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Welcome to the Official Website of the CCPS Biennial Conference

Next Conference: 3rd BIENNIAL CONFERENCE OF THE CAUCUS FOR A CRITICAL POLITICAL SCIENCE, FEBRUARY 26-28, 2023

Theme: CHALLENGING AUTHORITY      ​

Location: ISLA GRAND BEACH RESORT SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, TEXAS

“Ordinary people exercise power in politics mainly at those extraordinary moments when they rise up in anger and hope, defy the rules that ordinarily govern their daily lives, and, by doing so, disrupt the workings of the institutions in which they are enmeshed. The drama of such events, combined with the disorder that results, propels new issues to the center of political debate, issues previously suppressed by the managers of political parties that depend on welding together majorities. When the new issues fracture or threaten to fracture electoral coalitions, political leaders try to restore order and stem voter defections by proffering reforms. These are the moments that produce democratic moments in political development.”​

– Francis Fox Piven, Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (2006)

The upward transfer of wealth and the dismantling of the welfare state has recently fused with toxic masculinity, militarism, and ethno-nationalism. Tack on the increasing criminalization of dissent and widespread misinformation from media monopolies and a dark shadow dims the prospects for real social and political change. In the face of this grim situation, challenging authority, as Francis Fox Piven suggests, has historically constituted the identity and path forward for the progressive Left.

shitisfuckedupWhat exactly does it mean to challenge authority today? Should critically oriented intellectuals use neoliberal language, tactics and strategies against neoliberalism itself? Must we attack and undermine neoliberalism head-on in the name of a socialist alternative? Is challenging authority ultimately an incomplete project if it lacks a utopian vision for political change? What creative, inspiring and innovative practices and strategies are taking place around the world today that challenge unaccountable authority in the name of a democratic alternative?

The mission of CCPS is to make the study of politics relevant to the struggle for a better world. CCPS 2023 is a space to explore these questions and related themes, including the need to undermine the rising tide of authoritarianism and to articulate a positive progressive vision for political change.

The conference organizers are seeking paper and panel proposals in the following broad areas:

  • Capitalism & Globalization
  • The State & Political Power
  • Class & Class Conflict
  • Race & Ethnicity
  • Gender & Sexuality
  • Political Ecology & the Environment
  • Social Movements & Protest
  • Ideology & Culture
  • Pedagogy, Politics, & the Profession of Political Science

We have left these categories undefined, because one purpose of the conference is to participate in an extended process of redefining political science as a critical social science. We welcome paper and panel proposals that substantively and methodologically challenge official political science as it is represented in the flagship political science association journals with scholarship that extends the intellectual and professional frontiers of the political science discipline. The conference welcomes scholarship that is critically engaged, action-oriented, intersectional, interdisciplinary, or international and global in its focus.

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