Call for Papers: Democracy Under Pressure, Conditions of the Authoritarian Turn Yesterday and Today, WU Vienna, 24-26 May 2027

The interdisciplinary conference Democracy Under Pressure: Conditions of the Authoritarian Turn Yesterday and Today will be held at WU Vienna (Vienna University of Economics and Business) from 24 to 26 May 2027. It brings law and socioeconomics into conversation to examine the current rise of authoritarian tendencies around the world, the key threats to democratic governance, and the socioeconomic, legal and institutional responses that could strengthen democratic resilience.

The conference engages with four thinkers shaped by the interwar crisis, Friedrich Hayek, Karl Polanyi, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, whose competing accounts of the proper economic and constitutional order still offer a framework for today's challenges. It explicitly welcomes contributions that bring non-Western political and legal traditions into dialogue with these thinkers.

It is organised by the Institute for Law and Governance and the Institute for Spatial and Social-Ecological Transformations (ISSET) at WU Vienna, together with the International Karl Polanyi Society (IKPS). Keynotes will be delivered by Katharina Pistor (Columbia University) and Quinn Slobodian (Boston University).

• How current legal and socioeconomic conditions shape the authoritarian turn: economic developments and narratives, the transformation of public and private law to counter democratic erosion, defending the rule of law, constitutionalism and minority rights amid democratic backsliding, and authoritarian dynamics in the Global South and post-colonial contexts.
• Exploring the current crises of democracy by integrating law and socioeconomics: capitalism and democracy, political, civic, property and economic rights, competing conceptions of equality, and the concentration of economic and political power.
• What the diverging worldviews of the four thinkers reveal about democratic crisis: conditions for democratic resilience, diagnoses of fascism, the Kelsen-Schmitt debate on the guardian of the constitution and its stakes as constitutional courts face capture or restructuring, and readings of the four thinkers alongside Global South, development and decolonial scholarship.
• Key learnings from interwar debates for current developments: socioeconomic causes of constitutional fragility, whether current far-right and authoritarian movements are new forms of fascism, pathways to democratic resilience, and the limits of the historical analogy.

The organisers welcome individual abstracts and complete panel proposals from scholars in law, socioeconomics, political economy, constitutional theory, political science, economic sociology, history and related research fields, "at all career stages, and from all regions, including the Global South". Indian scholars and researchers are therefore eligible. The submission forms list positions from PhD candidate to Professor, as well as Independent Researcher and Other.

• Individual abstract: up to 400 words, submitted as one PDF file through the individual submission form. Accepted papers are placed into panels put together by the organisers. Co-authors are listed in the form.
• Panel proposal: a short description of the overall idea and theme of the panel (up to 400 words) plus the abstract of each paper in the panel (up to 200 words each), submitted as one PDF file through the panel submission form, with the names, institutions and email addresses of all panel participants.
• Contributions are selected through double-blind peer review.

The conference is free of charge. The organisers state that they cannot provide funding for participants.

Submit your abstract or panel proposal as one PDF file through the online forms on the conference website (individual submission or panel submission) by 15 October 2026. Acceptance will be confirmed by 30 November 2026. If your proposal is accepted, you must then register for the conference to confirm your participation; the registration details and deadline will be included in the acceptance email.

• Verena Madner, Head of the Institute for Law and Governance, WU Vienna, and Vice-President of the Austrian Constitutional Court
• Stefan Mayr, Deputy Head of the Institute for Law and Governance, WU Vienna
• Andreas Novy, Head of the Institute for Spatial and Social-Ecological Transformations, WU Vienna, and President of the International Karl Polanyi Society