UF Center for Latin American Studies
The Struggle from Below: Democracy and Civil Society in the Age of Backsliding
Insights from Africa, Europe, and Latin America
Register for the conference here
The Center for African Studies, the Center for European Studies, the Center for Latin American Studies, and the Raymond and Miriam Ehrlich Chair of Political Science at the University of Florida will host a conference on the role of civil society in the struggle for democracy globally. Increasingly, civil society has become a politicized zone of contention where social forces wage a war of position over hot-button cultural issues and the rule of law. This is true of authoritarian regimes, where some civil society organizations play an important role in the struggle for democracy while others are co-opted into social bulwarks of dictatorship. In democracies, we see contentious battles between civil society organizations that seek to defend and expand liberal democracy, and those who ally with aspirational dictators and authoritarian movements that use contentious social issues to undermine democratic norms of civility and practices in service of their own power. Individual panel will investigate civil society dynamics in the contexts of democratic backsliding, the politics of gender, memory struggles, civic activism, resource politics and the contentious political behavior.
Wednesday, February 5 | 5:00 - 6:30 pm | Reitz 3320
Keynote with Dr. Mark Beissinger: "Civil Society Resistance to Democratic Backsliding"
Thursday, February 6 | 9:00 am - 5:45 pm | Reitz Chamber
Panels: Democratic backsliding, Civic activism, Women and Gender, Gender/LGBTQ+
Friday, February 7 | 9:00 am - 5:30 pm | Reitz Chamber
Panels: Contentious Politics, Resources and the Environment, Memory, Roundtable: Lessons Learned
Sponsors: UF Centers for African Studies, European Studies, and Latin American Studies, and the Raymond and Miriam Ehrlich Eminent Scholar Chair in the Department of Political Science
If you are traveling to Gainesville for our annual conference, we encourage you to review accommodation and parking information to ensure a smooth travel experience. Check here for logistics updates in the lead-up to each year's annual conference.
For over 70 years, the Center for Latin American Studies has hosted annual conferences ranging in topic from business, rural social movements, democracy, Indigenous peoples, ethnography, and more.
