We would like to invite you to submit Panel and individual paper proposals to the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference 2025 special Section ‘The Return of Land Politics: New Imaginaries, Debates and Challenges’. You can review the Section abstract here: https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/SectionDetails/1504
The 2025 conference will take place in Thessaloniki, 26-29th of August 2025. We have space for up to seven Panels as part of the Section. The deadline for submitting Panel and paper proposals is 6 January 2025.
Land has returned as a foundational issue in global politics. The inexorable and intersecting processes of climate change, population expansion, urbanisation and financialisation are placing growing and competing demands on land. While land is resolutely material, its meanings are socially constructed. Whatever meanings predominate in policy and material practice are fundamentally shaped by the power relations that structure who controls land and how policy is made and enacted. Politics provides the arena within which competing meanings of land are governed and contested, the outcomes of which have considerable ramifications for inequality and injustice. The objective of the Section is therefore to examine these contestations and explore the ways in which land shapes, and is shaped by, contemporary political economies. In doing so, it is hoped that the Section will bring together experts from different disciplines that share an interest in the return of land politics.
Section chairs Edward Shepherd and Tim White are open to Panel and paper submissions on any related area, but potential Panels could include topics such as:
- Agrarian Land Politics: Food (In)security and Rural Economies
- The Politics of Land as Colony: Colonial Legacies and Transformations
- Land and Environmental Politics: Development, Ownership and Conservation
- The Politics of Land and Technology: Digital Mapping, Surveillance and Ownership
The call for Panels and papers is now open. You can access the ECPR guidelines online - but in summary:
- Panels need to be submitted with named papers and authors.
- Papers submitted as part of a Panel do not need to be resubmitted individually.
- Panels should include 3-5 Papers.
- Paper presenters are expected to serve as discussants for one paper within their Panel.
- If a Paper has more than one author, the person making the proposal will be listed as the Paper Presenter.
- Paper authors need to upload their full Paper to the ECPR website via their My ECPR profile or email it to the Panel Chair, Discussant and fellow Paper givers before 15 July to give their fellow Panellists time to read it.
- To make a proposal, Panel Chairs/Co-Chairs, Discussants, Paper Presenters and Co-Authors must have a My ECPR profile. If you don’t already have one, it takes just a few clicks to create.
- Individual papers can also be submitted to the Section directly (rather than as part of a Panel proposal). These can either be allocated by the Section chairs to an existing Panel, or used to assemble a new Panel – depending on capacity.
We look forward to receiving your submissions – but in the meantime, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us should you have any questions about the Section. Any questions about the Panel and paper submission process should be directed to ECPR:
Best wishes,
Edward Shepherd –
Tim White -
