Deadline:
May 20, 2025
Program Starts: May 20, 2025
Program Ends: May 23, 2025
Location(s)
Online
Online
Overview
The IAPSS World Congress is the largest annual event hosted by IAPSS – the International Association for Political Science Students. As a flagship event with hundreds of students participating each year, it serves as a platform to present and discuss research with fellow students from the political science discipline. During the conference, the participants will be involved in a broad range of different activities: attending student-run panels, academic lectures, and networking. This year’s World Congress will be hosted in an online format. The event will be held under the theme Advocacy in a Fragmented World: Power, Voice, and Transformation.
Details
Advocacy in a Fragmented World: Power, Voice, and Transformation
Advocacy can be a transformative tool in tackling the political, cultural, and socioeconomic issues of the twenty-first century. It has become a vital instrument for promoting change and elevating the voices of under-represented groups as our society grows more ideologically and politically divided, and serves as a means of promoting social justice and democratic resilience in the face of escalating inequality, political polarisation, climate disasters, and sociocultural schisms.
Under-represented demographics are disproportionately impacted by today’s interconnected problems, which range from political instability to economic inequality and climatic destruction. These difficulties highlight how important lobbying is for changing laws, combating structural injustice, and promoting inclusive governance. Unheard voices in the corridors of power are amplified via advocacy. Advocacy tactics that reinterpret power dynamics, including institutional lobbying, digital activism, grassroots movements and global campaigns like Fridays for Future and #BlackLivesMatter, have shown that campaigning may spur change, but it also encounters resistance from powerful elites. Although digital tools make information more accessible to all, they can also be used as weapons to spread false information. How can advocacy continue to have a metamorphic effect even in hostile environments?
Addressing systemic disparities based on ethnicity, caste, gender, class, and identity requires continued advocacy for inclusivity. By emphasising intersectionality, the opinions of minorities, women, LGBTQI+ communities, Indigenous Peoples, and refugees are heard. The significance of lobbying in addressing systemic injustices is exemplified by movements like the Dalit-Bahujan movement in South Asia and Indigenous rights for environmental justice. Advocacy engages with governance frameworks rather than functioning independently. From refugee rights movements opposing restrictive immigration laws to climate advocacy influencing treaties like the Paris Agreement, this section examines the ways in which advocacy affects both domestic and international institutions. Additionally, grassroots movements aiming for prominence and influence face difficulties due to the emergence of “advocacy capitalism”—the appropriation of advocacy by influential parties.
Fostering unity across national boundaries and ideological divides is key to the future of lobbying. Global power structures can be challenged by collective action, as demonstrated by transnational networks such as the Global Alliance for Tax Justice. With input from advocates around the globe, IAPSS seeks to promote cross-sectoral discourse in order to tackle today’s urgent issues and create a robust framework for the future.
Opportunity is About
Eligibility
Candidates should be from:
Description of Ideal Candidate
We welcome undergraduate, graduate and PhD students, as well junior scholars from different academic subfields, such as comparative politics, international relations, international political economy, political theory, security studies, public policy and administration, human rights, international law, regional and area studies as well as political psychology and behavior studies, gender studies, among others. Studies on research methods (political methodology) are also invited.
Dates
Deadline: May 20, 2025
Program starts:
May 20, 2025
Program ends:
May 23, 2025
Program Starts: May 20, 2025
Program Ends: May 23, 2025
Cost/funding for participants
World Congress 2025 – Observer Ticket
$20.00
Un-save Opportunity
Internships, scholarships, student conferences and competitions.
