ONLINE: Democratic Socialism in Global Perspective

press release: Join us for a free week-long conference discussing the critical issues facing the left globally today. You will hear from social movement leaders, activists, elected socialists and radical scholars from Latin America, North America and Europe as they talk about their experiences, analyze the world, and provide their strategic visions for the left globally.

Visit the Conference Website

To attend an event you must register in advance (click on the link above). You will be sent a confirmation email after registering, and later you will be sent a link to join the zoom call, along with instructions on how to do this. If you do not receive the meeting link please make sure to check your junk mail folder. For any additional information on how to use the technology please email trongone@wisc.edu

WHY THIS CONFERENCE?

Over the last two decades, each wave of emancipatory politics around the globe has encountered significant reversals and setbacks when faced with the structural power and logic of capital and the state. And while the radical left has enjoyed moments of electoral and ideological resurgence in parts of the world, the main beneficiaries of the crisis of neoliberalism have been populist and authoritarian right forces. There is a great deal to be learned from investigating the fortunes of the left in electoral processes over the last two decades. In particular, it is important to analyze the strategic dilemmas faced by progressive parties and movements, along with an analysis of the possibilities, limitations, challenges and opportunities for a left transformative project in the 21st century.

The New Politics Conference 2021 will contribute to developing a theoretically informed analysis of the long-term challenges, prospects, promises and pitfalls of the left within a variety of national contexts. The conference will facilitate a dialogue between activists and scholars in the Americas and other regions of the world, with the goal of publishing a book and a series of related materials (short videos, podcasts, academic and journalistic articles, a dedicated website, etc.) that will be of long-term use to both activists and analysts.

The most important of the questions to be discussed are those that have long preoccupied the left, but which remain very much at the center of debate – most fundamentally, the content of the project or vision of a future society that it seeks to advance, and the kinds of state transformations, social bases, alliances, and organized collective capacities and political formations needed to bring it about.

THIS EVENT IS HAS BEEN ORGANIZED BY THE HAVENS WRIGHT CENTER FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE AND THE TRANSNATIONAL INSTITUTE.

COSPONSORS FOR THIS EVENT INCLUDE THE DEMOCRACY COLLABORATIVE, THE ROSA LUXEMBURG STIFTUNG NEW YORK OFFICE, THE UW-MADISON JEAN MONNET EUROPEAN UNION CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FOR COMPARATIVE POPULISM, THE UW LATIN AMERICAN, CARIBBEAN AND IBERIAN STUDIES PROGRAM.

FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC