International Workshop Call for Abstracts

Governance for the Human Future: The Centrality of Dialogue

The Journal of Dialogue Studies, in partnership with Global Humanity for Peace Institute at the University of Wales Trinity St David, invites papers that explore the ways international governance processes might be improved by drawing on insights from innovative dialogue theory and good dialogue practices.

Concept Note

Traditional forms of governance have fallen short of dealing with many important global issues, such as: the spread of radical ideologies; and the emergence of authoritarian regimes in democratic societies; and climate change and other environmental problems.

Over the last decades, there have been growing attempts at exploring and integrating alternatives for governance at both grassroots and national levels. The cooperative movement, Well-Being Economy, the New Public Governance, UN 2030 SDGs, youth-led climate actions, European Citizens Assembly, global environmental initiatives, and myriad forms of consortium and alliance are such examples. Inspirational governance models are featured by, for instance, practices of co-governance or collaborative governance, commons-based decision-making, participatory, direct and deliberative democracy, public value co-creation, and dialogic policymaking.

However, despite the promising practices, these models (with a few exceptions) tend to be engaged outside the governance structures and institutional processes. For this reason, we propose to analyse the absence of relational processes and good dialogue practices in governance as a major cause of the failure to achieve a global common good, even when the ends in question are obvious. Relational here refers to the dynamic character of listening, dialogue and collaboration, informing existing structures and institutions in a congenial setting [different from revisionist approaches]. In this sense, we recognise that any new perspectives and understandings gained from the progressive alternatives will not result in the abandonment of established structures and institutions. Instead, these processes and practices can help us imagine innovative ways that dialogue may facilitate the structural and institutional evolution towards more inclusive, participatory and relational paths of future-making.

For this Special Issue of JDS, we seek abstracts that derive insights from such approaches and discuss the centrality of dialogue in governance, e.g. the practices of listening, encountering, sharing, inquiring, appreciating, collaborating, co-creating and other forms of relating that can encourage and enrich the movement towards a more viable human future.

Call for Abstracts

Contributions are invited to consider the following questions:

How might dialogue theory and good dialogue practices contribute positively to the governance processes? In what ways might these insights be applied effectively to international governance?

Specific questions include:

  1. How significant are various theories of dialogue for governance processes? How might these dialogue theories be further developed and enriched?
  2. What dialogue practices might make positive contributions to good governance? How do they do so?
  3. What are the major impediments to meaningful dialogues? How might they be overcome?
  4. What might we learn from non-western approaches to good governance? How is dialogue practised in these approaches?
  5. How might good dialogue practices transform international governance processes?

Contributors should reflect on these and similar questions and critically analyse any published work and field-based studies on these subjects.

The Workshop

Shortlisted abstracts will be developed into a full paper, which will be presented at an international workshop for peer-to-peer dialogue. The event will be extensively publicised with a special issue of the Journal of Dialogue Studies Vol: 11 (2023) and a possibility of an edited book which may follow in the next phase.

We expect this issue to attract high calibre papers that make a contribution to the field.

Editorial Board

  • Prof Scherto Gill, Director, Global Humanity for Peace Institute, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
  • Prof Edward Abbott-Halpin, Principal Orkney College, University of the Highlands and Islands and Open University
  • Dr Ali Moussa Iye, Founder, Afrospectives and Former UNESCO Chief, History and Dialogue Section
  • Dr Sara Silvestri, Department for International Politics, City, University of London
  • Prof Garrett Thomson, Guerrand-Hermes Foundation for Peace, Wooster College
  • Prof Paul Weller, Universities of Coventry and Derby/Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford

Workshop Inquiries

Please send any queries to journal@dialoguesociety.org.

Schedule for Submissions

  • Abstracts: By 16th July 2022 (200-300 words maximum) and CVs (maximum 2 pages, including any personal statement and/or listing of publications or work experience).
  • Shortlisting Abstracts: Abstracts to be shortlistedby the Editorial Board and papers invited by 1st August 2022.
  • Workshop: Selected Abstracts to be invited for a one-day workshop on 10th September 2022.
  • Venue: Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford
  • Full papers: Papers by 15th November 2022 4,000 words minimum – 8,000 words maximum, excluding bibliography.
  • Review: Papers reviewed by the Editorial Board and classed as: Accepted – No Recommendations; Accepted – See Recommendations; Conditional Acceptance – See Recommendations; Not Accepted. By 1st January 2023.
  • Revision: Authors to take peer review into account and resubmit articles. The outcome of the review (including any recommendations for revisions or improvements) communicated to authors by 1st February 2023.
  • Final Papers: Any final amendments to papers to be submitted by 1stMarch 2023
  • The Journal is out in April 2023

Full Paper Submission Procedure

Full Papers should be submitted, in English only, as MS Word documents attached to an email to journal@dialoguesociety.org, no later than 17:00 UK time, 15th November 2022 in order to allow sufficient time for peer review. Authors must indicate at this stage if audio-visual equipment may be required in the presentation of their paper and must give any relevant technical specifications.

The first page of the manuscript should contain:

  • The title
  • The name(s) and institutional affiliation(s) of the author(s)
  • The address, telephone, and the e-mail address of the corresponding author
  • An abstract of 250 words
  • A biography of 250 words
  • 6 keywords

Manuscripts should be approximately 4,000 to 8,000 words, excluding bibliography. Longer manuscripts will be considered only in exceptional circumstances. Articles will be peer-reviewed by the members of the Editorial Board and external expert reviewers.

Style Guide for Contributors

Manuscripts should be presented in a form that meets the requirements set out in Journal’s Article Submission Guidelines, provided here, and Style Guide, provided here.

Copyright

Copyright of the papers accepted to the Workshop will be vested in the Dialogue Society.