Agenda

The programme is recommended for officials, lobbyists, consultants, translators, information and communication managers and other professionals wishing to become more efficient in finding, discerning, and understanding information on the EU.

Online, 29-30 October 2020

Learn more here.

The EU has a strategic interest in a stable and secure environment in the Eastern Mediterranean and in the development of a cooperative and mutually beneficial relationship with Turkey.  Ongoing tensions between Greece and Turkey pose new challenges that need to be peacefully addressed, in accordance with international law.

With Ali Cinar, Mathias Jopp, Bruno Tertrais and George Tzogopoulos. The debate will be moderated by Nektaria Stamouli, a reporter for POLITICO Europe, based in Athens.

Go read more about the event and the speakers and to register here.

Welcome: Charles Powell, director, Elcano Royal Institute.
Participants: Joshua M. Blank, Research Director, The Texas Politics Project, University of Texas, Austin; Linda Chávez, Conservative commentator, Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity; Daniel Blanch, Program Coordinator, International Studies, Political Science Department, Saint Louis University, Madrid; Sebastián Royo, Vice President of International Affairs and Professor, Department of Political Science & Legal Studies, Suffolk University, Boston, and senior associate researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute.
Moderator: Carlota García Encina, principal investigator at the Elcano Royal Institute.

Learn more here.

What opportunities does the Ocean give us? And what challenges does the Ocean face? This webinar will present China Council’s rapport: “Building a Sustainable Ocean Economy for China”.

Read more here.

That the international monetary regime conditions the social consequences of economic integration was a key insight of both Polanyi and Ruggie’s analyses of “embeddedness.” It has been neglected, however, in the Polanyi-inspired debate on the social consequences of European integration. Focusing on the Court of Justice and the Commission as the supranational enforcers of the legallogic of integration, the literature has paid insufficient attention to the role of the European Central Bank (ECB) as the supranational enforcer of the economic logic of integration. While Polanyi conceptualized central banking as an institution of non-market coordination that evolved to protect the domestic economy from gold standard pressures, the ECB has acted as an enforcer of disembedding “euro standard” pressures vis-à-vis national labor market and welfare state institutions. Our mixed-methods analysis of public speeches and other documents offers the first comprehensive study of the ECB’s preferences for structural reforms during the period 1999-2019. It reveals that the ECB, despite lacking both the mandate and the authority to directly change national institutions, pushed for structural reforms via discursive advocacy, monetary policy, and conditionality. Our results suggest that the prospects for Polanyian non-market coordination are determined by Frankfurt as much as by Luxembourg and Brussels.

Speaker: Benjamin Braun, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne

Benjamin Braun is a senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. His current research projects focus on the politics of central banking and on the political economy of asset manager capitalism. Benjamin’s work has been published, among others, in Socio-Economic Review, Review of International Political Economy, and Economy and Society.

Discussion: Cyril Benoît, Sciences Po, CEE, CNRS & Mattia Lupi, Sciences Po, CEE & MaxPo

Learn more here.

In this webinar, we explore possibilities for Estonian-Norwegian cooperation in promoting multilateral cooperation and a rules-based global order within the framework of the UN Security Council. Norway is set to join the Council as a non-permanent member in 2021, Estonia has been a non-permanent member since 2020. Speakers will reflect on possibilities for bilateral cooperation in the context of broader cooperation among Nordic-Baltic, European and other like-minded countries which share an interest in defending and reforming the current multilateral system and international law.

Read more here.

The Conference aims to enhance mutual understanding and multilateral cooperation by providing a platform to debate and identify opportunities and threats which need to be addressed in a consensual, peaceful and creative ways.

Read more here.

This conference marks the launch of the “Migrants and Systemic Resilience Hub” (MigResHub), a joint initiative of the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) and Migration Mobilities Bristol at the University of Bristol.

Learn more here.

Operation Lava Jato started in Brazil as a money-laundering case. It quickly turned into a full-blown judicial anti-corruption crusade with far-reaching political implications across Latin America. The same companies at the heart of the Brazilian scandal offered kickbacks to public officials in at least 8 other countries. Critics see the prosecutorial zeal behind some of the national chapters of Lava Jato as yet another instance of “lawfare”. For others, however, it anticipates a new era of accountability and political regeneration. In this talk I will present my current book project, which asks two sets of questions. First, what explains why the investigation gained momentum and delivered results in some countries but not others? The answer looks at the legacy of capacity-enhancing reforms in Latin America’s prosecution services as well determinants of prosecutorial zeal endogenous to the investigative effort. Second, I rely on focus groups and original survey data to understand the impact of Lava Jato on public opinion. How does the public process these shocks and what are their implications for structures of political representation? In particular, what kind of emotions and attitudes towards corruption and politics do voters experience when exposed to anti-corruption judicial crusades? Do they reinforce or curb political cynicism? Are all Lava Jato’s created equal, or does the way in which different investigations unfold shape emotional and attitudinal responses?

Speaker: Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos, University of Oxford, Department of Politics and International Relations and Nuffield College

Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College. His research agenda is in the field of comparative judicial politics, with a regional focus on Latin America. He is the author of two books: Shifting Legal Visions: Judicial Change and Human Rights Trials in Latin America (Cambridge University Press, 2016) which won the Herman Pritchett Best Book Award from APSA’s Law and Courts Section, the best book award from ISA’s Human Rights Section and the Donna Lee Van Cott Best Book Award from LASA’s Political Institutions Section; and The Politics of Transitional Justice in Latin America: Power, Norms and Capability Building (Cambridge University Press, 2020). Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos’ peer-reviewed articles have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, International Studies Quarterly, Law & Society Review, Journal of Peace Research, Sociological Methods & Research, and The International Journal of Constitutional Law, among others. In 2018 he received the Philip Leverhulme Prize in Politics and International Relations. Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos is currently co-authoring a book that examines the causes and consequences of anti-corruption judicial crusades in Latin America comparing different national chapters of the Lava Jato investigation

Discussion: Pablo Cussac, Sciences Po, CEE and Virginie Guiraudon, Sciences Po, CEE, CNRS 

Learn more here.

The Istanbul Policy Center-Sabancı University-Stiftung Mercator Initiative invites you to the digital conference “Exploring Intersectionality – Building Solidarity across EU-Turkey Borders. Inclusive Education in Times of Forced Migration and Covid-19” on November 11-12, 2020.

The digital conference is free, and everyone is welcome. The event will take place on Zoom.

The conference is organized by Ellen Kollender and Joanna Krzeminska and hosted by IPC-Sabancı University-Stiftung Mercator Initiative in collaboration with the Migration Research Center at Koç University (Mirekoç) in Istanbul and the Feminist Autonomous Center for Research in Athens.

Please click here for more information.

Based on archival research and interviews, this thesis explores the role of the Belgian Planning Bureau to the neoliberal turn that took place in Belgium in the early 1980s and its consolidation in the 1990s. It seeks to explain the institutional conversion of the Planning Bureau (and with it that of the planning process), as well as the direct and indirect influence of the economic expertise it provided on policymaking. To achieve this aim, the institutional position and resources of the Planning Bureau are carefully situated in broader national and transnational networks. Domestically, the Planning Bureau was located at the crossroad of three fields: governmental politics, corporatist negotiations and academic economics. Transnationally, the Bureau positioned itself as the privileged and credible interlocutor of the economic policy committees of two important international institutions, the OECD and the EU. It was also well embedded into an informal network of European planners. The thesis examines the role the Planning Bureau played as mediator in the Belgian neoliberal turn, first by channeling ideas between these different fields and levels of governance and secondly, by contributing via its expertise to the emergence of consensuses between the main socio-economic elites of this fragmented and extremely unstable political context. Thereby, this thesis furthers our understanding of how economic ideas are changed and merged with indigenous ideas when traveling across contexts. Secondly, by underlying the flexibility of planning techniques to different political ideas and development models, it opens avenues for new research by suggesting, prima facie at least, that the neoliberalization of planning might be reversible.

Learn more here.

Towards effective negotiations with and within the EU

The purpose of this seminar is to train professionals to become strategic and effective negotiators. It will enhance negotiation and communication skills that are used in interactions of different actors both between and within EU institutions, by means of interactive training sessions, workshops and simulation games.

Learn more here.

The 22nd Military Power Seminar will bring together a wide variety of high-level experts and officials from across the transatlantic community. The event starts out with an overlook of the strategic picture as seen from the US and from Europe. It then moves to European security developments and responses, before zooming in on implications for Norwegian security and defence.

Read more here.

A one-week interactive journey along the life of EU-funded projects, from programming to project design, proposal writing, budgeting, project implementation, monitoring and evaluation. Through detailed case studies and exercises on key project design and management tools, this interactive training course delivers a comprehensive knowledge of essential techniques for successful and cost-effective management of EU projects.

Online, 16-20 November 2020

Learn more here.

On behalf of Magdolna Sass and Miklós Szanyi from the Institute of World Economics (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies), you are kindly invited to submit your papers to the 6th ‘The Role of State in Varieties of Capitalism’ conference. The topic this year is ‘Emerging Market Economies – Alternative Development Paths’.

This year, the SVOC conference will be held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a live event remains a risky endeavor, particularly with the prospect of a potential second wave of infections this Fall, the organizers believe that the online version allows for the same kind of meaningful and substantive discussions, without it being exposed to travel and other restrictions that may be reinstated in the coming months. The exact technical details of the conference’s execution will be communicated in due time.

Today, many countries around the globe are embarking on development paths that are fundamentally different from the well-known classic models and are shaped by historical and sociopolitical conditions unique to them. The ways these statist economic systems are organized and coordinated have recently drawn much academic interest. However, the emergence and operational logic of contemporary state capitalism still lacks a systematic exploration and explanation.

The scope of comparative capitalism research has also been altered accordingly to include the analysis of emerging economies outside the core of the world economy, and to make intertemporal comparisons possible (such as to define and characterise historical waves of state capitalism). Still, we are convinced that to better understand the current wave of state capitalism and to explore its national varieties there is a need to critically reconsider existing approaches and methodologies, and to search for new ones, if necessary.

Though the People’s Republic of China is often framed as the vanguard of this statist wave, the Chinese example constitutes only one of many exciting cases in which emerging market economies search their own respective paths to steady growth and sustainable development.

From the role played by national champions in emerging markets, the heightened pressure towards active industrial and social policies, the thorny questions of economic populism to the myriad changes taking place in multilateral institutions, the conference aims to bring together scholars eager to showcase high quality research that explores emerging market economy practices and policies in empirically diverse and analytically exciting ways.

While we encourage prospective participants to submit their papers in one of the following categories, other topics that pertain to emerging market economies are also welcome:

•  Same goal different paths? Varieties of developmentalist experiments in emerging market economies;
• Developmental states and social policies: historical experiences and current tendencies;
• Emerging market multinational enterprises in East Central Europe;
• Economic populism in emerging market economies;
• Global value chains and changing labor division in the triad;
• The role of national champions in the development of emerging market economies;
• A changing global context? The effects of emerging market economies on multilateral institutions;
• Quo vadis, Central and Eastern Europe? Modification or end of the Dependent Market Economy model?
• Cutting edge debates in comparative capitalism research. Is the VoC framework still valid?

Our Conference welcomes high quality contributions proposing advances in the field of theory, empirics or policy. Contributions to SVOC2020 should be related to the general theme of the conference “The Role of State in Varieties of Capitalism” especially but not exclusively focusing on the topics mentioned above.

Our keynote speakers will be:

Professor Béla GRESKOVITS  (Central European University)

Professor Tomasz MICKIEWICZ  (Aston University)

Important Dates and Deadlines

• Abstract submission: 20 September 2020
• Notification of acceptance: 30 September 2020
• Conference fee payment: 31 October 2020
• Full paper submission: 15 November 2020
• Conference: 26-27 November 2020

Please visit the following conference pages for further information:

• CfP on conference page.
• CfP on Easychair.
• Easychair abstract submission link.