Workshop Report: Rethinking the Concept of Politicisation

15 February 2018

Photo: Wiesner

Report on the workshop held on February 8/9, 2018

Rethinking the Concept of Politicisation
International Workshop, chaired by Claudia Wiesner (Acting Professor for Comparative Politics, Hamburg University)

Politicisation currently is a topic and a concept that is quite much discussed in Political Science, particularly regarding European Integration. But “politicisation” is also a concept that is contested in its definitions and understandings. The workshop “Rethinking the concept of politicisation” hence aimed at discussing the newly emerging concept and research field in the Political and Social Sciences. The state of the art shows a separation into different subfields: Politicisation of the EU and in International Relations are discussed on the one hand, but politicisation and depoliticisation are also thematised in Political Theory and Comparative Politics. A crucial aim in this context was to discuss how the concept of politicisation respectively is understood and operationalised. What is considered as politicisation depends on the interpretation of what is politics/political. The workshop successfully brought together these different strands, as well as more theoretical and more empirical approaches, and made them mutually fruitful.

Chair and organiser Claudia Wiesner (Hamburg) opened the workshop with an account on the different theoretical and conceptual perspectives on politicisation. Virginie van Ingelgom (Louvain) and Claire Dupuy (Grenoble) then focused on the concept of depoliticisation. Kari Palonen (Jyväskylä) and Veith Selk (Trier/Darmstadt) both presented different theory-anchored accounts of how to conceptualise politicisation. Dirk Jörke (Darmstadt), Meike Schmidt-Gleim (Vienna) and Seongcheol Kim (WZB Berlin) all covered a crucial and highly relevant topic – the rise of populism.

On the second day, the focus was set more strongly on politicisation in supra- and international arenas. Philip Liste (Hamburg) started by discussing politicisation via international law. Niilo Kauppi (Jyväskylä) focused on reflexive approaches to politicisation. Michael Zürn (Berlin) discussed the politicisation of international authority. Hansjörg Trenz (Copenhagen), Pieter de Wilde (Trondheim) and Christian Rauh (Berlin) each focused on the European Union from theoretical as well as empirical perspectives. The discussants Wolfgang Merkel (Berlin), Andreas von Staden (Hamburg) and Lisa Anders (Leipzig) further emphasised the controversialness and different aspects of the concept of politicisation.

The workshop was organised with the kind financial support of the Hamburg Centre on Globalisation and Governance and the Project „Transformations of Concepts and Institutions in the European Polity” at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.