The DVPW (German association for political science) meeting of the section on comparative politics (twitter #DVPWGIGA) was held in my hometown Hamburg at the GIGA (German institute for Global Area Studies) in February 2015. Once again (after the IDCAR confernce in december '14) a pleasent reason for me to return to my hometown for professional reasons.

In general the conference had attracted more than 220 researchers from all over Europe. This alone can probably already be judged quite a success. The wide -range of panel themes to some extend resembled the diversity of topics within the subfield of comparative politics (find the program of the conference with all paper titles & authors here). However there was some clear centres of gravity that could be identified. 

Overall there were four panels with a total of 28 papers dealing with authoritarian regimes. A clear sign that the trend towards political science research on non-democratic contexts is still ongoing. Other main themes at the conference were political behavoir and attitutes, regionalism and regional institutions as well as democratization and transitology.  I participated in the conference with two papers in two different panels both dealing with non-democratic regimes.

The first panel was entitled: "Legitimation, policy instruments and policy performance in autocracies" and organized by Steffen Kailitz (Hannah-Arendt-Institute Dresden) and Stefan Wurster (University of Heidelberg). Most of the contributions in this panel aimed at improving our conceptual understanding of legitimacy and legitimation processes under non-democratic circumstances and to increase our ability to operationalize and measure different types and mechanisms of legitimacy. I presented a paper dealing with legitimation strategies via the institutional reform process initiated by the Morrocan regime in the aftermath of the 2011 demonstrations (working paper paper can be found here).

The second panel was organnized by the IDCAR initiators Christian von Soest and Thomas Richter (both GIGA). Accordingly the panel was named: "Democracy Prevention by International Means: Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes". In this rich panel with contributions on the post soviet space, the Gulf countries, Sub-Sahara Africa and the Middle East by scholars from all career stages I presented a draft outline on my conceptual dissertation chapter entitled: "The Influence of Authoritarian Learning on Regime Survival in times of Contentious Politics" (the working paper can be found here).

Just before the holidays I was participating at a confernce in my hometown Hamburg. The IDCAR Network kick-off Conference in Hamburg at the German Institute for Global Area Studies (GIGA). The Acronym IDCAR stands for International Diffusion and Cooperation of Authoritarian Regimes. The Network which is sponsored by the Leibniz foundation aims to bring together scholars working on relevant issues with different regional, theoretical and methodological backgrounds in order to foster and institutionalize exchange between them. It wants to lay the ground for further more specific research projects and collaboration between the participants. The participation in the conference was partly coming home to my alma mater as the GIGA is also cooperating with the University of Hamburg, from where I received my undegraduate degree. As an undergaduate student I oftentimes visited the GIGA to work in the library or listen to talks and debates just as the one that started of the IDCAR conference on the first evening. Being back a few years later as a participant was a very nice possibility to meet people that have already known during my studies in Hamburg.

Although the first conference (as Christoph Stefes rightly pointed out during the conference) was dominated by comparativists from political science field the network aims to bring together scholars from International Relations, Area Studies and Comparative Politics to discuss a common research agenda.

Amidst the grey in grey and rainy weather in my hometown Hamburg the conference was overall in high spirits and most of the participants seemed to be looking forward to further exchange of the network. It was interesting to hear that other scholars working on similar topics also encountered similar problems of operationalization and empirical assessment of diffusion and cooperation processes between authoritarian regimes. I am convinced that a continuation of exchange and discussions within the network will lead to progress that benefits all participants and hopefully leads to new insides and a more comprehensive understanding of diffusion and cooperation processes amongst authoritarian regimes.

The list of the participating scholars was impressive and the paper presentations and discussions were very interesting and inspiring. Especially because the international dimension of authoritarian rule has thus far received little attention by the scholarly community. For me as a PhD student working on authoritarian learning during the Arab Uprisings the IDCAR network provides a unique opportunity to discuss current research projects related to the topic and meet distinguished scholars working on similar issues. I am happy to participate in the network for the WZB (Social Science Center Berlin) with my supervisor and looking forward to future workshops and conferences.

In the beginning of November I was very happy to be invited to present my thoughts on the Moroccan political system at the workshop "What Makes New Forms of Authoritarianism so Attractive? - Rethinking the Shades between Authoritarian and Democratic Rule" in Berlin organized by the Center for Advanced Studies South East Europe (CAS), my home institution the Social Science Center Berlin (WZB) with support of the Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin - Center for Advanced Studies Berlin (WiKo).

Here the official abstract by the organizers:
The famous slogan “the end of history” proved to be a historical misjudgment. Instead of linear progress towards liberal democracies we are confronted with new setbacks of democratization, emergence of grey-zone regimes between democracy and authoritarianism and new and supposedly attractive forms of authoritarianism. Classical authoritarianism seeks for absolute obedience, is directed against individual freedom and liberties and is always ready to use hard repression against opponents. New authoritarian or grey-zone regimes are chameleon-like – they are able to adjust to new circumstances, they have institutionalized representation of a variety of agents and they even incorporate some democratic procedures like elections and thus create a structure resistant to change. Moreover, they rely mostly only on soft repression and seem to enjoy the support of considerable parts of the people. In Eastern and South Eastern Europe, in the Caucasus, in Asia we are witnessing new semi-democratic or electoral authoritarian regimes, which – under the guise of formal democratic procedures – limit individual freedom and reduce liberties. New forms of authoritarian rule seem to be attractive, flexible and adaptable, and functional alternatives to the regime in some regions such as Asia, Eastern Europe and the Caucasian rim. Regimes able to reconcile competitive elections, multi-party systems, parliaments, constitutions and other elements of rule usually associated with liberal democracies on the one hand side with the functional logic of authoritarianism on the other. They pose new questions and call for deeper rethinking of concepts of authoritarianism and hybrid regimes. 
The guiding questions are: Why are they resilient, endurable, and why do they enjoy a considerable consent of the people?

The Workshop
The workshop was split between conceptual and case-study contributions. I found the question of attractively of authoritarian types of governance an extremely interesting one. My presentation on the techniques of authoritarian governance in Morocco  was closely linked to my interest in investigating legitimacy in authoritarian contexts. More generally, I am particularly interested in legitimacy of authoritarian regimes in during episodes of contentious politics. Questions I deal with concern regime responses’ to protest that aim to bolster or re-establish the legitimacy of the regime. How can regimes successfully overcome moments of crisis and what role does the claimed and perceived legitimacy play in such episodes?

I will continue to deal with these questions, as there are plans for a follow-up workshop, which will be aimed towards as publication. Furthermore I am presenting a paper titled: "Legitimacy through Reform? Institutional Reforms in Morocco 2011 & the Procedural Legitimacy of Contested Regimes." which touches upon many points related to the workshop in Berlin.

All in all the group of scholars brought together for this workshop and the presentations and discussions were very interesting and inspiring. Especially the country studies were very interesting as we covered a wide range of countries which were presented by excellent country experts and the workshop gave an impressions of particularities and similarities between different authoritarian regimes in varying regions of the world. Concluding, I hope this workshop will be followed up upon and there will be an opportunity to present a more nuanced argument with a narrower theoretical approach and a common research question to improve the compatibility of the papers towards a joint output.

In July I presented a paper at the ECPR Graduate Conference in Innsbruck on the Ethnic dimension of cooptation in executives across authoritarian regimes and the impact of inclusion and exclusion on regime survival. I am writing the paper with a colleague from my Almer Mater the CIS at the ETH Zürich.

The panel was titled: "Cultural diversity as a hindering or supporting factor for regime change and stability" unfortunately the two other papers presented in this panel were not really focussing on authoritarian or regime stability but simply on case studies of ethnically heterogenious countries and the degree to which this heterogeneity has been accounted for in the politics of those countries. Or in how far there has been a pattern of inclusion or exclusion over recent decades. Therefore our paper was the only one with a particular focus on an impact of inclusion or exclusion along ethnic lines on regime stability. Nevertheless we received constructive feedback from the conveners and other participants of the panel.

In general the ECPR Graduate conference is a good way for getting a feeling of how bigger political science conferences work and to get first experiences in presenting your own work, discussing and commenting papers or chairing panels. To be honest the overall quality of the panels I visitied was rather moderate. I could not gain as much from most of the presented papers. This might also just be my subjective experience at the Graduate Conference thoug. If you have already been to conferences or presented your work in workshops or collouquia I think the best way to get forward as a PhD student is to present at conferences were actually also other -more senior- people besides your peer PhD students are presenting, discussing and listening.

This is not to say that I have not met nice and interesting people in Innsbruck but lets just say the networking possibilities and learning opportunities are obviously a bit limited due to the fact that all other particiants are also just in their PhD or even still graduate students in their Masters. 
The organization of the event was great and ECPR did a good job. In addition the venue at the University of Innsbruck was simply amazing.

Besides the already mentioned conference panels and organization Innsbruck had a lot to offer aside of the conference too. Located right in between the mountains of the Alps and on the side of a river steming from the glaciers above, the city offers some extraordinary nature escapes in walking distance from tehbusy and touristy old town. The picture below was taken on a 1/2 day hike into the Sihl-valley. Getting out of the busy conference venue and exploring some of teh sorrounding nature was a real treat.