What began as a financial meltdown in the United States has now become a crisis of the entire world economy. International organizations, business representatives, and civil society organizations have entered a fierce interpretative contest over crisis mechanisms and possible political remedies. The current crisis thus presents a extraordinary opportunity to study the strategies employed by various interested actors to gain public resonance and influence for old and new political ideas.

With this call for papers, the Swiss Journal of Sociology encourages researchers to investigate into the social construction of crisis interpretations and/or the effects of the current crisis on perceptions of global social relations (economic globalization, North-South relations, multilateralism, etc.). Issues that may be addressed include:

• Crisis representations and interpretations in the mass media or the general population;
• Crisis framing by social movement organizations, business actors, or international organizations;
• Impacts on political mobilization and transnational organizing among civil society organizations;
• Impacts on national and international regulating agencies and mechanisms;
• Effects of the crisis, and policy responses to the crisis, on trust in (international) political institutions;
• Effects of the crisis, and policy responses to the crisis, on perceptions of global and regional governance institutions;

Highest priority will be given to papers that combine a general theoretical discussion with new empirical findings. Findings may be based on comparative research as well as single-case studies, and on qualitative as well as quantitative research methods. In any case, paper proposals should give a very clear indication of the research methods, data sources and analytical tools to be used.

Interested scholars are kindly invited to submit a short abstract (max. 1 page) and the title of the paper no later than March 15, 2010. On this basis, the editors will invite a selection of authors to submit full papers, which will be due on July 1st, 2010. The papers will go through the usual peer-review process of the Swiss Journal of Sociology. Papers can be written in English, French or German. Publication is planned for mid 2011.