Call For Papers
International Conference
« After November 5th: The Challenges to U.S. Democracy
in the Era of Trumpism »
Chicago University in Paris (France) – January 23 & 24, 2025

Far from being a mere riot, the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack marked a turning point in
the history of the American Republic. For the first time, the peaceful transition of power between two
presidential administrations was contested by the outgoing President, thus encapsulating the idea of
“democratic backsliding” popularized in 2018 by political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel
Ziblatt in their book, How Democracies Die. The January 2025 transition may very well turn out to be
peaceful, but as of now, the main trends of the U.S. election point towards a disputed outcome with a
potential for all-too-real violent outbursts, whoever wins.

While crises may open up new political opportunities, they also contribute to developing new
analytical frameworks. This forthcoming international conference – held at The University of Chicago
in Paris on January 23-24, 2025 and co-organized with several French universities – seeks to explore
the different facets of the ongoing American political crisis as well as the reasons for American
democratic resilience against the backdrop of Trumpism. Since its founding, American democracy has
survived no less than a civil war, many major international conflicts and countless social, economic
and financial crises that elsewhere toppled stable governments and, more often than not, led to the
demise of political regimes. “Resilience” – a concept originally used in the field of physics to mean a
material’s capacity to withstand pressure until breaking point – has now taken on another meaning in
social sciences, where it tends to refer to the ability to reinvent or rebuild itself, something the United
States has largely demonstrated.

The current situation highlights idiosyncratic features of U.S. politics: the denial of the 2020
election results that culminated in the assault on the Capitol, the confluence of judicial and electoral
dynamics, and the deregulation of the media and financial sectors. But it also shares some broad
features with Western democracies: verbal and physical violence, the impact of social networks on the
spread of disinformation and “conspiracy theories,” the construction of “the people” as the main
political frame of reference (raising the question of “populism” as a category of analysis), the rise of
the far right and of a left that stands against social democracy, the construction of immigration as a
major public problem, and inflation. As a result, any consideration of the challenges facing
democracies cannot ignore the case of the United States, which during this current election is a
paradigmatic example with global consequences.

Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, U.S. democracy has sent out mixed signals.
While observers repeatedly point to the many distressing examples of democratic backsliding (the
abuse of presidential power, congressional gridlock, a right-wing Supreme Court, the high cost of
political campaigns, public distrust and even cynicism, partisan polarization, the division of the public
into increasingly separate media “silos,” etc.), Americans seem to be more involved in the public
sphere than ever before. Presidential election turnout has risen significantly since 2008. The
emergence of Trump has led to a new wave of mobilization, both on the right with his electoral base
and on the left with a protean “Resistance” that is national in scope. Social and cultural issues
(abortion, healthcare) as well as environmental issues (climate change) are powerful factors in the
politicization of the left, while the Trump movement seems engaged in a veritable crusade to protect
an America that it fears will disappear.

This conference will take place over two days and will explore the following four subjects:
– The “rules of the game” in democracy. The “constitutional hardball” diagnosed by jurist Mark
Tushnet in 2004 has reached a milestone since Trump burst onto the national political scene:
institutions, just like their underlying norms, were pushed to their limits, like a gigantic politicaljudicial
“stress test.” If Biden positioned himself as the “restorer” of traditional balances and a
peaceful public debate, it is clear that the results are not there: the configuration of the current
election, with the collision of electoral and judicial temporalities, is only the latest and most
striking illustration. Papers that focus on institutional, partisan, electoral and judicial ruptures,
their origin and impact, or even electoral financing and ideological mutations will naturally be at
the heart of this conference.

– Democracy in action. Democracy is never limited to its operating rules. It is, to use the
traditional Tocquevillian formulation, a “social state” which is based on citizen activism. It is with
this in mind that the conference will seek to analyze all citizen mobilizations (at the local, state
and national levels), whether on the right (fsuch as the Make America Great Again movement) or
on the left (for example Black Lives Matter), as well as different politicization processes from
“infra-politics” to more traditional political debates. The media, which embodies a fragmented
and polarized public space, as well as their technological, legal and economic evolutions, will be
discussed. Social, cultural and environmental issues, but also the definition and application of
such public policies, fall into this category.

– Democracy as an emotional experience. Democracy is also a feeling. It relies on a sense of
belonging, the feeling of the governed that they are being listened to, and a sense of
accountability on the part of those in power. However, there is a widespread perception in the
U.S. that democracy has been confiscated by an unaccountable and even corrupt elite. This, in
turn, fuels apathy, conspiracy theories, cynicism, and anger. Trump’s Big Lie argument has been
so popular that it has become a founding myth for contemporary Republicans and is shared by
countless of his voters, who experience a feeling of dispossession. We will consequently value
papers dealing with the urban/rural fault line and with “forgotten America” (its political weight,
its diverse social characteristics and its changing faces).

– Democracy and international relations. When dealing with foreign policy questions, the stress
will be on the international echoes of the domestic political sphere, especially how international
issues are “nationalized” either through the regular institutional back and forth of the world’s
preeminent superpower (particularly in the Senate) or through other channels, such as online
activities (social media, fake news, AI), electoral activism, social movements, or the influence of
transnational networks (may they be political, racial, or economic).

The nature of this conference will be transdisciplinary in order to allow a dialogue between different
approaches. We are expecting papers from a variety of fields including political science, history, law,
sociology, economics, international relations and American studies.

Paper proposals (which should include the title of the paper, author(s), and a 10-line abstract) must be
submitted before October 2, 2024, to the following address: USdemocracyjan25@gmail.com
Acceptance will be notified by October 21, 2024.