State of Conflict 2027

State of Conflict 2027: Fight the Power

Please join us at the University of Amsterdam on January 15th 2027 from 9.30 till 16.30 for the  9th annual State of Conflict Conference. This year’s theme is Fight the Power. 

The conference will be at Roeterseiland (Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, Amsterdam), and will start at de Brug (the fourth floor of building REC B/C/D, enter through the main hall and a colleague will show you the way).

Fight the Power

Over the past year, groups of citizens, social movements, and even local governments have organized to contest policies and the practices through which they are implemented. In doing so, they have demonstrated the limits of government’s authority and its ability to push the implementation of unpopular policies. Their actions have disrupted policy initiatives that range from housing and asylum seekers’ reception to climate policy and the energy transition. These cases where power is being challenged raise questions such as: Who gets to decide when groups disagree? Who has voice and whose voices are heard? What does our shared commitment to democracy say about how decisions about policy and governance are, and should be, made?

At the ninth annual State of Conflict (SoC) conference, we will explore what happens in specific cases when power, legitimacy, and authority are contested. Rather than seeing contestation as a problem to be solved, we approach it as valuable lens through which to better understand democracy. We will analyze this contestation, and ask what these disruptions imply for communities, for institutions, and for our shared democratic life. We seek insights into what resistance, disagreement, and protest reveal about concerns, needs, and perspectives that might otherwise go unnoticed. And, we hope to develop practical insights into how groups’ responses to each other can shape whether disagreements lead to productive collaboration or escalate into conflict.

As in prior meetings, the SoC will bring together a mix of practitioners, academics, public officials, and citizens in small working sessions rooted in lived experiences to allow for in-depth reflection and learning from one another. Please let us know if you have a case or experience that might spark reflection and help participants to analyze their own experiences. We would love to explore with you whether your experience might provide the basis for one of the working sessions.

Tickets for the 9th State of Conflict conference are now available for purchase. We hope that you can join us to explore what happens when citizens and public officials decide to Fight the Power. The detailed program will be available soon. It will be built around questions like:

• How is power negotiated and contested in contemporary practices of democratic governance?
• How does the interaction between national and local perspectives trigger conflicts and shape policy?
• What role does protest play as a form of democratic participation?
• How do responses to contestation influence the balance between escalation and cooperation?
• What challenges shape our ability to work constructively with disagreements that extend to power, authority, legitimacy and representation?
• What can we learn from these dynamics in other places in the world?

The Conference will take place on the 15th of January (09:30-16:30) at the University of Amsterdam’s Roeterseiland Campus (Nieuwe Achtergracht 166). If you have ideas, experiences, or questions, please contact  iman@public-mediation.nl.

Programme

Key note speaker, starting at 9.30

This year, the opening address will be held by Els de Graauw. She is professor of political science, public policy, and international migration studies at Baruch College and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she also directs the MA Program in International Migration Studies. Her research examines how local governments and nonprofit organizations shape immigrant inclusion, political representation, and policymaking, with particular attention to the relationships between government institutions, civil society, and immigrant communities.

She is the author of Making Immigrant Rights Real: Nonprofits and the Politics of Integration in San Francisco (2016), co-author of Advancing Immigrant Rights in Houston (2024), and co-editor of Migrants, Minorities, and the Media: Information, Representations, and Participation in the Public Sphere (2017) and Handbook of Migration and Cities (2027).

Workshop overview

1. Cloud Control: Contesting Urban Datacenter Development (English)
   By Martijn Dekker (Professor at University of Amsterdam).
2. Marrying Nuance to No (English)
   By Fleur Ravensbergen (independent expert in conflict resolution and negotiation) and David Laws (senior lecturer at University of Amsterdam)
3. Who Decides the Future of a Territory? The Case of Urdaibai (English)
   By Aksana Shytsikava (Gogoratuz) and Iñigo Retolaza Eguren (Gogoratuz)
4. More to be announced…

1. Cloud Control: Contesting Urban Datacenter Development (English)

In this session we’ll explore how power is contested in the context of data center construction in Amsterdam. The expansion of digital infrastructure brings together actors with different forms of influence and authority, and often competing visions of the city’s future: the national government, the municipality, the companies developing and operating data centers , and citizens (and the social movements they organise in). 

At stake is not only a dispute over land use, energy consumption, environmental impact, or economic development. The cases also illuminate a deeper asymmetry in contemporary governance. The power being contested is, in significant part, the power of capital: the capacity of large corporations to shape urban space, infrastructure, and public priorities without being directly subject to democratic oversight. This raises questions about who has the authority to decide what kinds of infrastructure a city needs, who bears its costs, and whose interests define the public good. 

In this session we consider both contentious politics and contentious governance with a variety of stakeholders. While activists challenge corporate and governmental decisions through protest, mobilization, and public debate, municipal authorities may themselves contest the power of companies by regulating, restricting, or renegotiating data-centre development. New data center projects in the West and Southeast of Amsterdam provide interesting context for examining how democratic institutions and social movements respond when private economic power exceeds established mechanisms of accountability, and how such contestation may reshape the relationship between capital, (local) government, and urban democracy.

Facilitated by Martijn Dekker (professor at the University of Amsterdam).

2. Marrying Nuance to No (English)

In this session we will explore what happens when the kind of direct and confrontational approach that “fight the power” implies may not be timely or feasible, or even risk triggering counterproductive dynamics.  The tensions that define such episodes will be familiar to those who work in the context of strong — if implicit — hierarchies or who work with clients in consultative roles.  We will draw on such experience to describe how situations develop in which a direct, ‘NO’ is problematic and analyze how those who stand on the windward side of these relationships cope with the tensions that they experience.  

Our goal is practical.  We hope, through our work together, to frame strategies that we can draw on when we need to confront those in positions of authority with countervailing evidence, stories, positions, and priorities without becoming confrontational.   

Facilitated by Fleur Ravensbergen (independent expert in conflict resolution and negotiation) and David Laws (senior lecturer at the University of Amsterdam).

3. Who Decides the Future of a Territory? The Case of Urdaibai

In the Basque Country, a proposal to expand the Guggenheim Museum into Urdaibai, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, sparked years of public debate and local mobilisation. While institutions presented the project as an opportunity for economic revitalisation, local communities and environmental groups questioned its ecological impact, the development model behind it, and the lack of meaningful public participation. In December 2025, the expansion project was cancelled. Yet the deeper questions remain: what kind of future does Urdaibai need, and who gets to decide? 

Drawing on the experience of Gernika Gogoratuz this session explores how conflict and resistance can open up opportunities for collective reflection and alternative visions of territorial development. What happens when a contested project is stopped? How can citizen mobilisation move beyond opposition towards shaping a shared future? And how can dialogue between local communities and public institutions contribute to more inclusive and democratic decision-making? 

Through the Urdaibai case, we invite participants to reflect on the relationship between power, participation and the possibilities of transforming conflict into collective action. 

Facilitated by Aksana Shytsikava (Gogoratuz) and Iñigo Retolaza Eguren (Gogoratuz)