The International Forum on Democracy and Public Decision
What does democracy still stand for? A republican form of the state, a representative governance, a belief in political equality (Dahl, 1999)? A decision-making process supported and revisited (Sartori, 1987) by guarantees of respect for individual liberties (Letteron, 2025)? How can we respond to those who claim confidently that it no longer exists? That, in reality, its practice has never lived up to the grand designs (Dahl, 1999; Hermet, 1989) of the most inspired theorists of the common good?
This key concept, which structured the political life of Western societies for centuries and whose development was suspended in Eastern Europe during the communist period (Aron, 1987), is undergoing recomposition, shaken by successive technological revolutions, and now by the omnipresent artificial intelligence. At the local and supranational levels, in order to address the visible decline at the national level, evidenced by a waning multiparty system and other older concerns related to the hijacking of democracy to serve the interests of an organized minority (Buffin de Chosal, 2024), is there still a place for democracy in our societies (Hoppe, 2024)? Are we in the presence of a tired democracy (Hosselet Herbignat, 2022), or a genuine crisis in the model of popular representation? Or should we, on the contrary, rejoice at the idea that democracy is always incomplete, in statu nascendi (Dejours, 2025), and that the world is a work in progress (Leroy et al., 2025)?
The 1st edition of the International Forum on Democracy and Public Decision, organized by the Faculty of History, Geography and Social Sciences – Department of Human and Socio-Political Sciences, University “Ștefan cel Mare” of Suceava and the CARPATHICA Centre of Interdisciplinary Studies, which will take place from the 4th to the 6th of June 2026, will allow established researchers, doctoral, postdoctoral and master’s students, to enrich the academic debate around theoretical and/or empirical research on this subject, in their respective fields of expertise: political and social sciences, public law, history, international law, European law, international relations, economics.
Papers on the following themes, whether general, comparative, or focused on a specific country, are particularly welcome:
– Democratic participation: developments in decision-making procedures
– E-democracy and public decision-making
– European governance
– Interest groups and decision-making influence
– National and European lobbying
– Regulation of lobbying activities
– Democracy and the individual
– Democracy and human rights
– Institutional and ad hoc guarantees for maintaining democracy
– History of political parties
– Local democracy
– Democracy and standards of living
– Democracy, money and politics
– Democracy in times of international conflict
– Anti-democratic interference
– Disinformation, anti-democratic propaganda, and hybrid warfare
– Artificial intelligence (AI), democracy and public decision-making
– Pedagogics of democracy
– Regulation of the activity of online political influence
– Challenges for tomorrow’s democracy.
The various exchanges throughout this platform will allow us to examine the current state of our democracies in their most diverse aspects and to reaffirm, effectively, our attachment and commitment to democracy.
Proposals for presentations (300 to 400 words) should be submitted by March 15th, 2026 to Marie Leonte (democracy@usv.ro and marie.leonte@atlas.usv.ro). Acceptance of the proposals by the scientific committee will be notified by March 23rd, 2026. Final versions of the papers from 3.000 to 10.000 words approx., shall be submitted before October 20th, 2026, and, after review, will be published in the first volume of the conference proceedings (bilingual French and English), The International Journal on Democracy and Public Decision/ La Revue internationale de la démocratie et de la décision publique.
The Forum will be held at the University of Ștefan cel Mare, Suceava, Romania (https://maps.app.goo.gl/beGiRgJXYj6UJ7Q29). Online participation is also available for our guests unable to attend in person. For proposed bibliographic references, the communications’ format for publication and other details concerning the organization of the forum (possibility for accommodation and meals provided on site), please visit the website of the International Forum on Democracy and Public Decision: https://www.democracy.usv.ro and contact us at the e-mail address: democracy@usv.ro.