International Symposium
Civil Society, Political Participation and Happiness
May 23 - May 25, 2013
Mounting public debt at national, regional and municipal levels is the lament of the day heard from Athens to Rome, from Washington to Tokyo, from Duisburg to Remscheid. Governments are more and more constrained in the services they can provide as annual interest payments on debt keep rising. Under the circumstances the social commitment of private actors, be they corporations or citizens, becomes ever more important. Other than altruistic philanthropy, what are the incentives underlying civic involvement? Recent findings in the field of happiness studies suggest that people who engage in community service and contribute in other ways to society are happier than those who do not get involved. However, beyond this conspicuous correlation little is known about the conditions and specific motivations of this kind of behaviour, and much is still to be learnt about how individual life satisfaction is influenced by social awareness, trust in institutions, etc. and social commitment.
While the determinants and correlates of well-being have been a topic of research in the interdisciplinary field of happiness studies for many years now, the number of studies which take political participation and civic engagement into account is – in spite of the recent surge for happiness – still rather limited. Although these topics have been studied in traditional disciplines like sociology, psychology and political science, the studies in those fields, however, often neglect happiness and social well-being in their analysis. The intention of this sympoium was, by bringing together a select group of experts from the fields of happiness studies, economics, sociology and political science, to shed light on the complex interconnectedness of civil society, political participation and life satisfaction in the functioning and development of society.
The findings of the workshop will be published in a special issue of the journal “Voluntas” late 2014.
Presentations
Day 1 May 23rd (Thursday)
19:00 – 20:30
Public opening lecture
Christopher Pleister, Federal Agency for Financial Market Stabilisation, FMSA
Florian Coulmas
Day 2 May 24th (Friday)
09:30 – 11:00
Session 1: Setting the stage: Civil Society, Political Involvement and Happiness
Bernard Enjolras, Centre for Research on Civil Society & Voluntary Sector
Paul Dekker, Tilburg University
11:30 – 13:00
Session 1: Setting the stage: Civic Engagement and Social Well Being
Elvira Cicognani, University of Bologna
Carola Hommerich
14:30 – 16:00
Session 2: Antecedents and consequences of political participation (part I)
Alois Stutzer, University of Basel
Matthew S. Winters, University of Illinois
Tim Tiefenbach
16:30 – 18:00
Session 2: Antecedents and consequences of political participation (part II)
Phoebe Stella Holdgrün
Robin LeBlanc, Washington and Lee University
Day 3 May 25th (Saturday)
09:30 – 11:00
Session 3: Social movements (part I)
Barbara Holthus
Koichi Hasegawa, Tohoku University Sendai
11:30 – 13:00
Session 3: Social movements (part II)
Barbara Holthus
Patricia Steinhoff, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Millie Creighton, The University of British Columbia