The relationship between Political Theory and politics

Time: 10 am-6 pm

Almost any Political Theory aspires to address itself to a chosen political context, to speak to politics, and to be, at least in this sense, political. Recently thriving debates about “realism” or “(non-) ideal theory” in Political Theory have taken up this long-standing issue and at least
implicitly focus on the following question: how are different strands of contemporary Political Theory related to politics?

The answers that these debates have advanced are often offered in terms of a dichotomy between “idealism” and “realism” and of rephrasing the question as a problem of application of Political Theory. Is this all there is to say about the relationship? This question is all the more pressing, as thinking about the relationship between Political Theory and its political context is directly connected to another question that looms large in current debates: in which senses is Political Theory political?

This conference intends to further scrutinize this complex set of questions and the answers that current debates have so far offered.

In order to register and for any queries regarding this event please email Janosch Prinz  at [email protected] until 15 May 2013. There is no conference fee and a lunch as well as refreshments will be provided.

Please find a detailed programme below:

From 9.30 am: Registration

10.00 – 11.30 Panel 1: Theoretical perspectives on the interface between political theory and politics

Chair: Dr. Inanna Hamati-Ataya, Sheffield

Joshua Forstenzer, Sheffield: Deweyan Experimentalism as Method in Political Philosophy

Dom O’Mahony, Cambridge: Morality, Ethics & Politics

Karsten Schubert, Leipzig/Bonn: Overcoming Post-Structuralism’s Negative Idealism. Towards A Realist and Critical Theory of Good Institutions

11.30 – 12.00 coffee break

12.00 – 13.30 Keynote lecture by Prof. Michael Freeden, Nottingham: Real and unreal realisms
Chair: Janosch Prinz, Sheffield

13.30-14.30 sandwich lunch

14.30 – 16.00 Panel 2: A realist challenge to liberal political theory?
Chair: Dr. Holly Lawford-Smith, Sheffield

Carlo Argenton, LSE: The Wars of Religion and the Historical Justification of the Liberal State

P. MacKenzie Bok, Cambridge: Reading A Theory of Justice as a political intervention

Lorna Finlayson, PhD, Cambridge: With radicals like these, who needs conservatives? ‘Realism’ and ‘idealism’ in political philosophy

16.00 – 16.30 coffee break

16.30 – 18.00 Panel 3: What does/should political theory make of real politics?
Chair: Dr. Matt Sleat, Sheffield

Adam Fusco, York: Secession, Realism, and Political Agency: Towards a Critical Republican Account of Self-Determination

Canihac Hugo, Science Po Bordeaux: When political theory turns political: the social uses of the concept of ‘constitutional patriotism’

Stephen Hussey, Oxford: What do we gain (and lose) by adopting ‘political’ or ‘practice-based’ conceptions of human rights?

Lunch and light refreshments will be provided.