Procedures of Decision Making Between Individual and Institution

Conference organized by Emily Corran, University College London, 2022-2023 Paris IAS Fellow.

Session in person only.
Free entry with compulsory registration, see registration form at the bottom of the page.

Presentation

This day-long conference will be dedicated to investigating the range of ways cultures approach challenging decision-making. By their nature, rules cannot foresee all eventualities, and there inevitably arise situations in which the application of a rule or normal procedure is not obvious.
How do individuals and institutions approach such situations and find an acceptable outcome? This question bears on several key concepts in collective thought: the role of casuistry, accountability in decision making, the competing claims of, on the one hand, formalistic procedures and, on the other, the need for just outcomes to cases of conflict. The purpose of this conversation is to determine the range of possible approaches to problems of this kind, and the reasons for cultural similarities when they appear.
The reference to individuals and institutions is intended to prompt participants to consider the continuum between individual choices and those made by groups, within the framework of formal institutions. Does the greater accountability of institutions lead to different approaches to decision making? Do individuals mimic or use institutional methods of decision making in their own lives? 

Programme

09.00
Welcome

09.15
Introduction by Emily Corran (IEA de Paris / UCL)

Session 1: Institutional Legitimations for Action

09.45
Sévérine Mathieu (EPHE-PSL)
Dire la norme?: mobilisation catholique contre l’ouverture de la PMA aux couples de femmes et aux femmes seules. 2018-2021.

10.30
Benedetta Rossi (UCL)
An Abolitionist Vicious Circle: (Anti-)Slavery and Violence on the Shores of Lake Tanganyika at the Dawn of Colonial Occupation

11.15 Break

Session 2: Institutional Accountability

11.30
Valentina Arena (UCL)
The censors and the Roman Republican system of accountability

12.15
Emmanuel Picavet (Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne)
L'artificialisation de la construction de compromis

13.00 Lunch break

Session 3: Obedience to Authority and personal judgement in decision making

14.00
Christophe Grellard (EPHE-PSL)
Pallier une institution défaillante. Les effets épistémologiques du Grand Schisme chez Jean Gerson

14.45
Morgan Clarke (Oxford, Keble College)
Uses of authority in the everyday dilemmas of a Shi‘i Muslim diaspora community

15.30 Break

Session 4: Personal Choices in an Institutional Setting

15.45
Hocine Benkheira (EPHE-PSL)
Jeûne et casuistique. Quelques exemples

16.30
Ammara Maqsood (UCL)
Close-but-not-too-close: dilemmas of decision making in Hindu-Muslim encounters in Karachi, Pakistan

17.15
Summing Up Conversation

Session in person only.
Free admission with compulsory registration, see registration form below.