Past JCPA and ICPA-Forum Workshops

Kerry Whigham, Assistant Professor and Co-Director of I-GMAP, Binghamton University, SUNY

Susan Appe, Associate Professor, Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy, University at Albany, SUNY

Nadia Rubaii, Professor of Public Administration and Co-Director of I-GMAP, Binghamton University, SUNY (Posthmously)

Despite the pledge of “Never Again” that was first declared in the wake of the Holocaust and which has been repeated too many times to count, genocides, crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and other manifestations of identity-based violence continue to occur with disturbing frequency around the world. Statistical models document factors that heighten risk for such violence, as well as those that improve resilience, but no place is immune from the risk. International agreements obligate nation-states to protect their own and to support or even intervene to prevent atrocity on the part of other countries, yet this responsibility is pushed aside by other domestic and international priorities.

The study and practice of prevention emphasizes a three-point continuum spanning the periods of the upstream (before conflict), midstream (response and mitigation) or downstream (post-conflict rebuilding). However, further understanding of atrocity prevention is traditionally constrained by several characteristics including but not limited to:

1. the challenge of documenting prevention successes (that is, when violence is averted);
2. failures to recognize and respond to early warning signs of identity-based violence, particularly those close to home;
3. research that is siloed within individual academic disciplines;
4. disproportionate attention on early warning at the expense of early response;
5. overreliance on midstream responses in the midst of violence and downstream actions in post-conflict settings rather than upstream prevention; and
6. widespread use of case studies and the absence of systematic and rigorous comparative analyses.

This 21st JCPA and ICPA-Forum Workshop will focus on analyzing successes and failures in atrocity prevention by applying a comparative lens to policies and practices within a country, a region or worldwide. We welcome theoretical and empirical papers that address one or more of the six challenges identified above using systematic and rigorous comparative analysis. We are particularly interested in submissions that examine comparatively:

• the intersection between atrocity prevention and other wicked problems, such as:
  • climate change
  • global pandemics
  • democratic backsliding
  • weaponization of social media, etc.
• the relationships between governmental, civil society, business and/or academic institutions in atrocity prevention;
• novel approaches to atrocity prevention, such as those targeting youth and/or diaspora communities, and/or using strategies related to the creative arts and sport, among others;
• attention to race-based atrocities associated with the colonial genocide of Indigenous peoples, historical enslavement of Africans and the continued disenfranchisement and criminalization of Blackness in the United States and other contexts;
• the use of transitional justice, both juridical and non-juridical, in atrocity prevention, through processes such as criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, memorials, reparations, and/or institutional reforms.

We encourage the submission of papers that focus on countries, regions and populations that have been less prominent in atrocity prevention scholarship, as well as those that involve collaborations with policy makers and atrocity prevention professionals.

McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, McGill University

Daniel Béland, James McGill Professor and Director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada

Patrick Marier, Professor and Concordia University Research Chair in Aging and Public Policy, Concordia Mireille Paquet, Associate Professor of Political Science, Concordia University

While comparative policy analysis is dominated by research that compare different countries with one another, in recent decades we have witnessed a growing body of scholarship devoted to the comparative study of sub-national jurisdictions, within and across countries. This type of research is especially common in federal and devolved countries but comparative policy research on the role of local governments in unitary states is also increasingly prevalent, in an era where territorial government is high on the agenda of policymakers in a number of policy sub-systems. In this proposed workshop, scholars interested in the comparative analysis of public policy at the sub-national level will gather. Themes discussed will include the methodological and theoretical challenges and opportunities stemming from comparative analysis focusing on subnational jurisdictions. Case studies will illustrate these challenges and opportunities while contributing to the broader field of comparative policy analysis.