

Registration open

The colloquium "Démocratie ou barbarie. La politique en temps de crise" convenes in Cerisy-la-Salle, FRA, to explore the critical juncture facing democratic systems in an era defined by multifaceted crises. This gathering aims to foster a deep, interdisciplinary reflection on the challenges to democracy and the potential for societal regression, offering a platform for scholars and practitioners to dissect the political implications of contemporary global stressors. Participants will engage with fundamental questions concerning the resilience of democratic institutions, the rise of authoritarian tendencies, and the societal responses to systemic pressures. The event seeks to articulate pathways for safeguarding democratic values and practices against the backdrop of increasing instability and uncertainty.

Committees & topics

Topics
Citizenship in an Age of Contested Belonging · Political Crises and the Fragility of Constitutional Order · Deliberation and the Quality of Democratic Decision-Making · Democracy: Promise, Practice, and Retreat · Authoritarian Drift in Contemporary Politics · Civil Disobedience and the Ethics of Political Refusal · Equality: From Formal Right to Material Condition · Infra-Politics: Everyday Resistance and the Hidden Transcript

Why it matters

In an increasingly interconnected world, the stability of democratic governance is under constant scrutiny. This colloquium is particularly relevant as it directly addresses the existential question of whether democratic principles can withstand the pressures of modern crises, ranging from ecological emergencies to geopolitical shifts and social fragmentation. The discussions will contribute to a broader understanding of the mechanisms through which crises can either strengthen or erode democratic foundations.

The insights generated from this event hold significant implications for policymakers, civil society organizations, and academics alike. By examining the interplay between political systems and periods of intense crisis, the colloquium provides a crucial forum for developing robust frameworks and strategies to navigate complex global challenges. It underscores the urgent need for innovative thinking to preserve and advance democratic ideals in a turbulent international landscape.

How to prepare

Attendees preparing for this colloquium should focus on interdisciplinary approaches to political science, sociology, and philosophy, particularly those examining the impact of crises on governance. A strong understanding of historical precedents where democracies have either collapsed or adapted in times of severe stress will be beneficial. Consider how various types of crises—economic, social, environmental, or health-related—exert pressure on democratic institutions and public discourse.

Participants might also benefit from reviewing contemporary case studies of countries grappling with democratic backsliding or resilience in the face of adversity. Reflect on the role of civil society, media, and international cooperation in either mitigating or exacerbating democratic vulnerabilities. Engaging with concepts such as "hidden-stakeholders" and "dynamic-analysis" can provide valuable frameworks for understanding the complex forces at play in political crises.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

France

As the host nation, FRA provides a European perspective on democratic resilience, particularly relevant given its historical role in shaping democratic thought and its contemporary challenges in navigating social and political polarization.

Role in topic

FRA serves as a key intellectual hub for discussions on democracy and political philosophy, offering a rich context for examining the interplay between national identity, republican values, and global crises.

United States

The USA offers a case study of a long-standing democracy grappling with internal divisions, the impact of misinformation, and the challenges of maintaining democratic norms amidst political polarization.

Role in topic

The experience of the USA provides critical insights into the stresses on established democracies, particularly regarding electoral integrity, the role of institutions, and the influence of global events on domestic politics.

Hungary

HUN represents a European nation where democratic institutions have faced significant challenges, prompting discussions on the erosion of rule of law and the rise of illiberal tendencies within the European Union.

Role in topic

The political trajectory of HUN offers a pertinent example for analyzing the mechanisms of democratic backsliding and the internal and external factors that contribute to such shifts.

India

As the world's largest democracy, IND presents a complex picture of democratic functioning in a diverse and rapidly developing nation, facing unique challenges related to social cohesion, economic inequality, and political representation.

Role in topic

IND's democratic journey provides a valuable perspective on how large, multicultural societies manage democratic processes and institutions amidst significant demographic and developmental pressures.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Citizenship in an Age of Contested Belonging

Modern citizenship emerged from the revolutions of the late 18th century, when the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789) and the United States Constitution recast political membership as a relationship between equal individuals and a sovereign state, rather than between subjects and a monarch. Over the 19th and 20th centuries, citizenship expanded through struggles over suffrage, decolonization, civil rights, and the integration of immigrants, while international instruments such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1954 and 1961 statelessness conventions sought to ensure that no person would be left outside a legal community. Today, citizenship is again under strain. States increasingly use denaturalization against foreign fighters and dissidents, sell passports through investor-citizenship programs, and restrict birthright citizenship or the access of long-term residents to political rights. The Rohingya in Myanmar, Dominicans of Haitian descent, and Russian-speaking residents of the Baltic states illustrate how citizenship laws can produce mass exclusion. At the same time, dual nationality, diaspora voting, and supranational citizenship (notably in the EU) complicate the older identification of citizenship with a single nation-state. The debate now centers on who decides the boundaries of the political community, how to reconcile national sovereignty with universal human rights, and whether citizenship should be understood primarily as a legal status, a bundle of rights, or a practice of democratic participation.

Key players

Political Crises and the Fragility of Constitutional Order

Political crisis is a recurring feature of modern states, but the post-Cold War expectation of stable liberal-democratic consolidation has given way to a sense of generalized institutional fragility. The 2008 financial crisis, the Arab uprisings of 2010–2012, the eurozone debt crisis, the migration crisis of 2015, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol all revealed how quickly constitutional routines, parliamentary majorities, and public trust can unravel. Freedom House and V-Dem have documented nearly two decades of democratic regression, with executive aggrandizement, contested elections, and emergency powers as recurring symptoms. Crises typically combine economic shock, loss of legitimacy, and elite fragmentation. In Tunisia, the 2011 revolution opened a democratic transition that was largely reversed by President Saïed's 2021 self-coup. In Peru, successive impeachments and the 2022 dissolution attempt by President Castillo illustrate how presidential systems can spiral. France's repeated use of Article 49.3, Israel's 2023 judicial-reform protests, and the contested 2024 elections in Venezuela and Mozambique show that crisis cuts across regime types. The core question is whether liberal-democratic institutions can absorb shocks through deliberation and reform, or whether emergency politics, polarization, and disinformation are producing a structural shift toward plebiscitary and authoritarian modes of rule.

Key players

Deliberation and the Quality of Democratic Decision-Making

Deliberative democracy, theorized by Jürgen Habermas, Joshua Cohen, and others from the 1980s onward, holds that legitimate political decisions should emerge from reasoned public discussion among free and equal citizens, not merely from the aggregation of preferences in elections. The idea has deep roots — in Athenian assemblies, parliamentary traditions, and town meetings — but it gained new institutional expression in the 21st century through citizens' assemblies, deliberative polls, and participatory budgeting. Recent experiments have shown that structured deliberation can shift opinion on polarized issues. Ireland's Citizens' Assembly informed the 2018 referendum legalizing abortion; France's Convention Citoyenne pour le Climat (2019–2020) produced 149 proposals on climate policy; similar bodies have been convened in the United Kingdom, Belgium's German-speaking community (the permanent Bürgerdialog), Iceland, and at the OECD, which has catalogued over 700 such processes. Yet critics note uneven follow-through by governments, risks of co-optation, and the broader degradation of public discourse by social-media platforms, disinformation, and shrinking independent media. The contemporary question is whether deliberative institutions can complement electoral democracy at scale — addressing climate, AI, and constitutional reform — or whether they remain symbolic exercises overshadowed by executive power and algorithmically mediated debate.

Key players

Democracy: Promise, Practice, and Retreat

Democracy as a system of competitive elections, civil liberties, and constitutional checks expanded dramatically in three historical waves identified by Samuel Huntington: after 1828, after 1945, and especially after 1974, culminating in the post-1989 collapse of communist regimes. By the mid-2000s, electoral democracies counted for roughly 60% of states. International organizations — the UN, the Council of Europe, the OAS, and the African Union — embedded democratic norms in monitoring missions, peer review, and conditionality. Since around 2006, however, V-Dem, Freedom House, and the Economist Intelligence Unit have tracked sustained democratic regression. India, Hungary, Turkey, and the Philippines have seen the erosion of independent media and judicial autonomy; coups have returned to the Sahel (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea, Gabon); and great-power rivalry has emboldened explicitly autocratic models. Roughly 70% of the world's population is now estimated to live under authoritarian or hybrid regimes. The central debate is whether democracy's difficulties are cyclical — a response to specific economic and security shocks — or reflect a deeper structural challenge from inequality, digital disruption, climate stress, and the appeal of strongman governance. Defenders argue that democracy alone provides legitimate self-correction; critics, both authoritarian and populist, claim it has failed to deliver substantive justice.

Key players

Authoritarian Drift in Contemporary Politics

Unlike the classic coups of the 20th century, contemporary authoritarianism rarely arrives through tanks in the streets. Scholars such as Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way describe 'competitive authoritarianism' and Kim Lane Scheppele's 'autocratic legalism' captures how elected leaders use constitutional amendments, court packing, electoral reform, and media capture to entrench power while maintaining a democratic façade. Hungary under Viktor Orbán, Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Venezuela under Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro, and Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega are paradigmatic cases. The drift is reinforced by transnational dynamics: authoritarian learning and mutual support among China, Russia, Iran, and Belarus; the export of surveillance technology; targeted disinformation campaigns; and the weakening of liberal-internationalist anchors after Brexit and successive crises in the EU and US. The 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Sahel coups (2020–2023), and the consolidation of Bukele's rule in El Salvador via mass incarceration politics illustrate how varied the trajectories are. Debates now focus on early-warning indicators, the role of constitutional courts and electoral commissions, the responsibility of opposition parties and civil society, and the leverage of external actors — sanctions, conditionality, and rule-of-law mechanisms — without triggering nationalist backlash or undermining sovereignty.

Key players

Civil Disobedience and the Ethics of Political Refusal

Civil disobedience — the deliberate, public, and non-violent breach of law in the name of justice — has a long lineage running through Henry David Thoreau's refusal to pay taxes (1846), Mohandas Gandhi's satyagraha campaigns against British rule, the U.S. civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr., and anti-apartheid mobilization in South Africa. Theorists from John Rawls to Hannah Arendt have argued that such acts can strengthen, rather than weaken, constitutional democracies by exposing unjust laws to public scrutiny. In the 21st century, civil disobedience has taken new forms: climate movements (Extinction Rebellion, Letzte Generation, Soulèvements de la Terre), pro-democracy mobilization in Hong Kong (2014, 2019–2020), Belarus (2020), and Iran (2022–2023), digital whistleblowing by figures such as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning, and sanctuary movements protecting migrants. States have responded with increasingly severe legal tools — anti-protest laws in the UK, France, and several US states; terrorism designations; and prosecutions for 'ecological sabotage'. The contemporary question is where to draw the line between legitimate dissent, militant protest, and criminality, and how democracies should treat conscientious lawbreakers without either capitulating to mob rule or criminalizing the very civic action that has historically renewed them.

Key players

Equality: From Formal Right to Material Condition

Equality is a foundational claim of modern politics: equality before the law (Article 7 of the 1948 Universal Declaration), equality of political rights, and, in the social-democratic tradition, equality of opportunity and condition. Yet the gap between formal and substantive equality has widened in recent decades. The World Inequality Lab reports that the top 10% capture about 52% of global income and 76% of wealth, while the bottom 50% receive roughly 8% of income. Gender pay gaps persist at around 20% globally, and the World Bank estimates that COVID-19 pushed an additional 70 million people into extreme poverty. Legal frameworks have expanded — CEDAW (1979), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006), marriage equality in over 35 jurisdictions, anti-discrimination directives in the EU — but implementation is uneven, and backlash movements have rolled back reproductive rights (notably the 2022 Dobbs decision in the United States) and LGBTQ+ protections in Hungary, Uganda, and elsewhere. Climate change and AI raise new equality questions about who bears costs and who shapes governance. The debate today is whether democracies can deliver redistribution and recognition simultaneously, how to reconcile universal rights with group-specific remedies, and whether rising inequality is itself a driver of democratic decay.

Key players

Infra-Politics: Everyday Resistance and the Hidden Transcript

The concept of 'infrapolitics' was developed by anthropologist James C. Scott in 'Weapons of the Weak' (1985) and 'Domination and the Arts of Resistance' (1990) to describe the low-profile, often disguised forms of resistance practiced by subordinate groups when open political action is too risky: foot-dragging, gossip, rumor, sabotage, anonymous mockery, and the cultivation of what Scott called a 'hidden transcript' parallel to the official public discourse. Far from being apolitical, these practices sustain capacities for collective action that occasionally erupt into visible mobilization. In the 21st century, infrapolitics has acquired new salience. Workers in gig economies coordinate through informal apps and forums; citizens in authoritarian states circulate memes, VPNs, and coded speech (notably during Hong Kong 2019 and the white-paper protests in China in 2022); women in Iran practiced everyday refusal of hijab norms long before the 2022 uprising; rural and indigenous communities in Latin America and Southeast Asia engage in 'quiet encroachment' on land and services. Scholars such as Asef Bayat ('Life as Politics') have shown how these practices reshape cities and policies without formal organization. The debate is whether infrapolitical practices should be understood as preludes to democratic mobilization, as functional substitutes where formal politics is closed, or as expressions of resignation that authoritarian regimes can tolerate. It also raises questions for democracies themselves about the depoliticization of public life and the spaces in which dissent is now expressed.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for Démocratie ou barbarie. La politique en temps de crise [2026].

Recent reporting to ground your prep

US Job Openings at 6.7M

Trump's Federal Election Strategy

Ukraine Drone Strikes Crimea Power Grid

Federal Court Blocks Trump's Asylum Rules

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

France September 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

Démocratie ou barbarie. La politique en temps de crise [2026]

Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2026Cerisy-la-Salle, FranceIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Citizenship in an Age of Contested Belonging · Political Crises and the Fragility of Constitutional Order · Deliberation and the Quality of Democratic Decision-Making · Democracy: Promise, Practice, and Retreat · Authoritarian Drift in Contemporary Politics · Civil Disobedience and the Ethics of Political Refusal · Equality: From Formal Right to Material Condition · Infra-Politics: Everyday Resistance and the Hidden Transcript

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

France

Role in topic

United States

Role in topic

Hungary

Role in topic

The political trajectory of HUN offers a pertinent example for analyzing the mechanisms of democratic backsliding and the internal and external factors that contribute to such shifts.

India

Role in topic

IND's democratic journey provides a valuable perspective on how large, multicultural societies manage democratic processes and institutions amidst significant demographic and developmental pressures.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Citizenship in an Age of Contested Belonging

Key players

Political Crises and the Fragility of Constitutional Order

Key players

Deliberation and the Quality of Democratic Decision-Making

Key players

Democracy: Promise, Practice, and Retreat

Key players

Authoritarian Drift in Contemporary Politics

Key players

Civil Disobedience and the Ethics of Political Refusal

Key players

Equality: From Formal Right to Material Condition

Key players

Infra-Politics: Everyday Resistance and the Hidden Transcript

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for Démocratie ou barbarie. La politique en temps de crise [2026].

Recent reporting to ground your prep

US Job Openings at 6.7M

Trump's Federal Election Strategy

Ukraine Drone Strikes Crimea Power Grid

Federal Court Blocks Trump's Asylum Rules

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

France September 2026

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

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La nouvelle géopolitique – La France, l'Europe et le monde

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

International Conference in Support of the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces

International Conference on Counter Terrorism and Human Security (ICCTHS) - Paris

International Conference on Computer Science, Programming and Security (ICCSPS) – June 22, 2026

International Conference on Amnesty, Peace, Politics and Human Rights (ICAPPHR)

Democracy or Digital Dictatorship: Historical and Comparative Perspectives

La nouvelle géopolitique – La France, l'Europe et le monde

Frequently asked questions