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Mara Sidney, Rutgers University, Newark, msidney@andromeda.rutgers.edu

Michael L. Owens, Emory University, michael.leo.owens@emory.edu

In line with the broader theme of the conference, the Urban Politics Section invites papers and posters that address how “hard times” change political attitudes, behaviors, cultures, and institutions in and across cities, suburbs, and urban regions, in the United States and beyond. Do “hard times” exacerbate old or open new urban trenches of race, ethnicity, and citizenship? How do politics under “hard times” differ in the urban areas that so often have faced economic distress, compared with urban areas experiencing such conditions for the first time? The Section also welcomes papers that advance our understanding of how past, current, and future “hard times” affect political participation by the urban poor and working class, inclusive of new immigrants and non-citizens. When and why do “hard times” prompt local or intergovernmental policies that respond to these groups? Since the key political actor responsible for leading us through our current “hard times” is a former community organizer, we encourage studies of the potential and limits of urban social movements – within and across racial, ethnic, gender, and class groupings – to soften the “hard times” for those on the bottom of global and national political hierarchies, and maybe even to hold accountable those at the top of them. Furthermore, with our conference meeting in Washington, D.C., papers may raise new questions about national obligations and responses to “hard times” in urban areas, particularly areas that are experiencing even greater hard times due to prior events (e.g., New Orleans and the Gulf Coast cities). Finally, because our colleges and universities face “hard times,” why and how should we rethink and reframe pedagogies of urban politics to foster a civic regard among our students for urban areas and their residents? The Section’s call for papers and posters remains pluralist with regard to methods and welcomes all means of inquiry (e.g., discourse analysis, formal theory, multivariate modeling, etc.). It anticipates theoretically-driven analyses that inform the subfield of urban politics and the general study of politics. This includes papers based on comparative research, along with those seeking to inform policy and practice.