Territory and Democratic Politics

This seminar provides an opportunity for interdisciplinary dialogue on different perspectives on urban transformation and territory.

In this seminar, Oscar Mazzoleni will talk about his latest book Territory and Democratic Politics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). In the book, he introduces the concept of territory into the study of democratic politics, which is often analysed through what are known as ‘unterritorial approaches’ in political science and sociology. Drawing on the writings of both Anglophone and Francophone geographers, Mazzoleni proposes a territory-oriented approach that considers the relationships between territory, space, political institution, strategy, appropriation, place, borders, and networks. He demonstrates the relevance of this approach through territorial analyses of critical issues such as citizenship, urbanisation, populism, and the bordering experience of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The open access book can be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35672-8

Oscar Mazzoleni is a professor in political science and political sociology at the University of Lausanne, where he leads the Research Observatory for Regional Politics. He was invited as a visiting professor and research fellow at the Universities of Columbia, Laval, Geneva, Groningen, Torino, Sorbonne-Panthéon-Paris, Science-Po-Paris, European University Institute of Florence and Cornell University. His research has been published in Perspectives on European politics and Society, Government and Opposition, Party Politics, Swiss Political Science Review, Comparative European Politics, Territory, Politics, Governance, Regional and Federal Studies, Nationalism and ethnics politics, Journal of Borderlands Studies, among others. He is co-author and co-editor of several books, including Understanding Populist Party Organisation (Palgrave 2016), Regionalist Parties in Western Europe: Dimensions of Success (Routledge 2017), Political Populism: A Handbook (Nomos 2017 and 2021), The People and the Nation: Populism and Ethnoterritorial politics in Europe (Routledge 2020), Sovereignism and Populism: Citizens, Voters and Parties in Western European democracies (Routledge 2022) and National populism and borders: The politicization of cross-border mobilisation in Europe (Elgar 2023).

« Trait d’urbain » is a seminar series organised by the « Urban matters » research collective for researchers to present and discuss their work in progress.

Free entry.