JU Institute of Sociology the Polish Sociological Association are inviting you to attend an international conference entitled Law and Society in the Face of Systemic Changes, which will be held at the JU Collegium Maius. The event is organised under the honorary patronage of JU Rector Prof. Wojciech Nowak.

The main topic of the conference is the relations between these transformations of social life and law and their internal dynamic. The objective of the conference is to exchange knowledge and discuss the challenges that both society and lawmakers face in relation to global economic changes, including the crisis of liberalism and the renewed importance of the state’s economic role, political polarisation, increased populist tendencies, dramatic changes in technology (especially the information revolution), demographic changes and mass migration, and transformations in the public sphere.

The organisers are particularly interested in the relations between law and society in the context of changes in the constitutional order and the breakdown in the separation of powers, social mobilisation in response to threats to civil liberties, and ways of using the law as both an instrument of repression (of various social groups, including the political opposition), and a tool of social, political and economic emancipation of disadvantaged groups.

The conference’s keynote speaker will be Dr Ulrich K. Preuß from the Hertie School of Governance.

The conference will be held in Polish and English.

Suggested thematic areas

PART I. The public sphere, political divides, civic activity

• The public sphere in terms of the new institutionalism
• Political conflict and the public sphere
• Discourse in the public space: forms and dynamic
• New media – politics – public debate
• Public administration: transformations in the system of state governance
• New social movements and civil rights

 PART II. Society and law

• Sociological theories and research on the social functioning of law
• Social reception of law and the judicial system
• Law and justice: social functions and dysfunctions of law
• Civil rights in the context of relations between domestic and international (EU) law
• The constitution in contemporary states and societies
• The place of courts in the constitutional order and social life