OppAttune International Workshop 2025

OPPATTUNE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP 2025

Human Rights and Public Regulation: Preserving Freedoms in an Age of Everyday Extremism

Countering Oppositional Political Extremism through Attuned Dialogue

Glasgow, August 25-26, 2025

Navigating the complexities of everyday extremism and extremist narratives is an intricate process that requires a comprehensive understanding of its origins, local contexts, and the actions that shape it. It is essential to explore how everyday extremism relates to violent political extremism, as well as how it intertwines with citizen activism, social movements, and democratic pathways. A nuanced, comparative understanding of extremist narratives is also critical, taking into account both national specificities rooted in historical, social, and cultural contexts, and the transnational influences shaping these narratives globally, particularly within Europe.

The spread of extreme political ideologies can be mitigated through a deeper exploration of regulatory rights pathways that facilitate dialogue and constructive oppositions within society. These pathways are crucial in fostering inclusive governance that safeguards human rights and public protections. By examining past and present policy frameworks, it becomes possible to assess the efficacy of existing measures while identifying gaps that allow extremism to thrive.

By focusing on policy, institutional frameworks, and practical solutions, a more nuanced understanding of the evolving challenges associated with extremism can be attained. The objective is to identify innovative approaches that improve the identification and response to contexts characterized by everyday extremism, thereby providing valuable insights for decision-makers navigating these complex issues. Ultimately, the aim is to develop pathways that cultivate more resilient societies, capable of effectively addressing extremism while safeguarding fundamental rights and freedoms.

Joint International Workshop by Workshop Academic Committee:

Umut Korkut, Professor of International Politics, Glasgow School for Business and Society, Glasgow Caledonian University.

Stephen W. Sawyer, Ballantine-Leavitt Professor of History, Director, Center for Critical Democracy Studies, The American University of Paris

Roberta Medda-Windischer, Senior Researcher, Research Group Leader for Equality and Diversity in Integrated Societies, Institute for Minority Rights, Eurac Research - Italy.

Martin Bak Jørgensen, Professor in Processes of Migration, Head of section - Department of Culture & Learning, Aalborg University.

We identify at least seven areas and trends in which political extremism and public regulation play a central role:

1. Everyday Extremism: refers to the manifestation of extremist behaviours, attitudes, or ideologies in the routine activities of individuals or within societal structures on a day-to-day basis. Everyday extremism involves the normalisation of extremist elements into ordinary aspects of life, potentially impacting social cohesion and interactions. Everyday actions and behaviours cross the line and become extreme and risk de- humanisation when they communicate hostility to another person, group or party.

1. Attunement: refers to a dynamic relational interaction between oppositional entities, whether individuals, groups, parties or nations. Attunement mitigates extremism, it involves the democratic capacity to take up a number of positions, to sustain dialogue, in terms of new positions, accords, discords and the development of emerging shared political narratives.
2. Regulatory rights pathways: refer to structured processes through which individuals, organizations, or communities access, exercise, and enhance their rights within a regulatory framework. These pathways emphasize participation, accountability, and responsiveness in governance by ensuring that regulatory systems are inclusive and adapt to local contexts.
3. Rights-Contexts: refer to the specific circumstances, situations, or environments in which legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement, commonly known as rights, are claimed. Understanding rights-contexts involves examining how rights are exercised and protected in various scenarios.
4. Regulatory response: pertains to the measures, policies, or actions implemented by regulatory bodies or authorities in response to specific sets of rights claims or issues. Regulatory response in the context of this toolkit is specifically focused on addressing extremism and its potential societal impacts through legal and policy frameworks.
5. Contextual capacity: refers to the amount of potential a given context has to be transformed by policy. It involves understanding the contextual factors that impact the effectiveness of regulatory measures and their ability to attune everyday extremism.
6. A Rights-claim public (RCP): is a group that is formed around a specific set of rights claims. These groups may have long-standing claims or may have developed around a specific policy issue.

These and other related issues give rise to a range of interconnected questions. Consequently, we invite contributions that engage with questions such as:

• How can the normalization of extremist elements in everyday life impact social cohesion and human interactions?
• How does attunement facilitate dialogue and mitigate extremism between oppositional entities or groups?
• What role do regulatory rights pathways play in ensuring inclusive governance and the exercise of rights by individuals or communities?
• How do different rights-contexts influence the way legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom are claimed and protected?
• What are the key elements of regulatory responses that address extremism and its societal impacts through legal and policy frameworks?
• How can understanding the contextual capacity of a given situation improve the effectiveness of policies in addressing everyday extremism?
• What factors lead to the formation of a Rights-Claim Public (RCP) around specific rights claims or policy issues?
• How may regulatory mechanisms help alleviate such polarization?

1. We invite papers that address these or similar questions from different disciplines ranging from political science, sociology, law, history, and others. The workshop will be held in Glasgow (GCU) on August 25-26, 2025.

Abstracts should be not less than 250 words and not more than 600 words. Keywords and bibliography are not needed. Please submit your abstracts to Doga Atalay (doga.atalay@gcu.ac.uk) by 15 June 2025 (please add in the email ́s subject “OppAttune Workshop 2025).

Acceptance decisions will be made by 30 June 2025

The 2025 OppAttune International Workshop is jointly organized by Glasgow Caledonian University. It is part of the Summer Academy of the Horizon project OppAttune - Countering Oppositional Political Extremism Through Attuned Dialogue: Track, Attune, Limit - https://oppattune.eu/