October 5, 2020
Through generous support from the Institute for Human Studies (IHS), CGM will host a series of colloquia aimed at furthering research on coexistence in a pluralist society during the 2020-21 academic year. IHS will support a discussion colloquium aimed at developing conceptual and analytical tools to address contemporary governance challenges by exploring the interface between modus vivendi political theories and governance theories based on institutional diversity and polycentrism. A subsequent research workshop in which original scholarship on this important topic will be prepared for publication in a collective volume, will follow the discussion program.
The seminars are organized to address the growing challenges faced by societies in our era of growing ideological and social polarization. As such, identification of ways to work together toward the common good is more critical than ever. Global trends today reflect increasing social diversity and pluralism of values and worldviews that are redefining communities and may generate profound challenges to existing political and governance arrangements. CGM is responding to these challenges through the development of this academic initiative to analyze how governance systems facilitate or undermine peaceful coexistence and productive cooperation between individuals and communities everywhere. Modus vivendi governance arrangements are grounded in a ‘live and let live’ tolerant social order, especially within societies with deep cleavages and a plurality of thought.
These timely workshops will convene a working group of international scholars and authors who will review existing literature and discuss the philosophy and institutional analyses underpinning the intersection between the Modus Vivendi approach to pluralism and the polycentric approach to governance, pioneered by Nobel Prize winner in Economics, Elinor Ostrom.
This project was conceptualized by and developed by CGM Director Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili of the University of Pittsburgh and Paul Dragoș Aligică, KPMG Professor of Governance at the University of Bucharest and Senior Fellow at the Mercatus Center, George Mason University.