what are the prospects for local democracy at the beginning of the new millennium? how are communities in the United States and Europe managing the tensions and contradictions between the processes associated with globalization and economic and political restructuring and the revitalization of local democratic institutions and practices? how do local democratic institutions contend with increasing class polarization, the exacerbation of racial and national divisions, the stress placed on locales by capital flight, and by increased transnational and infra-national migrations that bring "strangers" into local areas? what are the implications of the dominance of a neoliberal ideology of governance that prizes the solutions of markets above those of government or the workings of local democracy? how do the institutions of the new democratic politics work in theory and in practice? what leads some people to organize politically to affect local democracy, while others withdraw into private concerns? we invite you to join us as we consider these issues in a public forum featuring prominent scholars and activists who have studied and participated in democratic politics of the last three decades in the United States and elsewhere.

guests include > craig calhoun, carl boggs, lesley bartlett, michael apple, steven gregory, paul luebke, doug schrock, lee baker, enrique murillo, john clarke, donald nonini, thad guldbrandsen, richard couto, devon peña, dorothy holland, kathryn dudley, catherine lutz, marla frederick, bob hall, chris fitzsimon, and gary grant.

[panels] friday, 2 march > 8-6: neoliberalism and democracy's new contexts/ who's in, who's out: dynamics of race, class, and citizenship/managing "public" business: new hybrid institutions and visions. saturday, 3 march > 8-5: activism and private lives/ the future of democracy: what needs to be done?/ possibilities. all events will be held in room 204, kenan center, next to the kenan-flagler business school.