CFP: International PhD Conference Thinking Conflict and Resilience in Society

Centre for Ethics as a Study in a Human Value, University of Pardubice and the project Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building (CoRe) are pleased to announce call for abstracts for a three-day graduate international conference Thinking Conflict and Resilience in Society that will take place on September 16th-18th, 2024, at the University of Pardubice, Czechia.

Conflict is something that is unpleasant, irritating, disruptive, and even harmful. At the same time, however, its role in bringing about changes in both morality and law is undeniable. Given that moral and legal conflicts are an inherent part of human experience, this conference aims to explore how we could strike a balance between the benefits and harms of conflicts. 

One way to understand this balancing act is with the notion of “resilience”. Being resilient toward conflicts means that we are able to harvest its benefits, while avoiding its harms. In recent times, however, we are witnessing a striking erosion of resilience toward conflicts in the form of disintegration of the rule of law, heightened levels of polarization, and heightened antagonism among ideological opponents. All of this is especially alarming in the year coined as “the year of democracy”, with over 80 elections taking place worldwide. 

Thus, this conference endeavors to explore what, if anything, has led to the erosion of resilience and, more importantly, how we can regain it.

 We welcome submissions by doctoral students from the fields of philosophy, law, political studies, and sociology. We would like to especially encourage the members of under-represented groups to submit. Suitable topics include (but are not limited to):

• The nature of conflict
• The necessity of conflict for democracy and the rule of law
• Benefits, drawbacks, and dangers of conflicts for democratic societies
• Polarization and conflict as a new phenomenon
• Conflict and post-truth
• Overcoming conflicts & the role of law: mitigating or fostering conflicts?
• Conflict as antagonism, conflict as agonism
• Building resilience toward conflicts