16-20 May

Esch-Belval, Esch-sur-Alzette, Dudelange

From 16th to 20th of May, 2022 the Platform for Participatory Democracy / University of Luxembourg hosted the fifth edition of the International Summer School “Participation and Democracy”. Following the previous editions, the summer school aimed at deepening the reflections on the functioning of our representative democracies and on the different democratic processes – more or less innovative – aiming at promoting a more direct and deliberative participation of citizens.

Aimed at students in political and social sciences, as well as at practitioners wishing to strengthen their skills, the Summer School offered a week of interactive and personalized training with internationally recognized teachers. It offered a personalized and interactive week of training with internationally recognized teachers. It provided adapted support to students at the end of their master’s degree and to doctoral students at different stages of their progress. It also allowed practitioners the opportunity to put their practices in dialogue with the evolutions of governance and citizen participation. The ambition was to confront participants with the research practices of experienced researchers, while giving them an opportunity to present their work and receive comments and recommendations from invited speakers, but also from other participants.

This summer school was the result of a strong collaboration between five French-speaking universities of excellence: Sciences Po Bordeaux, Université Laval, Université libre de Bruxelles, Université de Lausanne and Université du Luxembourg. This makes it a unique school in the field of French-speaking social and political sciences, particularly through its ability to compare approaches, national cases and their transformations. The specificity of this school is that it is one of the few in Europe to make French the main working language, even if English is used for some interventions. The present edition marked the first edition of the school in Luxembourg after it was held twice in Bordeaux in 2016 and 2021, in Laval in 2017, in Brussels in 2018 and in Lausanne in 2020.

This edition was also an opportunity to take a look at the numerous participatory experiences in Luxembourg and to salute the fruitful collaboration between four actors involved in the study and promotion of democracy in Luxembourg: the Luxembourg Platform for Participatory Democracy (PLDP), the Chair of Research in Parliamentary Studies, ETICC and the city of Dudelange as a pilot city in participatory democracy.

The school was organized around the following themes:

• Is there a demand for more participation in the age of disinformation?
• State of play of citizen consultations
• Youth participation and participatory budget
• Citizen participation in third places: the case of Esch2022 European Capital of Culture
• Digitalisation of political campaigns and effects on participation

Scientific coordination

Raphaël Kies (Uni.lu, PLDP)

Ekaterina Chirkova (Uni.lu, PLDP)

Emilien Paulis (Uni.lu, PLDP)

Scientific committee

Raphaël Kies (Uni.lu, PLDP)

Oscar Mazzoleni (University of Lausanne)

Eric Montigny (Laval University)

Jean-Benoît Pilet (Université Libre de Bruxelles)

Administrative and logistic coordination

Raphaël Kies (Uni.lu, PLDP)

Ekaterina Chirkova (Uni.lu, PLDP)

Albert Barseghyan (Uni.lu, PLDP)