This year’s ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop took place in Lüneburg, Germany, from 25 to 28 March 2024. Our workshop “Critical Methods in the Face of Crisis: Analytical and Critical Political Theory in Dialogue” built on the idea of bringing together different traditions of Political Theory in their shared concern about contemporary political crises such as the climate crisis or the crisis of democratic representation. We spent three days discussing how methods of critique in political theory can be refined, applied, or combined in times of crisis.

We had lively discussions of 13 presentations from a mix of long-standing members as well as first time participants in our Standing Group’s activities. We also took short moments in the mornings to clarify the big picture goals of the workshop and reflect on the presentations’ contributions to thinking about the idea and limits of ‘critical methods’.

In our call, we had asked five questions: 1: How do current methods of critique fail to address domestic and global crises? 2: Which methods of critique are especially apt in times of crisis? 3: Do we need different methods for different crises, e.g. with regard to climate and democratic representation? 4: How do we connect analytical and critical theory to craft methods capable of addressing the current crises? 5: Can such connections maintain the distinctive qualities of both traditions of political theory?

During the workshop, it became clear that many of us already combine elements of analytical and critical approaches to political theory (e.g. in versions of ideology critique or genealogy). How to translate these combinations into “new” methods turned out to be a more challenging question. Some presentations directly addressed the suitability of new methods and approaches for addressing current crises, whereas others reflected more about how established methods could be improved to be more useful in addressing current crises.

After the presentations we continued our conversations each day while walking through Lüneburg (special thanks to Jonathan Floyd!) taking in the unique architectural style of the city, and while savoring the offerings of local cuisine and brewing culture.

It was a wonderful opportunity to connect and further institutionalize the ‘methodological moment’ in Political Theory – and we would be happy to assist future directors in planning the next ECPR Methods Workshop!