Call for Papers: Law and Mass Persuasion Conference at Senate House, London (12 March 2027, No Registration Fee)

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS), School of Advanced Study, University of London, invites proposals for a one-day conference on Law and Mass Persuasion, to be held at Senate House, London, on 12 March 2027. The conference is convened by Professor Anat Rosenberg (IALS) and Dr. Alexander Damianos (University of Kent, IALS).

The call describes mass persuasion as a constitutive feature of democratic life that helps secure democratic legitimacy and viability while also threatening both. The conference asks what role law plays in the relationship between democracy and mass persuasion, historically and in contemporary societies.

• Law as a regulating and shaping force: how legal regimes have constituted, licensed and constrained persuasion, including freedom of speech, freedom of thought and censorship; advertising and consumer law; media governance and platform regulation; election finance and electoral law; and the regulation of international propaganda and information warfare.
• Law as a tool of persuasion: the persuasive work of constitutions, courts, trials and legislation; law's claims to reason, neutrality and expertise; and the affective, enchanted and non-rational registers on which legal authority has relied.
• Law as an object of persuasive campaigns: legal institutions and actors as targets of mass persuasion, from populist attacks on courts and judges to campaigns and social movements for and against legal reform, and contests over what counts as lawful, expert or true.

The organisers are also interested in work that places today's platforms, targeted persuasion, generative media and information warfare within a longer arc of democratic formations, from antiquity to the present, and in work on the persuasive milieus within which law operates: media technologies, spaces of assembly, literacies, financial models, regimes of expertise and assumptions about human psychology.

The approach is deliberately open-ended. Contributions are welcome from law, history, political theory, philosophy, classical studies, rhetoric, literary and narrative studies, media and communications, visual and affect studies, environmental humanities, STS and digital humanities, as well as from creative and archival practice. The call places no nationality restriction on applicants.

The online submission form asks for:

• Full name, title, pronouns and institutional affiliation
• Title of your presentation
• An abstract of up to 300 words
• A short bio of up to 200 words
• Whether you need financial help with travel, and whether you need financial help with accommodation
• Your email address

There is no registration fee. According to the call, some travel support may be available, and the form adds that limited funding may be made available to help speakers without other funding with travel and accommodation. Indicate on the form if you need support to take part.

Submit your proposal through the official Microsoft Forms submission form linked from the call. The call gives the closing date as 22 November without stating the year; for a conference on 12 March 2027 this means 22 November 2026. The call does not state a closing time, so submit early on that day.

The call and the form give no contact email; submissions and requests for travel or accommodation support go through the form.