Dear colleagues, We are happy to share with you the invitation for submissions for a EUROLAB Authors’ Conference on “The Authoritarian Threat to Europe’s Liberal Democracies” to be held in Cologne/Germany on November 21-22, 2019. [Abstracts due on April 30, 2019] Please find the full call here: https://www.gesis.org/index.php?id=11260&L=1&no_cache=1 Summary: Recent years have seen a number of worrying developments across Europe: the rise of populist parties (Pappas 2016), increasing polarization and radicalization of attitudes and public discourse (Benkler et al. 2018), the advent of alternative media and “fake news” (Arif et al. 2018, Sanovich 2018), and a shift towards authoritarian values among citizens (Foa and Mounk 2016, 2017). While a number of contributions have discussed the causes of these developments, research on their consequences is still scarce. We therefore want to bring together papers that analyze whether and how these “authoritarian trends” affect the stability and functioning of European democracies. We invite contributions from political science and communication science that address one of more the following themes: - the functioning of social media as echo chambers, their instrumentalization by radical actors and their contribution to fostering a climate of hatred and polarization, - the effect of disinformation campaigns on citizens’ perceptions of democratic institutions - the dissemination of autocratic views and authoritarian values through digital media, - the effects of (increasing) polarization on societal conflicts and political participation, For the full Call for Papers, please visit the conference website at https://www.gesis.org/index.php?id=11260&L=1&no_cache=1. Abstracts are due on April 30, 2019. Selected papers will be published. We look forward to receiving your proposals! Jonas Linde (University of Bergen) Marlene Mauk (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) Heidi Schulze (GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences) __ EUROLAB – Gateway to research stays at GESIS GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences Knowledge Transfer Website: http://www.gesis.org/eurolab<https://webmail.gesis.org/owa/team-eurolab@gesis.org/redir.aspx?C=6D3FQE7v2VbBrLi8pJIxz6hTBUn2pINH7a-S80iJ1D-Dl-DXF33UCA..&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.gesis.org%2feurolab> Email: eurolab@gesis.org<https://webmail.gesis.org/owa/team-eurolab@gesis.org/redir.aspx?C=b8V3ytvGvqXxC8Uv47v4GsOaB_Fsygig9FXoX7syVtuDl-DXF33UCA..&URL=mailto%3aeurolab%40gesis.org>