Conferences

Venue: SEB-salen, E-building, Floor 4 School of Business, Economics, and Law at the University of Gothenburg

Contact: Dr Lisbeth Aggestam lisbeth.aggestam@gu.se

Register to attend: https://forms.office.com/e/5H0XGJeg6w (registration closes when fully booked)

The European Union (EU) faces an international environment undergoing profound transformation. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has shattered the European security order. Growing instability in Europe’s wider neighbourhood and deepening transatlantic tensions are underming the rules-based order that long underpinned the EU’s external action. Meanwhile, global power is diffusing, geopolitical competition is intensifying, and actors in the Global South increasingly challenge the legitimacy and relevance of European norms and institutions. In this context, fundamental questions arise about the nature and limits of the EU’s global role.

This conference explores the evolving relationship between power, leadership, and principle in EU external action. Traditionally, the EU has exercised influence primarily through trade, development cooperation, regulation, and diplomacy rather than military force. Yet war has returned to Europe’s borders, economic interdependence is increasingly weaponised, and alliances—most notably the transatlantic partnership—are under strain. 

Can the EU continue to rely primarily on geoeconomic and regulatory power to uphold multilateralism, international law, and human rights? What kind of leadership can the EU exercise in a more fragmented and contested international system? And how credible are European principles when applied unevenly across different conflicts and partners? 

The conference opens with a keynote lecture by Professor Sven Biscop (Ghent University and Egmont - Royal Institute for International Relations, Brussels), who will address the strategic implications of war, geopolitical rivalry, and transatlantic uncertainty for Europe’s global role. This is followed by a roundtable discussion with leading scholars at Gothenburg University: Former EU Commissioner Dr Cecilia Malmström on trade and geoeconomic power; Professor Fredrik Söderbaum on development, aid, and partnerships with the Global South; Professor Ann-Marie Ekengren on small states in a shifting international system; and Professor Adrian Hyde-Price on the UK’s role in European security. The discussion will be moderated by Dr Lisbeth Aggestam. 

Aimed at students, academics, and policy practitioners, the conference seeks to foster informed and critical debate on the EU’s future role in a world shaped by war, geopolitical rivalry, and competing visions of order. 

Monday 11 May 2026, 13.20--16.30

13:20–13:30 Introduction and welcome 
Dr Lisbeth Aggestam, Centre for European Research (CERGU) 

13:30–14:30 Keynote address -- Allies and Rivals: How Europe can Navigate Great Power Politics 
Professor Sven Biscop (Ghent University and Egmont) 

14:30–15:00 Coffee break 

15:00–16:00 Roundtable discussion 
Former EU Commissioner Dr Cecilia Malmström (School of Business, Economics and Law) Professor Fredrik Söderbaum (School of Global Studies) Professor Ann-Marie Ekengren (Department of Political Science) Professor Adrian Hyde-Price (Department of Political Science) 

16:00–16:30 Q&A

Repairing Colonial Wrongs: 21st Century Reparations Politics in Europe

Symposium, October 21–22, 2025

Venue: B225 at Sprängkullsgatan 19, Faculty of Social Science, University of Gothenburg 

Organisation & contact: Louise Schou Therkildsen, louise.schou.therkildsen@gu.se.

How do societies relate to past injustices, and how do they seek to rectify them? Since the turn of the 21st century and increasingly in the last decade, reparations politics has become prominent, not only in former authoritarian regimes, but also in liberal welfare democracies. European nation states (e.g., France, Germany, Great Britain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, and the Nordic countries) have initiated processes of self-examination and in various degrees examined the extent and character of colonial injustice, aimed at reconciliation with the victims. Concurrently, in the Nordic context Sami representatives have initiated – and won – court litigations against the state over Indigenous land rights.

These various types of reparations politics – litigations, truth and reconciliation commissions, repatriation (archives, museum artefacts, human remains), reconciliation processes, and official apologies – reveal diverging conceptions of what needs to be rectified, and they make use of different historical narratives. While a chronological development from traditional truth and reconciliation commissions to symbolic acts of apology and communicative history is visible, they also co-occur, albeit in new forms as they migrate to new contexts. Liberal democracy is a crucial component in these new contexts, but recent scholarship also suggests that the reparations politics of the Nordic welfare democracies constitutes a specific Nordic model, the contours of which are only beginning to show. How does the Nordic model differ from a European model? What functions do the various reparatory practices serve, and to whom? And how do they interact?

The symposium seeks to answer these questions by bringing together international scholars from a wide range of studies. Everyone is welcome! 

Tuesday, October 21

12.30–13.15: Coffee, welcome, and introduction

Welcoming by Andreas Moberg, Director of Centre for European Research, introduction by Louise Schou Therkildsen, Centre for European Research.

13.15–15.30: Revisiting the Past: Historiography and Repatriation (Chair: Christina Reimann)

“Provenance research and repatriation of ancestral remains from colonial contexts. Reflections on current developments”
Holger Stoecker, Department of Medieval and Modern History, University of Göttingen

“Colonial stigma in EU’s relations with the Global South” 
Monika de Silva, Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg

“Truth about the past and the writing of history – some dilemmas for Truth commissions and their critics”
Gunlög Fur, Department of Cultural Sciences, Linnaeus University

15.30–16.15: Coffee break

16.15–17.45: Truth and Reconciliation Commissions (Chair: Johan Schaffer)

“What happens after a Truth Commission? Follow-ups to the TRCs in Norway and Canada”
Elin Skaar, Chr. Michelsen Institute

"From Concept to Practice: Implications of the Norwegian TRC’s understanding of reconciliation for the follow-up process”
Amalie Drage Habbestad, Centre for Sami Studies, UiT The Arctic University of Norway

19.00: Dinner (for presenters)

Wednesday, October 22

09.00–10.30: Symbolic Practices: Official Apology, Ceremony, Ritual (Chair: Peter Johansson)

“The role of official apologies in Denmark’s recent reckoning with its colonial past in Greenland”
Lisa Villadsen, Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen.

“Norway is listening”: Scenes of recognition and performativity in the public reading of the Norwegian TRC’s report
Louise Schou Therkildsen, Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg

10.30–11.00: Coffee break

11.00–12.30: Litigation and Land Rights (Chair: Monika de Silva)

“Litigation as reparations politics: The case of Sami reindeer herding communities in Sweden”
Peter Johansson & Johan Karlsson Schaffer, Global Studies, University of Gothenburg

“Potentials and limitations of the law in repairing colonial wrongs”
Sabine Mannitz, Peace Research Institute Frankfurt

12.30: Lunch & goodbye (for presenters)

Louise Schou Therkildsen, Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg

The symposium is generously supported by Riksbankens jubileumsfond and the Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg.

17-18 April 2023, Stockholm

IVA Conference Center, Grev Turegatan 16

In the last decade, some EU Member States have introduced legal and political reforms which undermine the rule of law, human rights, and democracy. The EU has struggled to come to terms with these changes, which have serious implications for its functioning, its credibility and its identity. The EU institutions have sought to address these violations using various tools, but so far, nothing seems to be working.

This conference brings together distinguished scholars as well as policy-makers and practitioners to discuss important questions concerning this situation and the future of the rule of law in the EU:

- What lessons can we learn from the actions that EU institutions have already taken?

- Does the EU need novel instruments to protect the rule of law?

- Could the EU better support Member States in their transition back to rule of law compliance?

- If so, how should this be done in a time of unease which threatens unity?

The conference constitutes an important venue for the exchange of ideas, drawing lessons from past experiences, and charting a concrete path for future action.

The conference is free of charge, but registration is required. Register to attend by following this link: https://su.powerinit.com/Data/Event/EventTemplates/2602/?EventId=2165

The Conference is co-organized by the Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies (SIEPS), the Swedish Network for European Legal Studies (SNEF), the Centre for European Research at Gothenburg University (CERGU), and the School of Business, Economics, and Law at Gothenburg University.

Keynote Speakers:

Koen Lenaerts, President of the Court of Justice of the European Union

Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission (tbc)

Staffan I. Lindberg, Director of V-Dem, University of Gothenburg

Kim Lane Scheppele, Professor of Sociology and International Affairs, Princeton University

Christian Danielsson, the Swedish State Secretary for EU Affairs

Plenary Speakers:

Dimitry Kochenov, Senior Research Fellow, Central European University

R. Daniel Kelemen, Professor of Political Science and Law, Rutgers University

Armin von Bogdandy, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

András Sajó, Central European University, and former judge at the European Court of Human Rights

Kalypso Nicolaidis, Chair in Global Affairs, European University Institute

Christophe Hillion, Professor of European Law, University of Oslo

Ian Manners, Professor of Political Science, University of Lund

Cecilia Malmström, Senior Research Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics and former European Commissioner for Trade

Luke Dimitrios Spieker, Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute

Allan Rosas, Former Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union

Monica Claes, professor of European and Comparative Constitutional Law, Maastricht University

Ana Bobić, Référendaire, Court of Justice of the European Union

Anna Wójcik, Assistant Professor, Institute of Legal Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Henriikka Leppo, Head of EU litigation unit at Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland Harry Flam, Senior Advisor in Economics, SIEPS

Conference Organizing Committee

Göran von Sydow, Director, SIEPS; Antonina Bakardjieva Engelbrekt, Professor at Stockholm University; Per Cramér, Professor and Dean of the School of Business Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg; Christophe Hillion, Professor at University of Oslo; Hannes Lenk, Senior Researcher at the Swedish National Board of Trade; Björn Lundqvist, Professor at Stockholm University and Director of SNEF; Andreas Moberg, University of Gothenburg and Director at CERGU; and Anna Södersten, Senior Researcher at SIEPS.

For information regarding the conference program please contact Anna Södersten anna.sodersten@sieps.se

Practical Social Democracy - Symposium

This workshop offers a new and original perspective on social democratic politics. It focuses on social democracy as a practical, everyday programme. It examines the flexible and pragmatic character of reformist politics. It assesses the impact of policies legacies on social democratic policies. It looks at the role played by norms and traditions in social democratic activities and it details the rhetorical dimension to reformist measures.

Put simply, the focus of this workshop is on the nature and evolution of social democracy as a pragmatic, everyday political programme.

Practical Social Democracy Programme

Wednesday 8 June
Venue: Lecture Hall Dragonen, ground floor, Sprängkullsgatan 19

14.00-14.10 Welcome
Jonas Hinnfors (University of Gothenburg)

14.10-15.40. Public Event I Contemporary Challenges to Social Democracy
Marika Lindgren-Åsbrink (Chief Analyst, The Swedish Social Democratic Party) and Ania Skrzypek (Foundation for European Progressive Studies) – Jonas Hinnfors (chair)
Please click the link below to view the recorded keynote:
https:/play.gu.se/media/KeynoteA+Contemporary+Challenges+to+Social+Democracy/0_b0e1cby3

Venue: Room B225, Sprängkullsgatan 19, 2nd floor
16.00-17.00 Session 1: Introduction
Magnus Feldmann (University of Bristol), Jonas Hinnfors, and Mark Wickham-Jones (University of Bristol)

18.30 onwards. Dinner at Skanshof (Lilla Bergsgatan 1 - registered participants only)

Thursday, 9 June
Venue: Room B225, floor 2, Sprängkullsgatan 19

09.00-10.30. Session 2: Historical perspectives on practical social democracy I
Magnus Feldman (chair)
Jon Lawrence (University of Exeter), ‘British Social Democracy in Practice: Lessons from History’
Mark Wickham-Jones, ‘British Labour and the State’
Emmanuelle Avril (Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle)/Eric Shaw (University of Stirling), ‘The Oscillations of British Social Democracy’

11.00-12.30. Session 3: Historical perspectives II
Mark Wickham-Jones (chair)
Rob Manwaring (Flinders University), ‘Varieties of Practical Social Democracy: The Case of Australia’
Brian Shaev (Leiden University), ‘The German Social Democrats’ Agricultural Dilemma: Consumerism, Farmers’ Lobbies, and European Integration, 1949-1981'
Frida Boräng (University of Gothenburg)/Sara Kalm (Lund University)/Johannes Lindvall (University of Gothenburg), ‘Immigration Policy and the Welfare State in Comparative and Historical Perspective’

12.30-13.45 Lunch at Taverna Averna (Tredje Långgatan 9 – registered participants only)

13.45-15.15. Session 4: Language, rhetoric, and statecraft
Magnus Feldmann (chair)
Jonas Hinnfors, ‘Slowly boiling the frog. The increasing gap between rhetoric and delivery in the Swedish Social Democratic Party’
Karl Pike (Queen Mary University London), ‘Interpreting Social Democracy: “Common Meanings” and Ideology
Eunice Goes (Richmond University), ‘Governing Through Inter-Party Dialogue: Lessons in Social Democratic Statecraft from Portugal.’

15.45-17.15. Session 5: Practical social democracy and policy making
Mark Wickham-Jones (chair)
Jane Gingrich (Oxford University), ‘Human Capital and Social Democracy’
Karen Anderson (University College Dublin), ‘Pension Markets in Sweden and Denmark: Practical Social Democracy?

18.45 onwards. Dinner at Familjen (Arkivgatan 7 - registered participants only)

Friday, 10 June
Venue: 09.00-10.45: Room B225, floor 2, Sprängkullsgatan 19; 11.15-15.30: Lecture Hall Husaren, ground floor, Pilgatan 19A

09.00-10.45 Session 6: Developing Social Democracy
Jonas Hinnfors (chair)
Jonas Pontusson (Université de Genève)/Ari Ray (Université de Genève), ‘Trade union membership and the electoral decline of Swedish Social Democracy’
Sheri Berman (Columbia University), ‘Looking Back and Looking Forward: How the Left's Electorate and Appeal Have Changed over the Past Decades and What Should be Done about it.’
Magnus Feldmann, ‘Embracing the Market? Social Democracy and Economic Policy in Finland’

11.15-13.00 Public Event II The Social Democratic Experience
Andrew Adonis (House of Lords, United Kingdom), Mark Wickham-Jones (chair) 
Please click the link below to view the recorded keynote: 
https://play.gu.se/media/KeynoteA+The+Social+Democratic+Experience/0_hl88lg03

13.15-14.00 Lunch at Sjöbaren i Haga (Haga Nygata 25 - registered participants only)

14.00-15.30 Concluding general discussion session

Symposium closes

Practical Information
Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation
Our conference hotel is Hotel Riverton. Please contact CERGU Research Administrator, Angie Sohlberg (angie.sohlberg@gu.se) if you have any questions.

This conference aims to explore the development, role, influence and shape of virtual spaces in different forms related to the contemporary European Jewry. How are digital practices related to real-life practices and spaces performed and inhabited by Europe’s Jews? What do virtual spaces reveal about Jewish engagement with the geographical location and the idea of Europe? And, ultimately, what do virtual spaces tell us about the existence and future of a ”Jewish Europe”? What do they say about transcending the borders of ”Jewish Europe” and fostering membership in a global Jewish presence?

The conference is generously supported by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Wenner-Gren Foundations, European Association for Jewish Studies and The Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations.

Organisers:

The Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg CERGU
Dr Maja Hultman, Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg
Professor Joachim Schlör, University of Southampton

If you have any questions about the conference, please do not hesitate to contact:  
Dr Maja Hultman, Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg
Contact Email: maja.hultman@gu.se

Venue: University of Gothenburg (contact conference organisers for more information)
Dates: 3-5 May, 2022

Conference Programme

Tuesday – 3 May 2022

09.00-09.30 Welcome and introduction

09.30-10.45 Keynote 1: Ruth Ellen Gruber 

10.45-11.15 Break and coffee

11.15-12.45 Panel 1: Being Jewish in Today’s Europe

12.45-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.30 Panel 2: Jewish contribution to Europe

15.30-16.00 Break and coffee

16.00-17.30 Heritage session: Jewish Spaces in Sweden

18.15-23.00 Dinner

Wednesday – 4 May 2022

09.00-10.30 Panel 3: Constructing Jewish Europe from Near and Afar

10.30-11.00 Break and coffee

11.00-12.30 Panel 4: Virtual Heritage Spaces of Jewish Europe

12.30-13.45 Lunch

13.45-15.15 Panel 5: Digital Practices in Today’s Europe

16.00-23.00 Dinner

Thursday – 5 May 2022

09.00-10.30 Panel 6: Jewish/non-Jewish Spaces in Today’s Europe

10.30-11.00 Break and coffee

11.00-12.15 Keynote 2: Diana Pinto 

12.15-12.30 Closing remarks

12.30-13.45 Lunch

Practical Information

Airport Transfer
Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation
Our conference hotel is Gothia Towers. Please contact CERGU Research Administrator, Angie Sohlberg (angie.sohlberg@gu.se) to reserve a room. Space is limited.

Gideon Reuveni in Conversation with Maja Hultman: The Marketplace and the Jewish Experience: Integration, Rehabilitation, and Power

This keynote presentation was part of the online conference "Jews, Europe, and the Business of Culture". Gideon Reuveni is Professor of Modern European History and director of the Weidenfeld Institute of Jewish Studies at the University of Sussex. His central research interest is the cultural and social history of modern European and Jewish history. He is the author of the prize-winning book ‘Consumer Culture and the Making of Jewish Identity.’ Presently he is working on a book length project on the history of German compensation payments to victims of National Socialism.

This conference was held via the online platform Zoom. A playlist of the recorded presentations can be accessed here: https://play.gu.se/playlist/dedicated/0_b5xsnkud/

The conference “The Century of Sputnik and Chernobyl: Science and the European Left during the Twentieth Century” will be held at the Centre for European Research (CERGU) University of Gothenburg on 20–21 April 2021. The conference is organised by the Centre for European Research of the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) and sponsored by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (F19-1548). The goal of the conference is to explore the reciprocal influences between science and the European left, with the hypothesis that the historical development of one can be explained by the other. While the two topics have been explored separately, we argue that showing the connections between the two can provide new explanatory tools to history and social science.

The conference brings together established scholars and early-career researchers alike from different disciplines and nations. The conference was originally scheduled for April 2020, but it had to be postponed due to Covid-19. Despite this temporary obstacle, the event is more urgent than ever. Indeed, the global pandemic revealed how science influences politics and what role scientific expertise play in a democracy.

Following Benedetto Croce’s maxim that “All history is contemporary history”, we will have a free discussion at the end of the first day to discuss how the experience of Covid-19 changed the perception of the interaction of scientific expertise, scientific issues and democratic politics and what insights we can apply to the study of the past.

How to participate: to attend the conference, view the speeches and ask questions, visit the CERGU website, Facebook page or write to the conference organisers: https://www.gu.se/en/european-research/events
Ettore Costa: ettore.costa@lir.gu.se
Angelica Sohlberg: angie.sohlberg@gu.se
Birgitta Jännebring: birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se 

Conference Programme

Tuesday 20 April 2021
8:30-9:00: Introduction
9:00-10:30: Panel 1: From Lenin to Gagarin: Communist imagination of science
D. Steila, “Science and Revolution in Russian Marxism (1900-1920)”
G. Bassi, “The Italian Communist Discourse on Soviet Scientific Propaganda (1949-1969)”
M. Schwartz, “The limits of communism. Imaginations of progress and society in Soviet science fiction of the post-Stalin period”

10:30-12:00 Panel 2: Predicting the Future, Mastering the Future
G. O’Hara, “Imagining the Planned future: the British Government's Very Long Term Planning Committee in the 1960s”
E. Rindzeviciute, The science of forecasting and prediction in the Soviet Union

12:00-13:15: Lunch pause, mingling in Zoom

13:30-15:00: Panel 3: Scientific Progress and Human Progress
A. Chakraborty, “Nehru’s Science and 'Scientific Temper': Tracing the Optimism of Socialist Science Backwards”
S. Salvia, “In the Name of Galileo: Scientific Progress, Social Emancipation, Political Struggle, and Cultural Hegemony in the Italian Marxist Left (1957-1968)”
J. Perazzoli, “’Thinking on Tomorrow’: West-European Socialism facing Automation and Technological Progress during the 1950s-1960s”

15:00-15:30: Coffee pause, mingling on Zoom

15:30-17:00: Roundtable: “Can Covid-19 help us reread the past of science and politics?”

Wednesday 21 April 2021

9:00-10:30: Panel 4: Scientists as Political Actors and Policy-Makers
E. Costa, “The Bee and the Architect: Scientists against Scientism in Italy, Britain and West Germany (1977-1988)”
M. Emanuel, “Science Diplomacy, Technology Transfer, and Cold War Neutrality: Swedish Collaboration in Astrophysics with the USSR, 1965–1976”
P. Lundin, “Science and Social Democracy: Court Politics in the Shadow of the Cold War”

10:30-12:00: Panel 5: Science and New Politics
S. Topçu, "From resistance to co-management? A social history of contestations over the French nuclear complex (from 1970s to present)”
J Gärdebo, “Tracing sociotechnical imaginaries of Swedish satellite remote sensing, 1973–1986”

12:00-13:15: Lunch pause, mingling in Zoom

13:30-15:00: Panel 6: From the Society of Tomorrow to the Society of Risks
K. Ekberg, “A question of scale? - climate change science, nuclear power and the Social Democrats in Sweden 1970-1980”
C. Götter, “Fissionable Fears – Fearful Perspectives on the History of Nuclear Power”
C. Laucht, “The 'New Urban Left' and Anti-Nuclear Politics in Britain, 1980-85”

15:30-16:30: Discussion on conference findings and publication strategy

Themes and Questions

Exploring the connection between the European left and science opens up a wide range of queries, centred around the following topics:

Science and the Society of Tomorrow: the conference explores the role of science in the imagination of the future by the European left, how it shaped its political programme, rhetoric and culture. It also explores how sociotechnical imaginaries evolved in response to political developments. Particular emphasis is given to the two main branches of the European left in the twentieth century — social democracy and communism —, but the influence of European concepts in decolonised countries will also be covered.

Scientists as policy-makers and political actors: Political and intellectual history usually ignore natural scientists as public intellectuals — unlike artists and literary figures — but recent historiography has shown how they influenced politics and policies acting as advisors, opinionmakers or activists. Focus is given to how expertise was used in policy-formation, legislation, debates — as the twentieth century saw declining trust in experts and growing demand for democratic accountability and citizens’ participation.

Science and the new politics: In Ulrich Beck’s Risk Society, the goal of politics is no longer achieving positive goals, but preventing the worst, since the future was not a blank slate to be shaped, but a source of threats — including technological threats. The conference explores how technological risks became more politically salient across the century, undermining the old left — more concerned with the activist state — and creating new openings for political mobilisation and democratic engagement. This allowed the emergence of a new politics from below and new political actors concerned with health and the environment.

Non-compliance in the European Union: patterns, explanations and remedies

International conference 17-18 September 2020, online

Conference convener:

Markus Johansson, postdoc

Centre for European Research (CERGU)

Department of Political Science

University of Gothenburg

markus.johansson@pol.gu.se

Abstract

An international legal order builds on its signatory states’ compliance with the treaties and laws adopted. The extent of the compliance problem, the causes of non-compliant behavior and how to remedy it, have accordingly been critical questions in international relations scholarship. This conference focuses on current advances in the study of non-compliance, with a particular but not exclusive emphasis on the European Union. The EU is the most integrated and institutionalized cooperation between nation states to date, which is due to the member states’ commitment to cooperation, induced by the EU’s comparatively strong compliance mechanisms. Yet, non-compliance remains a non-negligible problem in the EU, and has gained public attention in recent years where member states have challenged joint rules in areas such as migration and rule of law. Under this surface, non-compliance has remained an issue also in other areas. The conference brings together scholars and papers that deal with patterns of non-compliance, explanations for them, but also remedies. Contributions focus on both member states and supranational institutions, and their (strategic) behavior, and are utilizing a variety of research methods from different disciplinary traditions. The aim is to make further advances in the study of international non-compliance, gain new insights and inspire further study.

Conference Program 

17 September

13.00-13.15, Introduction and welcoming
Markus Johansson, conference convener
Klas Grinell, Director of the Centre for European Research (CERGU)

13.15-14.00, Paper session 1
Ellen Mastenbroek (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands) and Esther Versluis (Maastricht University, the Netherlands) (joint work with Oliver Treib)
How the EU makes its legislation work
Discussant: Jon Pierre

14.00-14.15 Break

14.15-15.45, Paper session 2
Faradj Koliev (Stockholm University, Sweden)
Promoting International Labor Standards: Adoption or Ratification?
Discussant: Markus Johansson

Markus Johansson and Olof Larsson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)
Explaining Non-compliance with Affirmative and Negative Obligations
Discussant: Esther Versluis

15.45-16.00 Break

16.00-17.30, Paper session 3
Joshua Fjelstul (Washington University, St. Louis, US)
Litigating Noncompliance at the Court of Justice of the European Union: How the Chambers System Undermines the Consistency of European Union Law
Discussant: Allison Östlund

Tanja Börzel (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) Why Noncompliance Is Sector Specific Discussant: Dimiter Toshkov

18 September

8.30-10.00, Paper session 4
Andreas Hofmann (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) Compliance or rule gain? The Commission’s goals in the infringement procedure
Discussant: Asya Zhelyazkova

Philipp Tischer (joint work with Reini Margriet Schrama) The Commission's Selective Enforcement of Types of Non-Compliance
Discussant: Brigitte Pircher

10.00-10.15 Break

10.15-11.45, Paper session 5
Brigitte Pircher (Linneaus University Växjö, Sweden) The European Commission’s shift from management approach to strategic enforcement in compliance with EU law from 1989 until 2018
Discussant: Olof Larsson

Andreas Moberg (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) Can we expect compliance with the rule of law without the rule of law?
Discussant: Andreas Hofmann

11.45, Wrap-up session
Conclusion of conference with possible general discussion and reflection.

List of confirmed participants (with or without paper)

Tanja Börzel (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) Daniel Carelli (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) Joshua Fjelstul (Washington University, St. Louis, US) Andreas Hofmann (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany) Markus Johansson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) Faradj Koliev (Stockholm University, Sweden) Olof Larsson (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) Ellen Mastenbroek (Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands) Andreas Moberg (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) Jon Pierre (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) Brigitte Pircher (Linneaus University Växjö, Sweden) Björn Rönnerstrand (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) Philipp Tischer Dimiter Toshkov (Leiden University, the Netherlands) Esther Versluis (Maastricht University, the Netherlands) Anna Wetter Ryde (Swedish Institute for European Policy Studies) Asya Zhelyazkova (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands) Allison Östlund (University of Gothenburg, Sweden)

The conference will be entirely online. If you are interested or have questions about the format or participation, contact:

Markus Johansson
Conference organizer
markus.johansson@pol.gu.se

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402 
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

European Borderlands

The Centre for European Research (CERGU), University of Gothenburg is organizing an afternoon workshop on European Borderlands.

Date: 9 May 2019
Time: 13.00-17.00
Location: Humanisten, Lundgrensgatan 1B Room H820

Aim of the workshop

Borderlands play a significant part throughout European history. On the grounds of borderlands, Europe has seen a wide array of political disputes and cultural construction of borders. Outside Europe, borderlands were laid out when the Europeans met the peoples across the oceans and European states turned to expansionist ventures eastwards. Within Europe, the significance of borderlands are related to processes as a growing number of recognized nationalities and Europeanisation.

The aim of the workshop is to enhance reflections on European borderlands. We want to bring together the researchers who are studying borderlands and the setting of borders throughout history. We want to accomplish a better knowledge of what we are accomplishing in this field and attempt to find common research questions.

As a common platform, we use the brief description of the new course European Borderlands at the European master program at the University of Gothenburg. 'Throughout history, people have erected borders against the outside, the unfamiliar, and “the other.” Lines of separation have appeared in different forms and for different reasons. Borders have sometimes been the result of conscious choices, other times of unintended developments and contingencies. Walls and fences, maps, legislative acts, new technologies and discoveries, ideological constructions, scientific (and pseudo-scientific) categorizations, cultural expressions, and social customs have all served to organize territory and shape perceptions of community and identity. But borders, whether spatial or mental, physical or cultural, have neither been static nor impermeable. For centuries, new lines of divisions, new perceptions of “us” and “them,” and new mechanisms for exclusion and inclusion have emerged, moved, and dissolved while in the process defining and shaping the European experience. Within and between dominant political, economic, and cultural regimes, there have always been spaces of considerable fluidity and exchange. Spanning from the earliest encounters with the peoples and societies of the New World to the rise of the European nation-states, this course builds on the multidisciplinary and rapidly growing field of borderland studies to examine the historical underpinnings of the great challenges facing Europe today.' (http://kursplaner.gu.se/pdf/kurs/en/EU2114)

For additional information, contact Mats Andrén: mats.andren@lir.gu.se

SNES Spring Conference: The European Union- Inside/Out

The 2016 Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States generated discussions of a “populist wave” sweeping across Europe in a year with a crowded electoral calendar. Although the Eurosceptic Party for Freedom failed to top the polls in the Netherlands, and Marine Le Pen did not advance in the second round of France’s presidential election, Eurosceptic voices continue to make themselves heard in Member States across the European Union (EU). Examples of such Euroscepticism include the electoral breakthrough of the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, the strong showing of the Freedom Party of Austria in the October 2017 election, and the resistance to refugee quotas and other EU-based decisions from Hungary and Poland. Roughly a quarter century after the Maastricht Treaty-era marked a shift in public opinion from a “permissive consensus” to a “constraining dissensus,” what is the contemporary role of Eurosceptism for the politics of the EU? What roles do the internal processes of governance and decision-making in European institutions play in shaping the contemporary stances towards European integration of individuals, firms and other non-governmental organizations, and Member States?

Externally, the EU also faces a number of serious challenges. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker explicitly stated that there were no plans for EU enlargement during his presidency, but what are the prospects for official candidates after 2019? How durable is the agreement struck between Brussels and Ankara on limiting migrant/refugee flows, and how does this relate to Turkey’s candidacy and perceived democratic backsliding? More generally, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is strained by the return of geopolitics in the EU’s near abroad – both to the East and in North Africa – and the potential trade-offs between European ideals and utilitarian pragmatism. Questions related to migration quickly become intertwined with broader questions about ethnic diversity, which can create difficult cohabitation between majorities and minorities. How are EU external relations affected when Member States are confronted with increasing internal pressures and a changing global context that potentially triggers divisions along national lines? The EU must rethink its geopolitical position on key trade and security policies as the Trump administration becomes an increasingly less reliable partner, China embarks on its “One Belt One Road” policy, and Russia continues to challenge the EU’s role in Eastern Europe, the Western Balkans and the Caucasus.

The conference features two keynote addresses: Professor Catherine de Vries, from the University of Essex, will address the topic of Euroscepticism and the future of European integration; Professor Frank Schimmelfennig, of ETH Zurich, will speak about enlargement and the EU’s neighbourhood policy.

Program

Swedish Network for European Studies in Political Science
Spring Conference 2018: The European Union: Inside/Out
Gothenburg 19-20 April

Thursday 19 April
9:30-10:00
Registration and coffee
10:00-10:30
Welcome – opening of conference, SEB-salen
10:30-12:00 Paper session 1
Panel – Europe in the World (Room D31)
Panel – Political Parties and Europe (Room D34)
12:00-13:30
Lunch (including board-meeting), Handelsrätten
13:30-15:00
Paper session 2
Panel – European Law (Room D34)
Panel – Europe and its Neighborhood (Room D31)
Panel – European Policy-making Processes and Outcomes (Room C33)
15:00-15:15
Coffee
15:15-16:30
Paper session 3
Panel – Mass-elite Connections in European Politics (Room D31)
Panel – The Politics of Security (Room D34)
16:45-18:15
Keynote lecture: Catherine de Vries (Room SEB-salen)
“Euroscepticism and the Future of European Integration”
19:30 Conference dinner, Hotel Riverton

Friday 20 April
9:00-10:30
Paper session 4
Panel – Commissions, Courts, and Interest Groups (Room C33)
Panel – Voting in Europe (Room D31)
Panel – Globalization, Trade and Competition (Room D34)
10:30-11:00
Coffee
11:00-12:30 Keynote lecture: Frank Schimmelfennig (Room D33)
“EU enlargement: still the most successful foreign policy of the EU?”
12:30-13:30
Lunch, Handelsrätten
13:30-15:00
Paper session 5
Panel – Politics and Governance in Southeastern Europe (Room D31)
Panel – Multi-level, multi-speed Europe (Room C33)

Practical Information

Travel and Accommodation
The conference is open to all interested participants. There is no conference fee. However, if you are NOT based at a SNES member institution (see list at www.snes.se) you will have to cover your own costs of travel and accommodation. SNES will only cover costs for travel and accommodation for participants from the member institutions.

Conference hotel: Hotel Riverton: www.riverton.se. Hotel rooms are already reserved, and will be prepaid for those participants from a SNES member institution that register at www.snes.se before the registration deadline.

Travel: All transportation to the conference should be booked and paid for by each member institution. Each member institution will then send one joint invoice for the total cost of travels (for all participants from that institution) to the SNES network for reimbursement. Contact your local SNES representative for more information.

Mobility and Leisure Travel in the Cold War

7-8 December, 2017

Location: Seminar Room Pilen, Pilgatan 19A (3rd floor) University of Gothenburg, Sweden
For any questions please contact conference organizer Sune Bechmann Pedersen, sune.bechmann.pedersen@gu.se

The Centre for European Research (CERGU), University of Gothenburg is organizing a two-day workshop on mobility and leisure travel in the Cold War. 

The image of Europe as divided by an impenetrable Iron Curtain is no longer accepted as accurate by historians of the Cold War. Although the communist regimes in Eastern Europe curtailed the mobility between East and West, millions of western holidaymakers still travelled behind the Iron Curtain. Tourism was one of the most significant cross-bloc interactions and served as a foreign policy tool in the Communist bloc’s pursuit of ‘peaceful coexistence’ between East and West after Stalin’s death. This conference sets out to deepen our understanding of the gradual integration of East and West during the Cold War by concentrating on the transnational circulation of individuals, idea, and goods facilitated by leisure travel. It follows up on a workshop to be held by the European Travel Cultures and Mobilities research network at the University of Amsterdam on 7–8 April 2017, co-organized by Bechmann Pedersen (Gothenburg) and Christian Noack (Amsterdam). The conference programme offers a very coherent set of papers, that are nevertheless of importance to several fields including Cold War studies, tourism, and European integration history. The planned publications resulting from the conference are therefore expected to generate a wide interest and exercise a significant impact on the understanding of mobility in the Cold War.

Konferensen hålls på engelska.

Conference Program

Mobility and Leisure Travel in the Cold War

CERGU Workshop 7–8 December 2017
Seminar Room Pilen, Pilgatan 19A (3rd floor)

THURSDAY 7 DECEMBER 2017

9:30-9:55 Registration and coffee
10:00-10:25 Welcome
Sune Bechmann Pedersen (U of Gothenburg) & Christian Noack (U of Amsterdam)

10:30-12:00 Session I
Chair Wiebke Kolbe (Lund U)
Igor Tchoukarine (U of Minnesota) Advertising and Organizing Global Tourism during the Cold War: Yugoslavia and the OECD
Fredrik Stöcker (U of Vienna) ‘Almost but not quite Western’: Tourism as a Catalyst for Modernization in the Estonian SSR
Disc. Birgit Karlsson (U of Gothenburg)

12:15-13:30 Lunch (Happy M Kitchen, Vasagatan 24)

13:45-15:15 Session II 
Chair Birgit Karlsson (U of Gothenburg)
Christian Noack (U of Amsterdam) & Sune Bechmann Pedersen (U of Gothenburg) Negotiating the Cold War Air Space: Soviet Air Rights Diplomacy in the Early Cold War
Karl Kleve (The National Norwegian Aviation Museum) Iron Curtain Overflights: The Norwegian–Soviet 1956 agreement on Landings and Overflights
Disc. Jan Henrik Nilsson (Lund U)

15:15-15:40 Coffee break 

15:50-17:20 Session III 
Chair Frank Schipper (U of Gothenburg)
Elitza Stanoeva (EUI) Bidding for the Western Vacationer: Bulgarian International Tourism on the Danish Market during the Cold War
Sarolta Klenjanszky (Centre for Advanced Study Sofia) Holiday beyond Friendship in the Cold War: West European Tourists Visiting Hungary and Bulgaria in the Framework of the City Twinning Movement, 1970s–1980s
Disc. Susanna Fellman (U of Gothenburg)

18:45 Conference Dinner (Magnus & Magnus, Magasinsgatan 8) 

FRIDAY 8 DECEMBER 2017
9:00-9:25 Coffee 

9:30-11:00 Session IV 
Chair Jan Henrik Nilsson (Lund U)
Sune Bechmann Pedersen (U of Gothenburg) Between Political and Profitable Tourism: The Business History of a Communist Travel Agent in the Cold War
Angela Romano (EUI) Tourism and Human Contacts in the Framework of the CSCE Process
Disc. Gregg Bucken-Knapp (U of Gothenburg)

11:00-11:25 Coffee break 

11:30-13:00 Session V
Chair Gregg Bucken-Knapp (U of Gothenburg)
Shaul Kelner (Vanderbilt U) Foreign Tourists, Domestic Encounters:
Human Rights Travel and Western Visits to Soviet Jewish Homes
Marianne Rostgaard (Aalborg U) Negotiating Western Tourism to Eastern Europe: Political Constraints and Possible Impacts
Disc. Wiebke Kolbe (Lund U)

13:30-14:50 Lunch (Sjöbaren i Haga, Haga Nygata 25) 

15:05-15:50 Session VI
Chair Olga Sasunkevich (U of Gothenburg)
Frank Schipper (U of Gothenburg), Igor Tchoukarine (U of Minnesota) & Sune Bechmann Pedersen (U of Gothenburg) The History of the European Travel Commission (1948–2018)
Disc. Jonathan Polk (U of Gothenburg) 

15:55-16:15 Plans for the future 
Sune Bechmann Pedersen (U of Gothenburg) & Christian Noack (U of Amsterdam

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The conference will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus. The conference sessions will be held in the seminar room Pilen, Pilgatan 19A on the 3rd floor.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg City with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation

The conference hotel is Vasa Hotel.

Contact

Sune Bechmann Pedersen
Conference organizer
sune.bechmann.pedersen@gu.se

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

Port Cities and Migration in the Modern Era

23-24 November, 2017

Location: Viktoriagatan 13, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
For any questions please contact conference organizer Christina Reimann, christina.reimann@gu.se

The Centre for European Research (CERGU), University of Gothenburg is organizing a two-day conference on port cities and migration. This conference will bring together scholars from all over the world to discuss and scrutinize the double role of port cities by asking how far migration accounts for port cities' global connectedness and for their specific cultures.

About the conference:

Port cities allow for a localized insight into past and present globalization processes. Throughout the modern era, port cities have served as hubs of global transfers and exchange, while also representing gateways for cultural change within (national) societies. They functioned as catalysts for global phenomena such as colonialism, trade, or mass emigration. At the same time, different forms of mobility of people and commodities shaped these urban spaces and cultures.

The focus of this interdisciplinary conference is on migration phenomena, ranging from transit migration over (post-) colonial migration to dockworkers' mobility, allows for fruitfully integrating two research perspectives on port cities: the global (history) and the cultural (history) studies perspective. Encompassing different forms of agency, this approach shall permit a better appraisal of port cities' part as 'portals of globalization'.

The conference will involve six panels with seventeen presentations by young and established researchers from different European countries and disciplines, as well as a public roundtable. All are welcome to join!

Konferensen hålls på engelska.

Conference Program

CERGU CONFERENCE ON PORT CITIES AND MIGRATION IN THE MODERN ERA

Venue: Viktoriagatan 13, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

Thursday 23 November 2017

9:15 - 9:45 Arrival

9:45 - 10:15 Opening and Introduction

Part I: Gateways for Cultural Change
10:15 – 11:30 Panel 1: ‘The Migrant’ in Port Cities’ Society
Moderator: Rachel Pierce (GU, History)
Birgit Tremml-Werner (University of Zurich) Early Modern Manila’s Urban Context: Migrant Communities’ Contribution to Architecture and Infrastructure
Tomas Nilson (Halmstad University) Living, Work and Pleasure of a Port Town: The Maritime Geography of Gothenburg, ca. 1890-1930

11:30– 13:00 Lunch at Happy M Kitchen

13:00 – 14:45 Panel 2: Port Cities’ Urban Infrastructure
Moderator: Wojtek Jezierski (GU, History)
Martin Öhman (University of Gothenburg) Friends of National Industry and the Debate over Immigration and Political Economy in New York City and Philadelphia, c. 1815-1828
Paul van de Laar (Erasmus University Rotterdam) Rotterdam’s Superdiversity: A Historical Perspective 1900-2000
Sari Nauman (University of Gothenburg), Positioning of Refugees in Early Modern Port Cities

15:15 – 17:00 Panel 3: Migration and Identity Formation in Port Cities
Moderator: Pia Lundqvist (GU, History)
Carola Hein & Fatma Tanis (TU Delft) Migration, Narratives, and Identity Creation in Izmir since the 19th century
Malte Fuhrmann (Istanbul Bilgi University) Styling the Self: Identities in Flux in Nineteenth Century East Mediterranean Cities
Nora Lafi (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin) Cosmopolitanism versus Cosmopolitanism: Governing Ottoman Port Cities in an Age of Migration and Imperialism

17:30 – 19:00 Public Keynote Lecture/Roundtable: Port Cities’ Urban Cultures and their Share in Globalization Processes
Moderator: Andrea Spehar (Director of Centre on Global Migration, University of Gothenburg)
Brad Beaven (University of Portsmouth) Liminal Communities and Civic Fears: Port Towns and Urban Cultures in the Nineteenth Century
Leos Müller (University of Stockholm) Port Cities in Global History: Some Examples of Eighteenth-Century Globalization

20:00 Conference Dinner at Hagabion

Friday 24 November 2017
Part II: Hubs of Global Mobility

9:00 – 10:15 Panel 4: Microcosms of (Post-) Colonial Mobility
Moderator: Pavol Jakubec (GU, History)
Andrea Wiegeshoff (University of Marburg) Port Cities and Epidemics in American Imperial History: Migration, Mobility and Disease around 1900
Daniel Tödt (TU Berlin) Temporary Accommodation, Colonial Welcome Culture: African Seafarers on Shore Leave in Antwerp and Marseille (1920-1960)

10:30 – 12:15 Panel 5: Migrants’ Trajectories
Moderator: Alexandra Bousiou (GU, Global Studies)
Anne Winter (Free University Brussels) & Hilde Greefs (University of Antwerp) Port cities as Nodes in Migration Trajectories: Spatial Recruitment Patterns of Foreign Newcomers to Antwerp, 1850-1880
Kristof Loockx (University of Antwerp) Foreign Seamen on Belgian Ships in the Port of Antwerp, 1850-1914
Jordi Ibarz Gelabert (University of Barcelona) Migratory Movements and the Configuration of the Dockworker Labor Market: The Case of the Port of Barcelona during the First Half of the Twentieth Century

12:15 – 13:15 Lunch at Sjöbaren

13:15 – 15:00 Panel 6: Port Cities and Emigration
Moderator: Christina Reimann
Céline Regnard (University Aix-Marseille) Marseille, a transit city for «Syrian» Emigrants in the 1890’s-1910’s
Sarah Panter (Leibniz Institute of European History, Mainz) Between Rootedness and Fluidity: The Transatlantic Mobilities of Revolutionary Lives after 1848/49
Virginia Amorosi (University Federico II Naples) Leaving Italy: Migration Law and State Control in the Early 20th Century. The case of the Port of Napoli

15:10 – 16:00 Concluding Remarks/Final Discussion

*Please observe that all lunches and dinners are reserved for registered conference participants

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The conference will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus. The conference sessions will be held at Viktoriagatan 13.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg City with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation

The conference hotel is Vasa Hotel.

Contact

Christina Reimann
Conference organizer
christina.reimann@gu.se

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se

Workshop on Think Tanks in Europe

20-22 September 2017

Location: University of Gothenburg, Sweden
For any questions please contact Katarzyna Jezierska

The Centre for European Research (CERGU), University of Gothenburg is organizing a three-day workshop on Think Tanks in Europe. The workshop will bring together experts from political science, sociology, social anthropology, public administration, media studies and international relations who research think tanks in a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches as well as diversified empirical settings.

The aim of the workshop
All over the world, think tanks have become part of the machinery of policymaking. Usually defined as institutions claiming autonomy, whose main aim is to influence policy-making based on the social analysis they produce (McGann 2007; Rich 2004; Weaver 1989), they aspire to bridge the gap between knowledge (academia) and power (politicians and policymakers). Located at the intersection of different societal spheres, they engage in boundary work (Jezierska 2017; Medvetz 2012; Stone 2007). Since 1990 think tanks are growing numerically, now amounting to 6,846 institutions in the world, of which 1,770 are placed in Europe (McGann 2016). Not only have they increased in number, but also the scope and impact of their work have dramatically expanded (Kelstrup 2016). This changes the way governance is organized; it raises issues of accountability of these non-elected bodies and puts conventional notions of policy-making and democratic theory in question (cf. Garsten, Rothstein & Svallfors 2015; Plehwe 2014). Despite their visible presence and growing influence, think tanks are still relatively understudied.

The ambition of this workshop is to inspire scholarly exchange with regard to theoretical and methodological developments as well as empirical findings. Importantly, to balance the severely biased literature in the field, the workshop will strive to gather researchers from both Western and Eastern Europe. The workshop will target think tank communities in national settings, especially those, which have hitherto evaded thorough academic scrutiny, as well as the transnational dimension of think tanks. We will jointly explore who these actors are, what they do and how they operate in different empirical contexts as well as the implications of their activities for democratic governance.

Conference Program

CERGU WORKSHOP ON THINK TANKS IN EUROPE

Venue: University of Gothenburg, Dept. of Political Science, Sprängkullsgatan 19, Room B225
*Please observe that all lunches and dinners are reserved for registered conference participants

Wednesday 20 September 2017
13:00-14:00 LUNCH in Room B225

14:00-14:30 Introduction

Chair: Katarzyna Jezierska
14:30-15:00 Paper I: Marta Reuter, Pelle Åberg & Stefan Einarsson “Think tanks: a new organisational animal in Swedish civil society”
(Commentator: Thomas Alam)
15:00-15:30 Paper II: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup “Influencing the think tank agenda on Google News in the UK”
(Commentator: Maria Bigday)

15:30-16:00 COFFEE BREAK

Chair: Urban Strandberg
16:00-16:30 Paper III: Katarzyna Jezierska “The presentation of self in political life. On think tanks in Poland”
(Commentator: Dieter Plehwe)
16:30-17:00 Paper IV: Carolina de Stefano & Serena Giusti “Think Tanks and Foreign Policy in Russia: from inside to outside”
(Commentator: Patrick Gilroy)
17:00-17:30 Paper V: Marcos Gonzalez Hernando “The politics of the ‘moderate’: think tanks and the mediation of expertise and politics in times of austerity”
(Commentator: Milan Hrubeš)

19:00 INFORMAL DINNER at Malmstensvåningen

Thursday 21 September 2017
9:00-9:15 Introduction
9:15-11:30 PANEL: Methods and theories in think tank research
Dieter Plehwe, Marie Laure Djelic, Lucile Desmoulins
Commentator: Adrienne Sörbom
≈10:30 COFFEE BREAK
 
Chair: Marta Reuter
11:30-12:00 Paper VI: Cathrine Holst & Johan Christensen “The role of academic knowledge in Norwegian think tanks”
(Commentator: Valérie Pattyn)
12:00-12:30 Paper VII: Tatyana Bajenova “The multiplier effect of European think tank networks: between representativeness and exclusivity”
(Commentator: Jesper Dahl Kelstrup)

12:30-14:00 LUNCH at Happy M Kitchen 

Chair: Marcos Gonzalez Hernando
14:00-14:30 Paper VIII: Alexander Ruser & Birte Fähnrich “Climate Change is a fact/fake! – The role of Think tanks in the climate change discourse in Europe”
(Commentator: Marie Laure Djelic)
14:30-15:00 Paper IX: Bogdan Zawadewicz “Fielding think tanks in a semi-peripheral context – the case of Serbia”
(Commentator: Lucile Desmoulins)
15:00-15:30 Paper X: Ondřej Císař, Milan Hrubeš & Markéta Blažejovská, “Towards Europeanization of Public Sphere? Think Tanks Discussing the Migrant Crisis in the Czech Republic”
(Commentator: Anna Longhini)

15:30-16:00 COFFEE BREAK

Chair: Pelle Åberg
16:00-16:30 Paper XI: Thomas Alam “When the wise man points at the moon, the political sociologist looks at the finger. Embedded research in an EU think and do tank on childhood obesity prevention”
(Commentator: Serena Giusti)
16:30-17:00 Paper XII: Maria Bigday “Think tanks in Belarus: emergence of a new social space”
(Commentator: Cathrine Holst)

19:00 DINNER at Sjöbaren

Friday 22 September 2017
9:15-9:30 Introduction

Chair: Oleksandra Kryshtapovych
9:30-10:00 Paper XIII: Patrick Gilroy “EU Think Tanks: The Composition and Historical Evolution of an Organizational Field”
(Commentator: Alexander Ruser)
10:00-10:30 Paper XIV: Valérie Pattyn & Bert Fraussen “Neo-Corporatism and Think Tanks, a Difficult Marriage? The Organization and Policy Engagement of Think Tanks in Belgium”
(Commentator: Erin Zimmerman)

10:30-11:00 COFFEE BREAK

Chair: Adrienne Sörbom
11:00-11:30 Paper XV: Olena Prystayko & Oleksandra Kryshtapovych “Think Tanks in a Limited Access Order: the case of Ukraine”
(Commentator: Bogdan Zawadewicz)
11:30-12:00 Paper XVI: Anna Longhini “Theorizing the role of think tanks’ experts in Euro-Mediterranean relations. The case of the EuroMeSCo network”
(Commentator: Tatyana Bajenova)
12:00-13:00 Discussion on workshop findings, future collaborations and publication strategies

13:00-14:00 LUNCH at Bistro Italiano

Abstracts

Paper I: Think tanks: a new organisational animal in Swedish civil society
Stefan Einarsson, Marta Reuter, and Pelle Åberg
(Stockholm Center for Civil Society Studies, Stockholm School of Economics)

The tradition of involving independent organizations, particularly civil society actors, in policy-making, has a long standing in Sweden, where close, institutionalized connections between the state and “organized interests” have constituted an important part of the so called Swedish model during most of the 20th century. In the last twenty years this system has gradually begun transforming itself in a more pluralist direction. In the same period, Sweden has experienced a large increase in the numbers of organizations that can be defined as policy institutes or “think tanks”.
This paper sets out to (1) introduce the think tank as an emerging new “organizational animal” in Swedish civil society against the backdrop of the recent two decades’ societal transformations in Sweden, and to (2) formulate a number of questions about the strategies that think tanks use to legitimize their role in society. The paper is the first outcome of a new research project on Swedish think tanks, where the theoretical focus lies on the ways in which think tanks balance conflicting institutional logics and demands in order to safeguard their legitimacy. The purpose is to explore how the relationship between different logics (such as the academic, political, media and market logic) is constructed, negotiated and managed within these organizations. The discussion in the paper is based on the preliminary results from the first phase of the project, which consists of an overview study of Sweden’s entire think tank population.

Paper II: Influencing the think tank agenda on Google News in the UK
Jesper Dahl Kelstrup
(Department of Social Sciences and Business, Roskilde University)

This paper explores the impact of think tanks in the United Kingdom (UK) on Google News. The analytical aim is to show and tentatively explain which political groups of think tanks have been most successful in getting ownership over think tank news agenda on Google News in the period 2007-2016 covering governments lead by Gordon Brown and David Cameron. A strategy of influential case selection is used to select and compare 15 think tanks representing five centre-left, five centre and five centre-right think tanks. The article shows that the centre and centre-right groups have more ownership over the think tank news agenda than do centre-left think tanks in the period under investigation. Interviews with practitioners working at think tanks represented in the study provide tentative explanations of these differences through variation in how think tanks conceive of their role in the media. While centre-left think tanks tend to regard competition for visibility in the media as a barrier to the dissemination of their research, centre and centre-right think tanks appear to have become more mediatised organisations that strategically plan publications and other activities to increase their media impact.

Paper III: The presentation of self in political life. On think tanks in Poland
Katarzyna Jezierska (Department of Political Science, Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg)

In spite of claims of the advance of post-factual democracy, contemporary governance still requires expert advice. Different kinds of “experts” exercise significant political influence. Among them, think tanks are especially interesting. They have no formal function in the institutional design of the democratic system and often operate in the clandestine. At the same time they need to gain some visibility and create an account of credibility in order to influence policy-making.
Existing think tank scholarship is heavily biased toward the Anglo-American context (Weaver & McGann 2000; Stone & Garnett 1998; Medvetz 2012; Kelstrup 2016). To remedy this bias, this paper will analyze think tanks in a Central European country, Poland. I contrast the external and internal image of Polish think tanks, in order to understand the position these organizations are ascribed and aspire to. How do think tanks present themselves? How are they represented in the mainstream printed media? What role and position in the decision-making system are they ascribed/do they ascribe themselves? The analysis is based on a series of semi-structured interviews with Polish think tank leaders and qualitative content analysis of two major Polish newspapers.

Paper IV: Think Tanks and Foreign Policy in Russia: from inside to outside
Carolina de Stefano and Serena Giusti (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Pisa)

The paper aims at highlighting the role of Russian-based think tanks in forging the country’s foreign policy. It starts questioning the very definition of ‘think tank’ when dealing with non-fully democratic regimes, as in the case of Russia. The peculiarity of Russia’s foreign policy decision-making process, hardly penetrable by informal actors, makes it difficult to assess what kind of influence they can exert, and at which stage of the decisional chain they are most likely to be effective. After having discussed the peculiarity and evolution of Russian think tanks, connecting it to the development of the country’s foreign policy, the paper will evidence new challenges think tanks are currently facing. Against this background we will zoom on a very special task some of the think tanks are performing: providing reliable analysis on Russia’ foreign policy for foreign actors (states, other think tanks, Universities, press agencies). In doing so they fill the gap of a certain ignorance regarding Russian affairs. In other words, these think tanks have acquired a special role in interpreting, rather than influencing Russia’ foreign policy. Their reputation allow them even to take autonomous initiatives for opening new avenues of dialogue between external and Russian actors. The analysis of this dynamic- inside-outside - is particularly promising for the study of think tanks in hybrid regimes such as Russia.

Paper V: The politics of the ‘moderate’: think tanks and the mediation of expertise and politics in times of austerity
Marcos Gonzalez Hernando (Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge)

This paper shall focus on the role think tanks and their members have in shaping the contours of what is considered moderate and reasonable in moments of epistemic uncertainty. Inspired by Thomas Medvetz’s Bourdieusian framework, I understand think tanks as ‘boundary organisations’ operating across several fields, most notably academia, politics, the media and business interests. From that backdrop, this study deduces that think tanks play a crucial part in mediating truth-claims across fields – for instance, ‘smoothing’ the edges between what is politically expedient and the academic consensus, especially where these are harshly opposed.
To analyse such tensions, this presentation will focus on the work of two British organisations, Policy Exchange and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, in the debates over the need for sharp fiscal consolidation after the 2008 financial crisis. While the first is a think tank closely linked to David Cameron’s Conservative leadership, the second is a long-established institution specialised in the production of econometric forecasts and with several connections to academia and international organisations (e.g. IMF, OECD). By analysing these think tanks' public interventions on macroeconomic policy between 2007 and 2013 and their political impact, this paper seeks to trace how these institutions sought to define what should be considered economically reasonable and the hurdles they encountered. It concludes by reflecting on a growing rift between the advice of economic experts most closely linked to academia, and what is regarded more broadly as politically apposite and moderate.

Paper VI: The role of academic knowledge in Norwegian think tanks
Johan Christensen (Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University), Cathrine Holst (Department of Sociology and Human Geography, ARENA Centre for European Studies, University of Oslo)

Think tanks often present themselves as contributors to a more reflective and informed political debate and their policy advice as based on knowledge and research. At the same time, they claim to be alternatives to university research and research institutes and have mandates that are explicitly ideological. The paper presents a study of the extent to which three Norwegian thinks tanks – Civita, Agenda and Manifest – make use of academic knowledge in their work. Indicators are the academic credentials of in-house and affiliated staff and the use of scientific references in publications. Findings are related to recent scholarship on ‘expertization’ of political processes and policy advice, literature on the characteristics of Nordic ‘knowledge regimes’, and theory and research on think tanks. Special attention is given to the hypothesis that right-wing think tanks are less prone to rely on academic knowledge since they typically have occurred as a reaction to what their sponsors see as a left-leaning hegemony in the human and social sciences.

Paper VII: The multiplier effect of European think tank networks: between representativeness and exclusivity
Tatyana Bajenova (Research Unit Triangle, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon)

In spite of existence of the competition among European think tanks (TTs), they also cooperate with each other. This paper examines the strategies which European TTs employ to exert influence in the European policy-making relying on their network capital, which refers to the power derived from their involvement in TT networks. This form of capital is particularly important in the EU policy conditions due to their multinational, multi-lingual and multilevel characteristics. This paper builds on the concept of social capital (Bourdieu, 1986) as an analytic framework and is based on empirical data from website materials and semi-structured interviews with representatives of 25 think tanks from Brussels, London, Paris and Ljubljana, their networks and European institutions (Commission and Parliament).
The paper determines essential opportunities and challenges which TT networks represent for their members and for European institutions. Advantages from the “multiplier effect” of network membership vary from the most material as joint participation in the EU funding programs to the most intangible as political influence. However, network members need to invest in the reproduction of the social capital, the profitability of these investments increases proportionally to the size of the available capital (Bourdieu, 1986). Therefore, most visible network players are TTs, possessing political capital, based in Brussels or in major European capitals, acting as their coordinators or initiators. European institutions in the search for legitimacy of their policy decisions encourage creation of networks with large membership, which are intended to facilitate their dialogue with the diversity and multitude of stakeholders, i.e. reducing the number of actors and providing their representativeness, thereby benefiting from their social capital. However, the most visible network members continue to operate on their own but with additional “leverage effect”, which multiplies the overall number of actors, as well as marginalizes or even excludes some “weak” ones.

Paper VIII: Climate Change is a fact/fake! – The role of Think tanks in the climate change discourse in Europe
Alexander Ruser and Birte Fähnrich (Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen)

Perhaps the one situation symbolizing the utter denial of climate change came in February 2015. Oklahoma Senator and author of the widely read book The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future Jim Inhofe tossed a snowball to the Senates Floor to ‘prove’ that climate change is a hoax. Senator Inhofe´s dramatic gesture not only got a lot of media attention but also set the stage for the next round in the ever more fierce controversy on climate politics in the US. The towering importance of conservative think tanks in creating the impression of scientific dissent and political dispute over the existence and the implications of anthropogenic climate change is well documented for the USA (Dunlap & Jaques 2013). But also in Europe, self-appointed trailblazer in climate protection, climate skeptics are on the rise – not least due to the growing success of nationalist movements in recent years. For instance, the latest electoral successes of the right-wing party “Alternative for Germany” (AFD) can be also explained by its promises to abandon the decarbonizing the economy and to “remove the stigma of a pollutant from CO2” (AFD Manifesto 2016). In accordance, conservative think tank networks “designed to promote or to disrupt political discourse” (Plehwe, 2014, p. 101) are assumed to gain in public support.

But which role can and will think tanks in Europe play? Being considered as “constitutively hybrid organizations” and “discreet entities” (Medvetz, 2008, p. 5) the influence of think tanks on the policy agenda is empirically difficult to predict. Analyzing their appearance on mass and social media, however, offers an approach to assess their impact on the public discourse and public opinion formation (Ruser, forthc.). Against this backdrop, this contribution seeks to outline a conceptual framework for comparing the role and the impact of US American and European think tanks in discourses on climate change.

Paper IX: Fielding think tanks in a semi-peripheral context – the case of Serbia
Bogdan Zawadewicz (Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung)

The aim of the paper is to reconstruct the field of think tanks in Serbia by applying Pierre Bourdieu’s relational method. The country is picked as a case study due to its semi-peripheral position in a world-system and the mechanisms through which the existing global hierarchies structure the local field of think tanks. First, I analyse the context and origins of this sector in Serbia by showing how the violent break-up of Yugoslavia as well as “delayed transition” determined the path of its development. The discourses on democratization, transformation, integration (EU/NATO), pro-market reforms and transitional justice have been used as a legitimisation tool for setting up the think tanks in Serbia. Secondly, I investigate the role of external actors in building up the network of think tanks and providing them with different types of capital. Here, I employ the concept of comprador sector service (Drahokoupil, 2008) for showing how the structural power of transnational actors is translated into tactical forms of power by supporting a given group of local think tanks. By doing so, I also intend to show the link between the prevailing symbolic cleavages (pro-core vs anti-core) and the strategies of Serbian think tanks. It is crucial in order to better comprehend the relations which exists among think tanks as well as between them and the local field of power. Subsequently, I sketch the interdependencies between think tanks and the local fields of academia, business, politics, media.
The research findings rely on the in-depth interviews with the think tanks experts, the analysis of TT activities such as publications and research projects, critical discourse analysis, reconstruction of personal connections and identification of the funding sources which the local think tanks have at the disposal.

Paper X: Towards Europeanization of Public Sphere? Think Tanks Discussing the Migrant Crisis in the Czech Republic
Ondřej Císař (Institute of Sociological Studies, Charles University), Milan Hrubeš (Department of Political Science, University of Hradec Králové) and Markéta Blažejovská (Institute of Sociological Studies, Charles University)

While governance becomes increasingly Europeanized in the European Union, the public discussion about political topics scarcely transcends the national level. Lack of Europeanization in the sphere of public deliberation constitutes a serious democratic deficit of the EU (Koopmans 2004). The Habermasian normative theory of democracy requires an open and participatory space of communication of ideas and projects that emerge from society and are addressed to the decision makers (Castells 2008). Among other actors, think tanks are expected to contribute to structuring of this new, European space of communication. They have the perfect pre-requisites for that: serving as bridges from civil society towards the policy makers (UNDP 2003) and often engaged in trans-national activities (Kutay, Arribas Lozano 2011). However, the specific role of think tanks in the Europeanization of public spheres remains largely understudied. We propose to use the method of quantitative political claim analysis (PCA) introduced by Koopmans and Statham (1999) to gather empirical evidence on the specific contribution of think tanks to the articulation of European Public Spheres. Following Koopmans (2004), we treat Europeanization as issue-specific, country-specific and inspired by Risse and van de Steeg (2003), we also define it as discursively constructed in the process of arguing about controversial questions. The case selected here is the discussion on the topic of so-called migrant crisis of 2015 in the Czech republic. We examine the intervention by the Czech think tanks in this debate from April 2015 till March 2016 and the level of Europeanization of their claims.

Paper XI: When the wise man points at the moon, the political sociologist looks at the finger. Embedded research in an EU think and do tank on childhood obesity prevention
Thomas Alam (CERAPS, Lille Center for Politics, Université de Lille)

My communication builds on an original fieldwork since I was involved a few years ago in a European think and do tank (Epode European Network - EEN) meant to disseminate “best practices” regarding health promotion and childhood obesity prevention. Away from enchanted expert discourses or denunciative ones, on public private partnerships for health, I have resorted to “observing participation” which gave me access to numerous work meetings, symposium and congress, complemented by 30 semi-structured interviews in France, Belgium, Spain and Britain and by document analysis. In other words, my entry in the world of think tanks rests on a very specific case which I study from an inductive, micro-sociological and distanciated way while taking full advantage of “ethnopraxis” (Wacquant 2004, 2005). The EEN, funded by Mars, Ferrero, Orangina-Schweppes and Nestlé and the European Commission illustrates how different social worlds (politics, academia, business and media) are being connected as well as who are the brokers of philanthropy, specialised in corporate engagement (in-house lobbyists, public affairs professionals, head of food quality or nutrition, head of external communication, secretary of foundations...). As I observed certain interdependent social games which are developing in multi-level scenes that are not clearly perceptible behind window display, I give account of the complexity of collusive transactions (Dobry 1986) where each actor finds specific interests in the exchange. As I entered the black box of think tanks to produce recommendations, I will build on this first-hand experience to reflect on the action-oriented epistemology in the crafting of expertise on PPPs. What’s more, making sense of philanthropy, corporate social responsibility and “agnotology”, I will highlight to what extent this expertise can be a political and symbolic resource as well as a potential issue of struggle within this interstitial field. All in all, ethnopraxis and observing participant – I hope to demonstrate – offer high potential for analysing the world(s) of think tanks.

Paper XII: Think tanks in Belarus: emergence of a new social space
Maria Bigday (Maison interuniversitaire des sciences de l'homme – Alsace, Université de Strasbourg)

The paper will present the main conclusions of a research that revisits the border between science and politics in the context of post-soviet transformations and approaches think tank activity from the perspective of sociology of intellectual engagement. It draws on an empirical study of the emergence and institutionalisation of the space of non-state social science research in Belarus. In 1992, inspired by the think tank model, the Belarusian intellectual entrepreneurs set up the first national private research institutes as a tool for “de-sovietisation” of science and “democratisation” of politics. The 1995-1996 authoritarian transformation marginalises the non-state research in the field of power; the think tank activity becomes associated with political opposition. In 2006, most private research institutes lose legal status and operate informally. The new generation of think tankers reproduce the professional and protest character of the non-state research claiming the roles of “independent experts” and “public intellectuals”.
This research poses the questions of the international circulation of the label of think tank and the use made of it by local actors, the processes of structuration of the national field of power and the place these specific intellectual producers occupy among other more structured social fields, as well as the creation of a new position in the system of power relations through the reference to the think tank model in an authoritarian post-soviet regime. In order to understand these processes, the research proposes to look on the space of think tanks through the prism of a four-dimensional model. These dimensions are (1) configuration of relations between science and politics, (2) the position of the think tank space in the field of power, (3) professional logics of career or competition and (4) transnational diffusion of resources and their local appropriation.

Paper XIII: EU Think Tanks: The Composition and Historical Evolution of an Organizational Field
Patrick Gilroy (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Stifterverband)

Think tanks have become taken-for-granted fixtures in modern governance constellations. This applies within but also beyond nation-states. EU think tanks such as Bruegel, Friends of Europe or Centre for European Policy Studies - primarily but not only active in Brussels - constitute an important niche of transnational think tanks. Yet their number and roles remain scarcely studied. How widespread have EU think tanks become? How did they emerge and evolve over time? This paper presents results of a new comprehensive database of 85 EU think tanks across EU countries (of which 39 are based or present in Brussels). It draws on strategic communication (372 analyzed documents) and 80 semi-structured interviews with founders, leaders and experts. EU think tanks’ organizational field is quantitatively mapped to show where they cluster; then, their historical evolution is qualitatively retraced in a succession of chronological case studies to contextualize their creation, expansion and struggle for “independence” from the 1920s to 2010s. EU think tanks, it is argued, occupy a heterogeneous organizational field. They are both affected by and have - in their own and varied ways - helped to shape the history of European integration.

Paper XIV: Neo-Corporatism and Think Tanks, a Difficult Marriage? The Organization and Policy Engagement of Think Tanks in Belgium
Valerie Pattyn and Bert Fraussen (Institute of Public Administration, Leiden University)

While think tanks are no longer solely a feature of Anglo-Saxon countries, they still appear less prevalent and politically prominent in neo-corporatist political systems. To what extent do central characteristics of these systems, such as a closed and strongly institutionalized system of interest intermediation, shape the organizational features and policy engagement of think tanks? In this paper, we address this question by focusing on the think tank landscape in a typical neo-corporatist country, Belgium. While Belgium has a long tradition of hosting international think tanks that focus on European and international politics, domestic think tanks are relatively new players, even though they have become more numerous since 2000. We assess the possible impact of neo-corporatism on their organizational characteristics and political activities, relying on a mapping and survey of domestic think tanks, and relate our main findings to similar studies in other countries.

Paper XV: Think Tanks in a Limited Access Order: the case of Ukraine
Olena Prystayko (Ukrainian Think Tanks Liaison Office in Brussels) and Oleksandra Kryshtapovych (Berlin Graduate School for Transnational Studies)

Think tanks emerged as non-partisan, non-governmental and independent research institutions in the United States – in the political regime with separation of powers, political competition and other attributes of liberal democracy. In other political cultures, the practices of think tanks experienced some changes: for example, in the transitional countries in South-East Asia policy research was under a government control, while in the post-communist Central and Eastern Europe donor funding was often influencing research agenda (Krastev, 2001; Stone, 2005).
Taking on board the idea that in different political regimes think tanks assume distinctive features, in this article we will examine Ukrainian think tanks as operating in the conditions of Limited Access Order (LAO) – a social order, were access to key resources and functions is owned by the closed-up dominant coalition with the purpose of creating rents, which are built on the obtained privileges resulting from limiting access (North et al., 2012). We ask, what role do think tanks assume in such a social order? Where do they seek the power in their attempts to influence policy-making?
Methodologically, the answers to these questions are obtained through a three-level analysis of think tanks as members of political field, as boundary spanners sourcing power from the academic, media, political and economic forms of capital, and as boundary organizations that work out capital conversion rates in their attempts to exert influence (Medvetz, 2012). The data has been collected in November 2016 – January 2017 using semi-structured interviews with 13 senior representatives of think tanks in Ukraine and analysed using content- and narrative-analysis. We also use think tanks’ own research products as text data for analysis.
This paper will contribute to the scholarly literature on think tanks on two levels. On a theoretical level, it will add to the context-sensitive research of think tanks. Empirically, it will enhance knowledge about Ukrainian think tanks, which so far have not been in the focus even of the researchers of Central and Eastern Europe or transitional countries.

Paper XVI: Theorizing the role of think tanks’ experts in Euro-Mediterranean relations. The case of the EuroMeSCo network
Anna Longhini (Institute of Human and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore, Firenze)

At least since the Barcelona process in 1995 foreign policy experts have continued playing a central role in promoting dialogue and cooperation towards the southern Mediterranean countries, despite the difficult evolution of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The aim of this article is to discuss if and how think tanks’ experts are contributing to shape EU foreign policy, with a specific focus on Euro-Mediterranean relations, at a time of profound transformation and challenge on the political future of Europe. Indeed, today little is known about how experts’ knowledge and authority has contributed to influence EU foreign policy narratives and decisions. Thanks to an increased networking capacity, non state actors like foreign policy think tanks are increasingly involved in contributing to the EU foreign policy agenda. In the Euro-Mediterranean area, experts have been relevant as promoters of dialogue, as they contribute to enhance regional cooperation, like those with southern parts of the Mediterranean, that would otherwise be completely external to the EU policy-making process. But do similar efforts translate into any effective policy influence at a time where contested issues relative to the Mediterranean area have been dramatically politicized? Also, are experts enough independent and able to challenge the policies of the executives? In order to answer to these questions, this article registered two specific attempts to influence the EU agenda: one may be found in their contribution to the revision of the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) in 2015, and the other is related to the EU Global Strategy in 2016. Methodologically, the analysis counts on the interviews and materials collected at the European Institute for the Mediterranean in Barcelona in 2016, because of its role as the Secretariat of the EuroMeSCo Network, possibly the biggest networks of think tanks in the Mediterranean region, working on Euro-Mediterranean affairs since 1996. Problems of access have been tackled by building confidence and trust in the anonymity and confidentiality of the interviews, which have been conducted according to Chatham House Rules. Further research would be needed to compare the discourse of experts on topics like migration and terrorism, as the issues that have gained a new political significance in the European space in recent times, with the governments’ policy positions.

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The conference will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus. The conference sessions will be held at Sprängkullsgatan 19, Department of Political Science, Room B225.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg City with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation

The conference hotel is Hotel Riverton.

Contact

Katarzyna Jezierska 
Conference organizer
+46 739671544
katarzyna.jezierska@gu.se

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se

The New Politics of EU External Relations
International Workshop, 9-10 March, 2017

The Lisbon Treaty triggered a small revolution in the field of EU external relations by giving the European Parliament (EP) the power to veto international agreements. To date, it has done so on three occasions, first with SWIFT in 2010, a second time on the Fisheries Partnership Agreement with Morocco and the last time with Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in 2012. Particularly the negotiations on ACTA attracted a lot of public attention, and some have claimed the EP’s veto to be a consequence of the strong public opposition. This resonates with one of the big fears among some member states that parliamentarians would contribute to politicize external policy, making it an even more unruly. Thus, focusing on the negotiation of international agreements, the main ambition of this workshop is to analyze how these processes of parliamentarization and politicization affect the EUs external relations.

If you are interested in attending any of the workshop sessions, please contact conference organizer Guri Rosén.

Program

Location: Conference room Pilen, 3rd floor, Department of Sociology and Work Science, Sprängkullsgatan 23-25

THURSDAY, 9st MARCH, 2017

12.00-13.00: Lunch with opening & welcome

13.00-13.15: Introduction to the workshop

13.15-15.30: Panel 1: EU international agreements and patterns of parliamentarization
Chair: Lisbeth Aggestam (University of Gothenburg)

The Politicization of Europe‘s Global Fisheries Policy: A Mixed Blessing?
Hubert Zimmermann (Philips Universität Marburg)

The involvement of the European Parliament in UN climate negotiations.
Tom Delreux (UCLouvain) and Charlotte Burns (University of York):

The parliamentarisation of EU’s trade policy: European Parliament’s involvement in EU-MERCOSUR trade negotiations. Karina L. Pasquariello Mariano (São Paulo State University) and Bruno T. Luciano (University of Birmingham)

To protect or to serve? How MEPs respond to trade politicization
Guri Rosén (ARENA, University of Oslo and CERGU)

15.30-15.45: Coffee break

15.45-18.00: Panel 2: Effects of parliamentarization
Chair: Jon Polk (University of Gothenburg)

The Constraining Dissensus and the European Commission: A comparative case study of the negotiations of the EU-Japan free trade agreement and TTIP
Bart Bes (Lund University)

Shaking the institutional foundations: National parliamentary involvement in EU trade agreements
Johan Adriaensen and Christine Neuhold (Maastricht University)

Parliamentary Assertion and Deep Integration
Christilla Roederer-Rynning (University of Southern Denmark)

19:30: Dinner

FRIDAY, 10th MARCH, 2017

09.00-11.15: Panel 3: Linking parliamentarization and politicization
Chair: Andreas Moberg (University of Gothenburg)

The Politicization of Global Governance: Democratic Legitimacy in TTIP and the TPP Jonathan Kuyper (Stockholm University)

The End of Laissez-Passer: Conceptualizing the Politicization of TTIP
Niels Gheyle (University of Ghent)

Putting power into practice: Capacity-building and the European Parliament’s role in the Singapore and TTIP trade negotiations
Evelyn Coremans and Katharina Meissner (KU Leuven/European University Institute)

A political and democratic foreign policy for the EU
Pieter de Wilde (NTNU)

11.15-12.00: Rounding up of the workshop & plans for publication.

12.00-13.00: Lunch

Workshop Presenters

Hubert Zimmermann (Philips Universität Marburg)

Tom Delreux (UCLouvain)

Charlotte Burns (University of York)

Bruno T. Luciano (University of Birmingham)

Guri Rosén (ARENA, University of Oslo and CERGU)

Bart Bes (Lund University)

Johan Adriaensen (Maastricht University)

Christine Neuhold (Maastricht University)

Christilla Roederer-Rynning (University of Southern Denmark)

Jonathan Kuyper (Stockholm University)

Niels Gheyle (University of Ghent)

Evelyn Coremans (KU Leuven)

Katharina Meissner (European University Institute)

Pieter de Wilde (NTNU)

Hate Crime Legislation in Europe: Concepts, Rights and Protected Characteristics

On February 9-10th 2017, the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) hosts an international and cross-disciplinary workshop about Hate Crime and Hate Crime Legislation in Europe.

Hate and bias motivated crime is a serious concern in contemporary Europe. In recent years several joint efforts to coordinate how European states tackle racist and xenophobic violence have been launched. At the same time populist and xenophobic parties sceptical to the European project are gaining political influence. Increased social tensions, fuelled by recent terror attacks and by the refugee crisis, have lead to an increased risk of hate-motivated crimes.

This workshop gathers a number of internationally acclaimed scholars from the cross-disciplinary field of Hate Studies to discuss the conditions for a common European approach to hate crime.

The workshop has three interconnected themes, central to contemporary hate crime research and policy.

Hate Crime Concepts: The first condition for an European approach to hate crime is that we reach a common understanding of how hate crime should be understood. How should “hate crime” be defined in the European context?

Hate Crime and Human Rights: Framing hate crime as a human rights issue is instrumental in its recognition as an international concern. Under this theme the participants will address the nature and limits of the human rights approach to hate crime legislation. Is this approach a sufficient normative basis for a consensus on what makes hate crimes especially serious?

Protected characteristics:
The workshop will address whether the European approach to hate crime law should strive towards unification when it comes to what characteristics should be covered by the legislation, or whether this should be left open to the member states.

The workshop gathers a number of internationally acclaimed hate crime scholars to present the current state of research and to discuss the challenges of coordinating European criminal law approaches to the hate crime problem.

Venue: University of Gothenburg, Sprängkullsgatan 19, Room B228
Organizer: David Brax

Please contact Lena Caspers (CERGU) if you are interested in attending any of the workshop sessions.

Program

Hate Crime in Europe

Thursday- 9 February 2017

University of Gothenburg, Sprängkullsgatan 19

Room B228

13.00 Introduction, David Brax

13.15 – 15.00 Theme 1: Concepts
Görel Granström, Umeå University ‘Hate crime legislation. What can Swedish legislators learn from other countries in the EU?'
Hanna Mason-Bish, University of Sussex: 'Putting Gender on the Agenda: Considering the place of gender in hate crime policy'

15.00-15-30 – Coffee

15.30 - 17:15 Theme 2: Rights
Thomas Brudholm, University of Copenhagen ‘Hate Crimes and Human Rights'
Chara Bakalis, Oxford Brookes University ‘Regulating Online Hate'
Christian Munthe, University of Gothenburg ‘Hate Crime and Terrorism: not the same but significantly related'

19:00 – Workshop dinner

Friday – 10 February 2017

09:00 - 11:45 – Theme 3: Protected Characteristics
Piotr Godzisz, UCL ‘Laws on the Books vs. Laws in Action: Implementing the Hate Crime Concept in Europe"
Jennifer Schweppe, University of Limerick 'Protected Groups in Hate Crime Legislation: Who are the Victims‘
Susanne Gosenius: 'Is Hate Crime a "Soft" Issue? Recent developments in criminal justice approches to hate crime in Sweden'
Ales Hanek, OSCE-ODIHR ‘ODIHR’s approach to hate crimes: beyond the OSCE definition”

12:00 - 13:15 Lunch

13:30 - 14:30 - Discussion on workshop findings and future developments

14:30- Conference closes

Organizers and Sponsors

Hosted by the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) 

Workshop Presenters

Chara Bakalis, Principal Lecturer in Law, Programme Lead at Oxford Brookes University, School of Law

David Brax, PhD, Practical Philosopher and Post doc at CERGU, University of Gothenburg

Piotr Godzisz, UCL PhD Candidate, University College of London

Thomas Brudholm, Associate Professor, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies University of Copenhagen

Susanne Gosenius, Crime Victim Coordinator, Malmö

Görel Granström, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Law, Umeå University

Ales Hanek, Hate Crime Officer, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR)

Hanna Mason-Bish, Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology, University of Sussex

Caroline Mellgren, Senior Lecturer, Malmö University

Christian Munthe, Professor of Practical Philosophy, Department och Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science, University of Gothenburg

Jennifer Schweppe, Lecturer, School of Law, University of Limerick, Co-Director of the International Network for Hate Studies

The Future of EU Environmental Policy, International Workshop 19-20 January 2017

The workshop addresses its topic at a crucial time. With its origins in the 1980s, the EU environmental policy regime, including its action to combat climate change, has long been seen as one of the success stories of European integration. Landmark pieces of legislation, such as the “Habitats” and “Birds” directives, are cornerstones for safeguarding biodiversity, codifying the highest standards of protection among the member states. Likewise, the EU’s Emission Trading Scheme was, at its inauguration in 2005, the world’s first large scale endeavour of its kind, putting the EU at the forefront of comprehensive measures to combat climate change.
Recent developments, however, in particular the on-going economic crisis and, most recently, Brexit, have cast doubt about the future of these achievements. The ten priorities underlying the current European Commission’s agenda do not contain a reference to environmental protection. Environmental groups rather perceive future legislative activity to pose a threat to existing standards of environmental protection. NGOs were alarmed when the Commission announced its ambition to “overhaul and modernize” key pieces of environmental legislation. The WWF felt compelled to point out that “this process is happening in a context that is clearly hostile to nature conservation”. Brexit, moreover, has invoked the spectre of a return of the “dirty man of Europe”, and complicates the already contested future of the European Emission Trading Scheme. These factors have shifted the context within which environmental policy is made and raise questions that challenge the conventional wisdom underpinning the study of EU environmental policy. The workshop takes up these challenges and provides the groundwork for future research collaboration among the participants.

Public Keynote Event

This keynote lecture and round table discussion is open to students and the public, no registration required.

Workshop programme
Thursday, 19 January 2017, University of Gothenburg, Sprängkullsgatan 19, Stora Skansen (B336)
09.00-09.30 Introduction 09.30-11.00 Session 1: Governing EU environmental policy
Simon Matti The Prospect of Climate Acts as a Means for Environmental Policy Integration in Europe (coauthored with Charlotta Söderberg)
Ekaterina Domorenok Voluntary tools for ambitious policies? The Covenant of Mayors of the European Union Aron Buzogany Compliance with EU environmental law in the member states: A longue durée perspective (coauthored with Tanja Börzel)

11.30-13.00 Session 2: Enforcing EU environmental law
Lisa Vanhala Is Legal Mobilization for the Birds? Legal Opportunity Structures and Environmental Nongovernmental Organisations in the United Kingdom, France, Finland and Italy
Andreas Hofmann Left to interest groups? On the prospects for enforcing environmental law in Europe Yaffa Epstein Through the Eyes of the Wolf: Biodiversity Protection and Federalism in the United States and European Union

14.00-15.30 Session 3: Ideas and concepts in EU environmental policy
Amanda Machin The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same: The Trajectory of Ecological Modernisation in the European Union
Brendan Flynn EU Environmental Policy at the Limes? Understanding the EU's Environmental regime as a Neo-Medieval Empire of Norms
 

Public keynote, CG-Salen, Handelshögskolan, Vasagatan 1: Brexit and the future of environmental policy in Europe
16.00-18.00 Keynote presentation: Chris Hilson Roundtable: Andrea Lenschow, Charlotte Burns and Anthony Zito
 

Friday, 20 January 2017, University of Gothenburg, Sprängkullsgatan 19, Stora Skansen (B336)
09.00-10.30 Session 4: Governing EU environmental policy II
Claire Dupont Experts and expertise in EU climate policymaking
Charlotta Söderberg Disentangling adaptive multi-level governance designs: a framework and empirical examples (coauthored with Annica Sandström)
Jonas Schoenefeld The Evaluation of EU Environmental Policy: Towards a Governance View? (co-authored with Andrew Jordan)

11.00-12.30 Session 5: The future of environmental policy in the EU
Duncan Liefferink EU member states and changing environmental leadership dynamics (co-authored with Rüdiger Wurzel and Maurizio Di Lullo)
Charlotte Burns, Viviane Gravey and Anthony Zito What does Brexit mean for EU Environmental Policy? (co-authored with Andrew Jordan)
Anthony Zito Charlotte Burns and Andrea Lenschow The less certain trajectory of European Union environmental policy

12.30 Concluding discussion and future steps

A Hundred Years of Social Democracy and Cartels, Concentrations, and Competition in Europe

The Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) will host an international and interdisciplinary conference on A Hundred Years of Social Democracy and Cartels, Concentrations, and Competition in Europe on 17-18 November 2016. The conference is co-organized by Sigfrido Ramírez Pérez, an historian of European competition law and fellow at the Max Plank Institute for European Legal History, and by Brian Shaev, a CERGU postdoctoral researcher and historian of socialist parties and European integration. The conference will bring together an international group of distinguished scholars in history, politics, and law. The topic of the conference aims at a central issue of our time: the relationship between the macro-economic objectives of political parties in democratic countries and the legal framework of market economies. It will be the first scholarly effort to problematize the relationship between social democratic parties and cartel and competition policies. Our project aims to add new voices and perspectives to European history by: (1) investigating the political dimension of cartels and European competition policy over time, (2) analyzing the evolution of social democratic economic policies in the 20th and 21st centuries through a cartel lens, and (3) considering our study’s implications for economic policy and democratic politics in Europe.

Venue: University of Gothenburg

Dates: 17-18 November, 2016

If you have any questions about the conference, please do not hesitate to contact:

Brian Shaev (brian.shaev@gu.se)

Lena Caspers (lena.caspers@gu.se)

Conference Programme

A Hundred Years of Social Democracy and Cartels, Concentrations, and Competition in Europe

The conference will take place over a two-day period beginning on Thursday morning (17 November) and ending Friday at noon (18 November).

Location: Viktoriagatan 13, ground floor, A245

Thursday - 17 November 2016

09:30 - 10:00 - Coffee
10:00 – 10:30 – Introduction

10-30 – 12:00 – Panel 1
Social Democrats and the Growth of Cartels in the Interwar Period
• “The German Social Democratic Party and the Cartel Question (1900-1960)—A Closer Look.” Harm Schröter (Bergen)
• “Social Democracy and Cartels during the inter-war Period.” Birgit Karlsson (Gothenburg)
Chair: Brian Shaev

12:00 - 13:15 - Conference Lunch

13:30 – 15:00 - Panel 2
Social Democrats and Cartels after the Second World War
• “The Confederation of German Trade Unions and the International Cartel Policy of the European Coal and Steel Community.” Severin Cramm (Hildesheim)
• “Finnish Trade Unions, the Social Democratic Party, and Finland’s Corporatist, Cartelized economy.” Susanna Fellman (Gothenburg)
• “‘The Economic is our Destiny’: Socialists and the Birth of European Competition Law,” 1950-1962,” Brian Shaev (Gothenburg)
Discussant: Sigfrido Ramírez Péréz

15:00 – 15:20 – Coffee

15:20 – 16:50 - Panel 3
Social Democrats and the Construction of European Competition Policy
• “Social Democratic Parties and European Competition Policy: Electoral Manifestos.” Yannis Karagiannis (Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacials)
• “The Changing Conceptions of Competition Law and Policy of the EEC during the Crisis of the 1970s.” Sigfrido Ramírez Pérez (Max Planck Institute for European Legal History)
“Spanish Social Democracy and the Integration of the Steel Sector in the ECSC during the 1980s.” Dimitri Zurstrasen (Louvain-la-Neuve)
Discussant: Susanna Fellman

17:00 - 17:30 - Roundtable discussion of the day's proceedings
19:00 - Conference dinner

Friday - 18 November 2016

09:00 - 10: 30 - Panel 4
Social Democrats and European Competition Policy Today
“Modernization and Its Implementation: Elements of a Social Democratic Perspective” Wolf Sauter (Tilburg)
“A Social Democratic Dilemma: Swedish Competition Policy in the 21st Century.” John Lapidus (Gothenburg)
Discussant: Andreas Moberg

10:30 – 10:50 – Coffee

10:50 – 12:00 - Discussion on conference findings and publication strategy

12:00 - 13:15 - Conference Lunch

Conference closes

Conference Participants

Brian Shaev, University of Gothenburg (Conference organizer)

Sigfrido Ramirez Perez, Max Planck Institute for European Legal History (Co-organizer)

Harm Schröter, University of Bergen

Birgit Karlsson, University of Gothenburg

Severin Cramm, University of Hildesheim

Susanna Fellman, University of Gothenburg

Yannis Karagiannis, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacials

Dimitri Zurstrassen, Université catholique de Louvain

Wolf Sauter, Tilburg University

John Lapidus, University of Gothenburg

Andreas Moberg, University of Gothenburg
 

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The conference will be held at the Department of Economy and Society at the University of Gothenburg, Viktoriagatan 13 .

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation

Our conference hotel is Flora Hotel.

For other options please see The Official Guide for Gothenburg.

Interdisciplinary Conference on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

From the 14th to the 15th of March, 2016, the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) is hosting an interdisciplinary conference on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US that is currently under negotiation. On the one hand, many appraise the positive effects of TTIP, which is expected to increase the EU economy by billions of Euros and create several hundred thousand jobs. On the other hand, given its broad geographical coverage and its comprehensive scope the prospects of an EU-US trade deal have attracted significant criticism.

This conference aims at enabling a dialogue between research and policy on pertinent issues for a Swedish, European and international community. One ambition of the conference is to gather scholars from the fields of economics, law, and politics to exchange views and provide different perspectives on common issues. However, the event also engages policy-makers, practitioners and business representatives from multinational corporations and SMEs. The panels are going to cover topics reaching from the broader effects of TTIP, its political and economic dimension to particular policy fields such as issues of regulatory cooperation and investment protection, including the proposed investor-state dispute settlement. Moreover, addressing issues related to global governance and inviting third-country perspectives on TTIP, this event attempts to takes a global perspective beyond the EU-US policy domain

We are happy to announce that EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmström will be present during the conference and deliver a keynote address and a subsequent panel debate in the afternoon of the 15th of March. As you can see in the program, this public debate will take place 14.30 - 16.30. Please find the program and registration by following the separate link on the left side of this site. 

The conference is supported financially by Vetenskapsrådet, the Swedish Network for European Studies in Political Science (SNES), and TDM Transnational Dispute Management.

Venue: University of Gothenburg
Dates: 14.-15. March, 2016.

If you have any questions about the conference, please do not hesitate to contact: Hannes Lenk (hannes.lenk@gu.se) or Guri Rosén (guri.rosen@gu.se).

Conference Program

Monday, March 14
8:30 Registration

09:00 – 11:00 Keynote Address & Opening Panel
Keynote: Mattias Kumm (New York University/WZB/Humboldt University)
Chair: Per Cramér (University of Gothenburg)
Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt (Technische Universität Dresden)
Elaine Fahey (City University London)

11:00-11:15 Coffee

11:15-13:00 Parallel Panels

Panel 1: TTIP and the Interinstitutional Balance 
Chair: Christophe Hillion (University of Gothenburg / University of Leiden)
Johan Adriaensen (Maastricht University)
Marise Cremona (European University Institute)
Ricardo Passos (European Parliament)

Panel 2: TTIP and Geopolitics
Chair: Adrian Hyde-Price (University of Gothenburg)
Steven Blockmans (University of Amsterdam/ Center for European Policy Studies)
Mai’a Cross (Northeastern University)
Michael Smith (University of Warwick)

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:45 Parallel Panels

Panel 3: Politics of TTIP
Chair: Davor Jancic (Asser Institute)
Andreas Dür (University of Salzburg)
Guri Rosén (University of Gothenburg/ University of Oslo)
Gabriel Siles-Brügge (University of Manchester)

Panel 4: Economics of TTIP
Chair: Robert Wentrup (University of Gothenburg)
Claes-Göran Alvstam (University of Gothenburg)
Carsten Hefeker (University of Siegen)
Maria Persson (Lund University)

15:45-16:00 Coffee

16:00-18:00 Round Table on Global Governance
Chair: Marise Cremona (European University Institute)
Panel: Virginie Amilien (National Institute for Consumer Research, Oslo), Wybe Douma (Asser Institute), Matthias Herdegen (University of Bonn), Petros Mavroidis (Columbia University), Harm Schepel (University of Kent)
Comments by: Christian Leffler (Deputy Secretary General, European External Action Service) 

20:00 Conference dinner

Tuesday, March 15
09:30-11:15 Parallel Panels

Panel 5: TTIP and Regulatory Cooperation
Chair: Tamara Takacs (Asser Institute)
Bernard Hoekman (European University Institute)
Davor Jancic (Asser Institute)
Petros Mavroidis (Columbia University)

Panel 6: TTIP in a Global Perspective
Chair: Richard Nakamura (University of Gothenburg)
Chun Ding (Fudan University)
Maria Garcia (University of Bath)
Arne Melchior (NUPI, Oslo)

11:15-11:30 Coffee

11:30-13:15 Parallel Panels
Panel 7: A Business Perspective on TTIP
TBC

Panel 8: TTIP and Investment Protection
Chair: Mattias Kumm (New York University)
Konstanze Von Papp (Keele University)
Harm Schepel (University of Kent)
Catharine Titi (University of Burgundy)

13:15-14:15 Lunch

14:30-16:30 Public Debate
Keynote: Cecilia Malmström (European Commission)

16:30 Closing of the Conference

Practical Information

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation

Our conference hotel is Hotel Riverton. There are still some rooms available for a reduced price for conference guests. This offer will end on March 1, 2016, so if you book after that date, you must pay the full rate.

If you prefer to stay at a hostel, Linnestadens hotell och vandrarhem is a good option, within walking distance of the conference venue. For other options please see The Official Guide for Gothenburg.

Keynote:
Cecilia Malmström, European Commission

Panelists: Jan-Olof Jacke, CEO Astra Zeneca, Sweden Andreas Dür, Professor, University of Salzburg
Per Cramér, Professor, University of Gothenburg Niklas Gustafsson, Chief Sustainability Officer, Volvo

Group Chair: Claes Alvstam, Professor, University of Gothenburg

15 March 14.30 - 16.30
Malmstenssalen, School of Business, Economics and Law,
Vasagatan 1, Göteborg

International Workshop on Men and Migration in Contemporary Europe

Konferensen hålls på engelska.

From the 9th to the 10th of June, 2016, the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) will host an international workshop on men and migration in contemporary Europe.
The presence of male migrants in European society is currently one of the most discussed topics, especially in the context of the recent flow of refugees into Europe and its consequences for both new migrants and European citizens. However, men and masculinities issues are still rarely discussed in migration studies and the majority of the (gendered) migration scholarship focuses on women’s issues (Charsley and Wray 2015).

Therefore, the main aim of the workshop is to strengthen interdisciplinary discussion of men and migration studies centred on the multidimensional and intersectional aspects of male experiences and identities, migrant men’s practices, their roles in their host societies and encounters between varied migrant and non-migrant masculinities. During the workshop, we will particularly address the issues of migrant men’s vulnerability, discrimination (in the labor market, state institutions and in the public sphere), fatherhood models and the issues connected to masculinities models and sexuality.
This workshop will contribute to research areas on masculinities and migration in three fundamental ways. First, we will discuss methodological and theoretical challenges in the field. Second, presenters will offer insight on the most current trends in research on men and migration. Finally, the workshop itself will promote international collaboration leading to future research projects on men and migration.

Venue: University of Gothenburg

Dates: 9-10 June, 2016

If you have any questions about the conference, please do not hesitate to contact:

Katarzyna Wojnicka (katarzyna.wojnicka@gu.se)

Birgitta Jännebring (birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se)

Conference Poster

Conference Program

Thursday - 9 June 2016

09:00 - 09:30 Registration

09:30 - 9:45 Introduction

09:45 - 11:45 Men and Migration – Theoretical and Methodological Challenges
Venue: Sappören
Chair: Ulf Mellström (Karlstad University)
Keynote I: Jeff Hearn (Hanken School of Economics/Örebro University/University of Huddersfield)
Where have the men gone? The understated history and significance of migration in critical studies/politics of men and masculinities
Keynote II: Pierrette Hondagneu – Sotelo (University of Southern California)
Men, Migration, Masculinity and Place: Immigrant Integration and Homemaking

12:00 – 13:30 Lunch

13:30 - 15:00 Migrant Fathers, Husbands and Workers in Europe and Beyond
Venue: D241
Chair: Gabriella Elgenius (University of Gothenburg)
Melanie Griffiths (University of Bristol)
‘I’m a nothing man.’ Negotiating fatherhood and masculinity as a precarious male migrant
Katharine Charsley (University of Bristol)
Work and remittances: Pakistani migrant husbands in the UK
Michael Tunc (University of Wuppertal)
Studies on Fathering and Father Engagement Programs in Germany in intersectional Perspective: Migrant Fathers in Critical Diversity/Race and Gender/Masculinity Studies and Consequences for Social Work

Discussant: Öncel Naldemirci (University of Gothenburg)

15:00- 15:15 Coffee break

15:15 - 16:45 Fathering Practices and Intra-European Migration
Venue: D241
Chair: Andrea Spehar (University of Gothenburg)
Oksana S. Gréen (University of Gothenburg)
Parenting and labour mobility in the Enlarged Europe: fathers' role in doing family across the borders
Paula Pustułka (Jagiellonian University)
Conformism, complicity and incompliance within mobile masculinities - Polish men as migrant workers, husbands and fathers
Marion Pajumetis (Tallinn University)
Migrant Domestic Fathers' Transnational Masculine Identity Work

Discussant: Julia Kubisa (University of Gothenburg/University of Warsaw)

16:45- 18:00 Roundtable Discussion of the Day's Proceedings

Friday – 10 June 2016

09:00 – 09:15 Introduction

09:15 - 10: 15 Men, Sexualities and Migration
Venue: D241
Chair: Amy Alexander (University of Gothenburg)
Shereen El Feki (Promundo)
Shadow of a Man: Understanding Men and Masculinities in the Middle East and North Africa
Giuseppe Masullo (University of Salerno)
Homosexuality elsewhere: North African male migrants, sexuality and transcultural identity strategies

Discussant: Katarzyna Wojnicka (University of Gothenburg)

10:30 – 12:00 Men, Masculinities and Migration in the Transnational Perspective
Venue: D241
Chair: Jonathan Polk (University of Gothenburg)
Alexandra Bousiou (University of Gothenburg/University of Athens)
The Common European Asylum System under the light of the refugee crisis: A critical reading of the composition of the flows in Greece
Elli Scambor (AMGI)
Engaging with Differences: (Migrant) Boys in Education in Europe and the Case of Early School Leaving
Agnieszka Trąbka (Jagiellonian University)
Self-positioning as a man in transnational context. Constructing and managing gender identity

Discussant: TBC (University of Gothenburg)

12:00 - 13:30 Lunch

13:30 - 15:30 Discussion on Workshop Findings and Publication Strategy

16:00 Workshop Closes

Organizers and Sponsors

Katarzyna Wojnicka, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Gothenburg katarzyna.wojnicka@gu.se

Hosted by the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg (CERGU) 

Abstracts

Alexandra Bousiou (University of Gothenburg/University of Athens)
The Common European Asylum System under the light of the refugee crisis: A critical reading of the composition of the flows in Greece

During 2015 more than one million people reached Europe across the Mediterranean, mainly through the East Mediterranean route from Turkey to Greece. The vast majority of these people, around 856,723, arrived through the Greek border islands of the Aegean. This situation pushed the reception capacity of the islands beyond its limits and throughout the summer the refugee reception was based on local initiatives, volunteers and incentives of local governments. The Common European Asylum System is laying the minimum standards of reception for asylum seekers with a particular emphasis on protection of vulnerable groups. These standards were impossible to be met as the situation escalated into a crisis. Towards the end of the summer and progressively till the end of the year international NGO’s, International Organizations and European agencies such as Frontex and EASO arrived at the islands and besides contributing to the search and rescue as well as the registration and the reception of the refugees they published a vast array of reports, policy briefs, newsletters and press releases. This paper attempts a critical reading of the statistical data as well as the rest of the secondary sources produced by actors active in the islands. A specific focus is given in the composition of the flows, in terms of gender, age and family composition and the corresponding representation of this data in the discourses of the different actors.

Katharine Charsley (University of Bristol)
Work and remittances: Pakistani migrant husbands in the UK

This paper explores the utility of a focus on masculinity in understanding experiences and expectations around remitting for Pakistani migrant husbands in Britain, drawing on data collected as part of a broader Esrc-funded research project on marriage migration and integration. Most of the husbands interviewed aspired to send money regularly to family in Pakistan, but remittances where often a point of tension with their British Pakistani wives. A gendered analysis combining a focus on transnational performance of valued masculinities with local negotiations of domestic power and labour market disadvantage provides an enriched understanding of these dynamics.

Shereen El Feki (Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, Promundo)
Shadow of a Man: Understanding Men and Masculinities in the Middle East and North Africa

Men are the pillars of patriarchy across the Arab region. Yet, paradoxically, relatively little is known about their lives or their attitudes towards the shifting roles of men and women in their societies. “Gender”, as conventionally defined in the Middle East and North Africa, has distinctly female features: most international and domestic attention, be it foreign development assistance, governmental policy-making or community programming, is focused on women and girls.
Yet is it clear that these pillars are under stress. Emerging research shows men and boys struggling with double-digit unemployment, scholastic underachievement, chronic health complaints—a situation exacerbated by, widespread conflict and displacement as well as political authoritarianism and religious fundamentalisms which extol models of masculinity increasingly out-of-reach for many. Add to these challenges a serious “image problem” within and beyond the region, as exceptional incidents—from the New Year’s Eve assaults in Cologne and gang rapes of Tahrir Square, to the Bataclan and Brussels terror attacks and the atrocities of ISIS militants—are generalized to paint the “Arab man” into a very dark corner.
The reality of men’s and boys’ lives across the Arab region is in urgent need of less heat and more light. Enter IMAGES MENA, the International Men and Gender Equality Survey Middle East and North Africa. This pioneering research, directed by Promundo under the aegis of UNWomen, is taking a wide angle lens to the lives of men at home and at work, as fathers and sons, husbands and partners, to be better understand men’s lives, not just in relation to women and but to one another as well. Currently in progress in Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco and the Palestinian Territories, IMAGES MENA is reaching more than 9,000 men and women with its household surveys, focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. In combination with earlier research illuminating the intimate lives of men and boys (among them, Sex and the Citadel), IMAGES MENA will offer essential insights into the pressures and pleasures of men across the Arab region, with critical implications at home and abroad.

Oksana S. Gréen (University of Gothenburg)
Parenting and labour mobility in the Enlarged Europe: fathers' role in doing family across the borders

Post-enlargement labour migration within the EU boosted research interests regarding the changing family relations within the 'borderless Europe', especially with regard to the impact of migration on parenting and children. This presentation seeks to explore how care-arrangements of migrating parents, especially fathers are configured by institutional contexts in both sending and receiving countries. The target group of the research project is parents who migrated from Poland, Romania and Latvia following their countries’ accession to the EU and work in the lower-paid sectors of the Swedish labour market. Study participants were recruited for qualitative interviews using a range of different sites, including NGOs and trade union organisations, church ethnic congregations, personal networks, as well as snowballing. Drawing on Kilkey & Merlas' analytical approach to families' care-giving arrangements as being situated in a particular institutional context, we argue that the rights to welfare and family life for mobile EU workers in Sweden are conditional and highly stratified according to the working migrant residence and employment statuses. These creates complex implications on migrants’ personal experiences of parenting across the borders, where fathers’ experiences can be highlighted through the following themes, including the motivation for migration and the change of its temporary character over time; the ambivalences in providing care across the borders; the role of informal networks in mitigating the institutional constrains; motivation for fathers to reunite with their children and/or partners in Sweden or to continue living apart as a transnational family.

Melanie Griffiths (University of Bristol)
‘I’m a nothing man.’ Negotiating fatherhood and masculinity as a precarious male migrant

For academics, politicians and NGOs alike, the issues seen to relate to irregular male migrants tend to revolve around questions of legality, criminality and mobility. Little concern is generally afforded to the men’s emotional lives, except for a pervasive suspicion that any family life is cynically and opportunistically established in order to circumvent immigration controls. Drawing on qualitative research conducted with UK-based precarious male migrants and their British citizen or EEA national female girlfriends and wives as part of a three year ESRC-funded project based at the University of Bristol, this talk considers the discrepancy between how the men and immigration officials value and construe these relationships. It explores the effect of having family ties in the UK on the men’s experience of the immigration system, as well as the impact of immigration insecurity on the formation and sustainability of family life. Case studies of mixed-status families are provided in order to explore how immigration precarity and enforcement measures conflict with the men’s performance of fatherhood and partnership, and how such tensions affect their sense of self. Particular attention is given to immigration detention and the prohibition of employment as examples of ways in which the immigration system reaches into the heart of family life and produce gendered implications for irregular migrant men’s ability to be the parents and partners they wish to be.

Jeff Hearn (Örebro University, Hanken School of Economics, University of Huddersfield)

I have been arguing for quite a long time that critical, that is, feminist(ic), studies and politics on men and masculinities have been severely limited by ‘methodological nationalism’. This latter emphasis can lead attention away from some larger and more determinate questions, even when analyses are framed in comparative terms. Perhaps for these reasons the question of migration, that is men’s actual and potential migration and its effects, has appeared as somewhat muted within critical studies and politics of men and masculinities until relatively recently. In this session, I introduce a re-reading of these politics and studies, by emphasising the history and significance of migration (and sometimes non-migration) as an understated aspect. One reason for this understating might be that ‘migration’ has often been implicitly coded as ethnicised and racialized, concerned with those constructed as others, non-locals, and various ‘non-whites’. Yet migration is a much more variegated and complex set of processes involving men and masculinities across classes, ethnicities, and other differences, that, in crossing borders or seeking to do so, may disrupt methodological nationalism, and implicate (almost) all. Accordingly, I argue that migration is not an add-on of ‘non-migratory’ critical studies and politics on men and masculinities but a central part, in terms of historical development and theoretical significance.

Pierrette Hondagneu – Sotelo (University of Southern California)
Men, Migration, Masculinity and Place: Immigrant Integration and Homemaking

What kinds of immigrant masculinities are welcomed, and what kinds are rejected?
Moreover, how are masculinities deployed in early 21rst century xenophobic campaigns? The presentation will begin by discussing masculinities in some of the contemporary xenophobic political campaigns, and then it will shift to a discussion of a particular group of Latino immigrant men in California. First, I will argue for the importance of place and gender in immigrant integration, as I seek to nudge the sociology of immigration studies away from the dominant paradigms of assimilation and transnationalism, towards one that acknowledges how quotidian practices and the materiality and meanings of place constitute active assertions for the right to make a home in the city. Secondly, this paper builds on several decades of gender and migration scholarship, and seeks to bring immigrant men back into the frame, not as androcentric agents, but as actors with gendered, intersectional social locations imbued with both masculine privilege and social marginality. Thirdly, the sociology of immigration has mostly ignored the materiality of the built environment in processes of settlement and immigrant integration, and this paper adds a focus on how plant nature and landscape shape immigrant integration in inner-city contexts. Immigrant integration is a process that includes receiving society openness to immigrants, and the process of immigrants making new homes, and in conclusion I will discuss immigrant men making new homes in public and semi-public green spaces. The empirical work informing this paper is in process, and includes one and half years of team ethnography and interview data collected in public parks and a large community garden in South Los Angeles, specifically in the neighborhoods of Watts, historic South Central Ave., and Vermont Slauson.

Giuseppe Masullo (University of Salerno)
Homosexuality elsewhere: North African male migrants, sexuality and transcultural identity strategies

The present paper is based upon a research on the experiences of foreign homosexuals in Italy, in particular males from the Maghrib region, namely Morocco and Tunisia.
Starting from a theoretical reflection that takes into account the various possible situations experienced by migrants, we will analyse the complexities arising in terms of identity for foreigners who, when living their sexuality, relate both with the cultural standards of the country of origin (often homophobic and repressive) and with those of the host country, in which they can instead intercept new opportunities to express themselves and their desires.
The analysis of social representations has been paramount, and it exposed a composite intertwining of images and behaviour patterns with which immigrants from Maghrib relate to homosexuality. These are partly modelled on the ideas of homosexuality learned in the contexts of origin – as for the issue of gender roles and their influence on the definition of sexual identity – and partly learned from the ideas of homosexuality existing in the host countries, which is much more likely for young migrants. The persistence of a negative view of homosexuality due to the statute of the zamel, associating homosexuality and feminine traits – and the fact that this vision is often attributed to the locals – helps us understand how in migration stereotypical representations of homosexual identity are reproduced (from both locals and foreigners) due to the effect of complex inter-ethnic relationships. These aspects have been also highlighted by the researches within the queer migration studies theory. In this sense, the ways of living sexual identities are also ways to measure the migrants' degree of proximity/distance towards models and lifestyles prevalent in the host country but not necessarily embraced or legitimized.

Marion Pajumetis (Tallinn University)
Migrant Domestic Fathers' Transnational Masculine Identity Work

This analysis focuses on Estonian male migrants to ‘Old Europe’ who spend most of their time in the domestic realm as caring fathers and supportive spouses to their wives, who are meanwhile advancing their professional careers abroad. For men from the former Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) that is a region still rather conservative in terms of gendered divisions of labour, they lead atypical lives. In this situation, perceiving oneself as a ‘real man’ may become a target one has to work hard on. This paper views masculine identity as an accomplishment achieved with ‘masculine identity talk’. Identity is a processual phenomenon that is relentlessly, although not always deliberately, (re)formulated in discourse, not entirely predetermined by the social roles one performs. Analysis of in-depth interviews with migrant domestic men reveals that they employ of a variety of discourses that efficiently reconstruct their sense of personal masculine significance. Interestingly, they predominantly combine during one single interview ‘alternative’ discourses (‘caring father’, ‘supportive spouse’, ‘civilised adult’), which potentially undermine idealised masculinity in CEE, with the ‘conservative’ discourses (‘professional man’, ‘well-off’), that reinforce the male norm ‘back home’. Their rather casual combination of opposing and even conflicting discourses reflects those men’s transnational existence and transnational masculine identity talk - working on one’s masculinity drawing on and mixing the cultural ideas of masculinity from the ‘New Europe’ as well as from the ‘Old Europe’.

Paula Pustułka (Jagiellonian University)
Conformism, complicity and incompliance within mobile masculinities - Polish men as migrant workers, husbands and fathers

As the highly mobile nation, Poles experience multiple consequences of international migrations. One key area where mobility alters the ideas, relationships and meanings, is the complexity of the social fabric constituting families and the gender relations. Changes to gender orders and family practices are inherently crucial for the coupledom and intergenerational ties. While extensive research has focused on Polish women on the move, often applying a morally judgmental view on their international endeavours as incompliant with traditional caring femininity of mothers and wives, the migrant men remained largely unproblematized. The economic and cultural juxtaposition that frames men and women as breadwinners vis-à-vis carers, has generally resulted in little attention given to how global masculinities and constructions of male roles in other geographic contexts that migrating men encounter may take effect on the Polish male identities.
In this paper, the theoretical framework seeks to link the theories known from masculinity studies to the conceptual frames in which men appear in as migrants. These are then applied to three particular roles of Polish migrant men in the discussions. First dimension deals with the traditional role of being an employee as a labour migrant, shedding some light on the inner-conflicts and paradoxes that stem from successful fulfilment of the breadwinner role (conformism) on the one hand, and the diminished, often deskilled and marginalized position that men experience in the workforce abroad (incompliance), on the other. Secondly, the paper addresses men in transnational and reunited partnerships, documenting whether an emotional strain of separation emerges, as well as depicting some of the escapist and complicit tactics that men adopt as “grass widowers” abroad. Finally, the paper delineates the phenomenon of the “away-fatherhood” (conformist absent fatherhood) and compares it with the shifts occurring within fathering in the reunited migrant families (incompliant family practices). While the arguments presented in this paper rely on the empirically supported example of Polish migrant men, they pinpoint wider dimensions of the possible intersections between masculinities and mobilities.

Elli Scambor (Verein für Männer- und Geschlechterthemen Steiermark )
Engaging with Differences: (Migrant) Boys in Education in Europe and the Case of Early School Leaving

The paper discusses results of the most recent European Study on the Role of Men in Gender Equality, which offers an international comparison of the situation of boys and outlines major trends related to gender disparities in education across Europe. An in-depth analysis of male early school leavers leads to a deeper understanding of boys as heterogeneous social groups. Relations between so called “costs” and “privileges” in education show considerable varieties due to differences between boys, with educational careers being strongly influenced by social class and migration. In order to give answers to the question, why for some boys ‚doing student‘ and ‚doing masculinity‘ seems to be contradictory, it is of high importance to analyse patterns of masculinities in the school context. As recent studies show, culturalised interpretation patterns in schools tend to reduce educational perspectives of boys with migrant histories. And social research can reproduce these inequalities as well, when explanatory patterns for early school leaving draw a causal link between characteristics of boys (and parents) with migration histories and neglect institutional factors.

Agnieszka Trąbka (Jagiellonian University)
Self-positioning as a man in transnational context. Constructing and managing gender identity

The majority of research on migrant men is focused on critical analysis regarding the domestic sphere, family relations, power and equality. The analysis is often based on juxtaposition of migrants’ patterns of masculinity with Western ones. Little attention is paid to young, highly skilled, single migrants who may also experience tensions regarding their gender role as they change countries. This paper is based on biographical narrative interviews with men of different nationalities migrating in childhood and in their adult lives (serial migrants).
Among adolescents and young adults different visions of masculinities and gender roles are important factor contributing to general adaptation, as they influence ways of spending free time, making friends, being accepted in the peer group etc. Thus, on the one hand they can impede adaptation, on the other – these differences may be used to evade gender norms that are oppressive or inconvenient.
I will present three case studies illustrating different strategies of constructing and managing one’s masculinity. First I will discuss difficulties in defining one’s own gender identity when confronted with contrasting visions of masculinity and lack of strong role model. Secondly I will consider possible difficulties in finding a partner and building a relationship due to different gender role attitudes and expectations. Finally, I will examine how non-heteronormative masculinity becomes a pivotal part of identity built on contrasts and differences.

Michael Tunc (University of Wuppertal)
Studies on Fathering and Father Engagement Programs in Germany in intersectional Perspective: Migrant Fathers in Critical Diversity/Race and Gender/Masculinity Studies and Consequences for Social Work

The starting point is that there are only a few Studies on Fathering of Migrants in Germany. On the other hand we have ethnicized discourses about migrant fathers in Germany, so I will describe the challenge to use an intersectional approach.
Engaged Fathering is to discuss in conflicts with hegemonic Masculinities: How are esp. developmental Psychology Studies on Fathering are to integrate in a broader sociological Perspective of Masculinity and Intersectionality?
Studies who analyze ongoing transformations of Masculinity/Fathering should take into account the influence of experiences like social or racist exclusion some men (eg. socially disadvantaged migrant men/fathers) have to cope with.
I discuss the Dominance of the cross cultural Perspective and the Lack of a Critical Diversity and Race Perspective on Fathering and Masculinity debates about migrants in Germany.
I emphasize the potential that A. D. Mutua’s “progressive black Masculinities” (2006) offers for debates in Migration Societies: a new theoretical concept and approach for Masculinity Studies, that contains potential in order to further develop Connells hegemonic Masculinities in Studies on Fathering, esp. when dealing with migrant fathers.
In this theoretical framework I ask, how Social Work and Adult Education is dealing with the mentioned current challenges: based on empirical Findings of an Evaluation of Father Engagement Programs for migrant fathers the further Development in Germany will be examined in an intersectional perspective.

Conference Presenters

Alexandra Bousiou is a Research Coordinator and PhD student at the University of Gothenburg. She currently works on the projects Migration and Corruption nexus in Greece and Local Welcoming policies for EU migrants. Her work has been published in the book Discursive Governance in Politics policy and the public sphere (Palgrave Macmillan).

Katharine Charsley is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bristol, UK. Her main research interests are in gender, the family and migration, particularly in the field of cross-border marriages. Her work has been published in International Migration Review, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Journal of Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Law, Ethnic and Racial Studies and Global Networks: a journal of transnational affairs among others.

Shereen El Feki is a Professor of Global Practice, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and Senior Fellow at Promundo. She is expert in gender, sexuality and health in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and an author of Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World (2014). As a senior fellow with Promundo, under the aegis of UN Women, Shereen is also leading IMAGES-MENA, a pioneering study of men, masculinities and gender equality in four countries in the Arab region.

Oksana S. Gréen is Senior Lecturer at the University of Gothenburg. Her research focuses on global migration, gender and care from a distance, with a special focus on children’s well-being and the issue of migrants’ rights. Her current project aims to study how migrants as parents working in Sweden arrange care across the national borders and how these care-giving arrangements are enabled or challenged by the institutional context of Sweden with regard to welfare, migration laws, gender and working time regimes. Her work has been published by Baltic Worlds, Russia Review of Social Sciences and others.

Melanie Griffiths is a Research Associate at the University of Bristol, UK. Her research focuses on the sociology of migration, the sociology of family and men and masculinities studies. Her current project, entitled “Detention, Deportability and the Family: Migrant Men's Negotiations of the Right to Respect for Family Life”, is on the family lives and Article 8 rights of men at risk of deportation. She has published in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of Legal Anthropology, Anthropology Today and other outlets.

Jeff Hearn is a Full Professor at Örebro University, Hanken School of Economics, Finland and University of Huddersfield, UK. He is one of the founders of European Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities. His research focuses on a variety of areas in which men and masculinities issues play crucial roles, such as: violence, transnational migration, work, organisation and management, globalisation and many others. His publications include articles in Gender and Psychology, Current Sociology, Sociological review, Men and Masculinities, Journal of Gender Studies and many others. His latest book is Men of the World. Genders, Globalisations, Transnational Times (2015).

Pierrette Hondagneu – Sotelo is a Full Professor at the University of Southern California, where she also serves as Associate Director at the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, and is one of the leading scholars in the field of migration and gender studies. Her research interests include international migration and immigrant integration; gender; informal sector work; Mexican/Latino immigrant workers; religion and social movements for immigrant rights. Hondagneu - Sotelo’s research has been published in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Gender & Society, and Social Problems among others.

Giuseppe Masullo is an Assistant Professor at the University of Salerno. His research has been focused purely on the field of social representations of health and disease, and on the cultural dynamics within care relationships, with particular attention paid to the situation of foreign citizens. His work has been published in Italian Sociological Review, Academicus and many others outlets.

Marion Pajumetis is the Coordinator of the Estonian national contact point of the European Migration Network at the University of Tallinn, where she received her doctorate for her thesis on Estonian men’s masculine identity reconstruction following migration to wealthy EU member states. She is a former Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Örebro. Her work has been published in Studies of Transition States and Societies, Fathering: A Journal of Theory, Research, and Practice about Men as Fathers and others.

Paula Pustułka is an Associate Researcher at Jagiellonian University. Her research revolves around the intersections of family scholarship and migration studies, especially family/parenting practices, motherhood/mothering, mobility and belonging, migrants and education, as well as qualitative methodologies. Her work has been published in Social Identities, Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny, Contributions to Humanities and others.

Elli Scambor is a Research Director at the Association for Men's and Gender Issues Styria, Austria and a Lecturer at the University of Graz, Austria. Her research is on critical studies on men and masculinities (education, work, social movements, care, migration) and has been published in Men and Masculinities, Journal of Men’s Studies, Thymos: Journal of Boyhood Studies and many others.

Agnieszka Trąbka is a sociologist and psychologist working in the field of migration studies. Her research interests include migration in childhood, constructing identity in the context of migration as well as practices and perceptions of space. She is an Assistant Professor at Jagiellonian University. She has published in major Polish journals such as Studia Migracyjne – Przegląd Polonijny, Kultura i społeczeństwo and contributed to a book Migration, Diversity and Education published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Michael Tunc is a PhD candidate at the University of Wuppertal, Germany. His doctoral dissertation is on Turkish second generation migrant fathers in Germany. His work has been published in Forum Sexualaufklärung und Familienplanung and several edited volumes.

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The conference will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus. The two venues are Sappören and D 241, Sprängkullsgatan 25.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation

Our conference hotel is Vasa Hotel. 

For other options please see The Official Guide for Gothenburg.

Translational Checkpoints in the Creative Industries

The Centre for European Studies and the Department of Languages and Literatures, University of Gothenburg, welcomes you to a Multidisciplinary Translation Studies and Comparative Literature Conference, Gothenburg, 28-30 September 2015.

The Creative Industries play an important role as reference point for economic and political, cultural and social developments on a global, regional and local scale. Fairs, festivals, exhibitions and competitive events are ideal study sites because they showcase the construction, negotiation and exchange of symbolic and material values. Research on markets of value of this kind has been growing fast in the last two decades focusing on their technological and economic affordances, their normative significance and affect; yet little attention has been paid to their ability to negotiate inclusions and exclusion of languages, texts, images, people and performances, in other words, their significance as translational checkpoints (TCs). Originally an aviator’s term and more directly borrowed from its military context, the term “checkpoint” refers to a place or item for inspection or confirmation. As such it is a useful concept to investigate the flow of ideas, goods and people theoretically as setting ethical bounds of translational commitment, as well as economic and political encroachments.

The conference especially focuses on the following six thematic areas:

1. Language: What kinds of politics of language exist in the Creative Industries? How are they motivated? Do they affect instrumental translation and literary translation in the same ways?
2. Branding: What values are marketed in the Creative Industries? Who do they serve? Is there a form of branding of translation taking place? What is the impact of globalisation?
3. Methodology: What ideological and ethical challenges does qualitative translation face in this field? How are they being addressed? How are they being discussed?
4. Media: How have technological advances changed the role of translation and translators in the Creative Industries? What is the effect of social media?
5. Identity: What gender issues do we encounter? How does the personal background of artist, writer, curator etc. affect the translation of cultural artefacts and vice versa?
6. Translation Theory: Which (historical) approaches to translation and interpretation play a part in the Creative Industries? In what ways does current translation theory hinder or advance exploring Creative Industries settings? What knowledge transfer between researchers and professionals can be expected from events in the Creative Industries?

Program

Monday, September 28, Lilla Hörsalen, Humanisten, Renströmsgatan 6

16:00 Participants’ Arrival and Registration

17:00 Keynote speaker: Selina Tusitala Marsh, University of Auckland
Tusitala Translations: Telling the Story by Hand, Ear, and Eye
19:00 Conference Warming

Tuesday, September 29, Språkskrapan, Room 821
9:30 Panel I: Translation and Cultural Heritage
Astradur Eysteinsson, University of Iceland in Reykjavik
Literature in Motion: On Translation as Cultural Manifestation

Iris-Aya Laemmerhirt, TU Dortmund
I Would Prefer Not To: The use of Language
in Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio's Poetry

10:30 Coffee break

11:00 Panel II: Translation and Cultural Heritage
Heidi Grönstrand, University of Turku
From Stigma to Status? Multilingualism as Value in Light of the Swedo-Finnish Works of Kjell Westö

Britta Olinder, University of Gothenburg
Different Dimensions of Translation

12:00 Lunch break

14:00 Panel III: Digital Checkpoints
Katja Valaskivi, University of Tampere
Building a sense of nation 2.0: creative industries and circulating the practices of nation branding

Fabíola do Socorro Figueiredo dos Reis, University of Antwerp; UFPA
Izabela Leal, UFPA
Christiane Stallaert, University of Antwerp
Translating Fanfictions into Brazilian Portuguese – Translation and sharing in the digital age

15:00 Coffee break

16:00 Panel IV: Culture and Commerce
Helmi-Nelli Körkkö, University of Vaasa
How many authors does Finland have?
The Frankfurt Book Fair as a platform for literature export

Elisabeth Böker, Georg-August-University Göttingen
The German Book Market as a Translational Checkpoint for Scandinavian Literature


Wednesday, September 30, Humanisten, Room 821
9:00 Panel V: Swedish Translationscapes

Elisabeth Bladh, University of Gothenburg
The "Double Blessing" - a Checkpoint for French Language Writers Passing into Swedish Culture?

Lisa Pääjärvi, University of Gothenburg
Swedish and English Murakami – Translation strategies in The Elephant Vanishes

10:00 Coffee break

11:00 Panel VI: New Relationscapes for the Translator
Daniel Ogden, Örebro University
What did the translator have for breakfast?

Elin Svah, Stockholm University
Translator students and translator role models.

Angela Kölling, University of Gothenburg
Metaphors: Branding Translators, Branding Translation?

11:30 Closing Discussion

Contact Information: angela.kolling@gu.se

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The conference will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus. The conference sessions will be held at Humanisten, Språkskrapan, Room 821.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg City with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Accommodation

The conference hotel is Quality Hotel Panorama.

Contact

Angela Kölling
Conference organizer
angela.kolling@gu.se

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se

Industrial Relations in Europe: Converging or Diverging Industrial Relations in Europe? 

10-11 September, 2015
University of Gothenburg

Contact: irec2015@socav.gu.se

Program

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN EUROPE CONFERENCE – IREC 2015 Converging or diverging industrial relations in Europe?
Conference host: Department of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg
Host partners: Centre for Global HRM (CGHRM), Centre for European Research (CERGU), and Work and Employment Research Centre (WE), University of Gothenburg.

Day 1: Thursday 10/9 2015
9.00-9.30
Registration and welcome coffee
Entrance Hall, Sprängkullsgatan 25
09.30-09.50
Opening: Prof. Birger Simonsson Dean, Faculty of social science
Prof. Bengt Larsson, organising committee
Room: Sappören, Sprängkullsgatan 25
09.50-10.50
Key note speech 1: Prof. Richard Hyman, LSE
(How) Can Austerity Be Resisted?
Room: Sappören, Sprängkullsgatan 25
Short break
11.10-12.40
Parallel sessions 1 (See separate program below)
Room: D239, D240, D241, D250
Lunch (not included in conference fee)
14.00-15.00
Key note speech 2: Prof. Susanne Pernicka, Universität Linz
Resisting forces of marketization? The role of institutional entrepreneurs in transnational wage policy coordination
Room: Sappören, Sprängkullsgatan 25
Short break
15.15-16.45
Parallel sessions 2 (See separate program below)
Room: D239, D240, D241, D250
Short break
17.00-18.30
Parallel sessions 3 (See separate program below)
Room:D239, D240, D241, D250
18.30-19.30
Mingle with colleagues and friends
Room: Kafé Haga, Sprängkullsgatan 25

Day 2: Friday 11/9 2015
9.15-10.45
Parallel sessions 4 (See separate program below)
Conference program [prel.] [IREC 2015 - GOTHENBURG]
Room: D239, D240, D241, D250
Short break
11.00-12.00 Plenary session: Prof. Walter Korpi, Stockholm University
The Grand Canyon of Unemployment, 1920 – 2005: Partisan Politics and Distributive Conflict in
the Rise and Fall of Western Full Employment Welfare States
Room: Sappören, Sprängkullsgatan 25
Lunch (not included in conference fee)
13.15-14.45 Parallel sessions 5 (See separate program below)
Room: D239, D240, D241, D250
Short break
15.00-17.00 Panel Discussion: Social dialogue in SMEs – prospects and problems
Gunilla Almgren, President UEAPME
Ola Bergström, Professor, Management & Organisation, University of Gothenburg
Kristjan Bragason, General Secretary, The Nordic Union for Hotel, Restaurant, Catering and Tourism
Stefan Carlén, chief Economist, Handels - The Commercial Employees' Union
Moderator: Prof. Bengt Larsson, University of Gothenburg
Room: Sappören, Sprängkullsgatan 25
19.30- Dinner at Skansen Kronan

Parallell sessions
Theme 1: Developments in European industrial relations
Theme 2: European social dialogue
Theme 3: Trends in collective bargaining and wage setting
Theme 4: Transnational trade union cooperation
Theme 5: Trade union revitalization and social movements
Theme 6: Changing employment and working conditions
Theme 7: Labour market mobility and migration
Theme 9: HRM and union influence on company and workplace level

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The conference will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus. The conference sessions will be held at the Department of Sociology and Work Science, Sprängkullsgatan 25.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg City with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Contact

Bengt Larsson
Conference Organizer
bengt.larsson@socav.gu.se
031-786 4775

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

"Big Data"

Digital technology drastically increases opportunities and reduces costs for the allocation and analysis of data, at the same time as the internet and social media, helps to create gigantic volumes of digitally stored information about humans in all their dimensions such as body, thoughts, feelings, actions, appearance, life situations, placement in space and time, etc. In parallel and, supported by the same digital technology, increasingly sophisticated analytical and theoretical tools are evolving, facilitating analysis of these data sets to unravel and describe hitherto elusive connections, relationships, and complexities in the understanding of human nature.
Part of this consists of easily accessible data produced in real time, daily. Some data with direct view to be used and otherwise produced because it is possible. Sources consist partly of so-called user-generated content via button presses and taps on the smart phones, tablets, and personal computers as well as uploaded content in shared databases of social media formats: videos, images, audio, and texts.
Others kind of big data consist of from the daily user’s viewpoint less visible side effects of the above, in the form of personal data and conduct surveys that are stored in databases for commercial or marketing purposes.
Data are also produced by digital sensors, including the so-called RFID technology, which is a technology to read information remotely by microchip transponders called tags. Digital sensors of this type are embedded in cars, oil pipelines, power lines, roads, traffic lights, water pipes, hospital instruments, etc. They are also common in terms of bus passes, lift tickets, road tolls, passport, anti-theft systems in shops, booking systems, library loans, etc.
Data is also produced in the form of traditionally “qualitatively” materials for arts and social science studies, which documents and informs about humans, human cultures, behavioral patterns, way of thinking, communities, etc. These databases already exist but are under substantial expansion, thanks to technological possibilities.
Data are also produced within existing and still growing repositories or “banks” of information from medical, neurological and/or scientific research, and related technical product development and business operations (ex. pharmaceutical and healthcare testing industry, implant industry, etc.). A strong trend is that these data bases are or will be open, i.e. available for research and scientific analysis.
Finally, the development of “Internet of things”, E-/M-health, subcultural movements like “The Quantified Self”, and the like, accelerate the development of large amounts of data that become available for analysis from the research perspective.
To the large-scale production of data belongs also the target-oriented fact-finding for intelligence, police, and military purposes. This information will, at least not in the first stage, be available for research - although the course used for the analysis and formulation of conclusions in these respective areas, may eventually manifest itself in the form of publicly noticeable consequences for scientists to ponder.

One particularly important aspect of big data is the development of methods that can be called “Big data Analytics”. This refers to methods for fast, systematic, and adequate extraction of new information about people, people’s bodily facilities, human behavior, thoughts, emotions, communities, lifestyles, cultures, etc. on the basis of big data. The temptation to manage the very large volumes of data runs on the hardware and software development, which is supported by increasingly sophisticated mathematical-statistical and measuring-theoretical models.
Voluminous and complex data sets require complicated systems and analytic methods for data processing, which are highly automatized. A particular feature of big data is that it is less homogeneous than usual bases of researchers’ studies, and therefore requires special solutions – eg. for automatized analysis of combined qualitative and quantitative material from radically different fields.
Another special feature of big data analytics is the increasing ability to analyze and process data in real time, to control analyzes, statements, information, that is made on the basis of and/or is spread by the same technology that creates big data. This development contributes in itself to increase the complexity of big data, because it creates awareness of new types of information to store.
One more technical aspect of big data is a need for visualization. The combination of very large data volumes, complex systems, and analytical methods for the processing of data means that visualization is important in the research process, to provide the researcher with an overview of a vast and complex set of data, to design research and carry out analysis. That big data increase the dependence on visualization is also exemplified in the process where the research results are communicated to the public and the interests involved.
The above is what can be brought under the single category of “big data”. But big data is also a kind of movement of ideas, practices, dreams, visions, and people. And it is primarily this aspect of big data that we focus on in this symposium. Some of the practices and ideas are already under discussion and scientific analysis. Big data applications in fields such as health, marketing, and surveillance, are studied and discussed by sociologists, lawyers, and philosophers among others. Another example of the big data movement is the approach known as “Digital Humanities”.
However, it is none of these specific fields or areas that we want to bring into focus in this symposium, since there are already adequate activities started. What we want to do instead is to the discover, consolidate, explore, discuss, contextualize, historicize, and both criticize and exaggerate the claims, fears, hopes, descriptions, beliefs, and expectations about big data’s impact on our overall understanding of humans and society that are assumed and canonized in what we perceive as the big data ideational movement.

Key-note speakers

Palle Dahlstedt, Composer and improviser, Aalborg University and University of Gothenburg
Paula Droege, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Pennsylvania State University
Carrie Figdor, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa
Staffan I Lindberg, Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg
Dawn Nafus, Anthropologist at Intel Labs, PhD from University of Cambridge
Anil Seth, Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience (Informatics), Co-Director (Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science), Reader in Informatics (Centre for Computational Neuroscience and Robotics)
Irina Shklovski, Associate professor, IT University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
Barry C Smith, Philosopher and Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the Institute of Advanced Studies at University of London
Patrik Svensson, Professor in the Humanities and information technology, HUMlab, Faculty of Arts at Umeå University
Paul F.M.J. Verschure, Ma. and PhD in psychology, Professor, Catalan Institute of Advanced Research (ICREA) Technology Department, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics (NRAS), Scientific Director of the Master in Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media (CSIM)

Symposium Objective

Regarded as a social, intellectual, cultural, and commercial “movement”, big data carries revolutionary expectations for the possibility of exploring humans scientifically. If the most ambitious visions and projections were to materialize, culture and society could face a paradigm shift in terms of the scientific method’s potential to contribute to previously inaccessible understanding of the nature and essence of humans and humanity. On that account, big data could produce new views of humanity, which could become a paradigm shift comparable to what came out of the Renaissance, the scientific revolution, and the quantitative social science major breakthrough after WWII.
Common to these historical events is that the shifts in perspectives and methods in the scientific study of humanity has had major consequences for how humans, both as individuals and as collective quantities, came to be considered from ideological, moral, cultural, political, and ontological perspectives.
The objective of this symposium are thus to initiate an in-depth and critical exploration and discussion of in what way and to what extent big data could change the premises of the scientific empirical research on humans, and the consequences big data in this particular respect would have on the images on humans, and ultimately to human identity. Notice that we therefore choose not to focus on other bases of the images of humans, for example religions. Also note that we do not take for granted that big data is already is, or will be developed into, a paradigm shift – it is the ideas of the potential for such a shift which is the focus of our interest.
It is in fact one of the objectives of the symposium to extract the early examples, but above all to discuss foresights, about the changes in the images on humans we may have to expect in the future if big data, will have the paradigmatic consequence that is promised of many in the big data movement. That is, we do not start from that big data has had an effect, or will have an impact, but that big data in all probability may have an effect.
In other words, our idea is that big data’s paradigmatic breakthrough for the empirical research on humans has not yet occurred, and that is precisely therefore it is important, legitimate, and responsible to initiate a future-oriented and critical exploratory discussion, and from this formulate essential questions for research and public debate.
Substantially, we want to get to grips with the often explicit images on humans in prevalent taxonomies and conventions, embedded in scientific knowledge, such as: “humans are all different, humans are all equal”, “every person is unique”, “humans are complex”, “humans are the same as ever” (cf. Levi Strauss the universally human),”humans cannot be seen as just biological or physical”. The paradigmatic visions of the big data movement, holds of the prospects to empirically explore and reconsider the viability of such necessarily imprecise and vague but nonetheless deeply meaningful images and conceptions of humans.
 

Themes and Questions

The backbone of the symposium will be oral presentations by some dozen specially invited key-note speakers. Particular emphasis is placed on forward-looking, bold, visionary, and provocative ideas. The symposium will also be open to a limited number of participants in the auditorium (in total 70 participants), to form a kind of advanced seminar or roundtable. The speakers are asked to reflect upon one or several of four aspects of the symposium objective:

1) Big data – The vision of a paradigm shift in the empirical research on humans: providing tangible examples and reflections on own and/or others’ pooling, processing, and visualization of big data
2) Images and ideas of the human nature in past, present, (and future) literature, art, and fiction: providing perspectives and examples, own and others, of how artists and authors elaborate on images of the human nature, as partly based on an scientific empirical account
3) Images on humans – theorizing the human nature: providing examples and reflections, own and others, of how philosophers, psychologist, sociologists, anthropologists (et cetera) theorize the nature of humans
4) The potential for and significance of scientific and social breakthroughs: providing examples and reflections around the limits, opportunities, and challenges of the scientific method from a societal perspective, in the wake of big data

Presentations and discussions could be inspired by the following questions. Which images and ideas about the human nature would we more or less consciously carry with us, as tacit assumptions, when we design and get to grips with a big data-based scientific exploration of the human being? What new images and ideas about the human nature can be argued to be possible to create and promote through big data research, because it would allow us to analyze humans so empirically thoroughly? Which old images and ideas about the human nature may thus be possible to confirm or refute? Can big data contribute to bridging the gap between what is perceived as the subjective and the objective aspect of humans? Can big data render it possible to study the most personal an individual live through – the individual’s own experience – by the use of the scientific method? Could big data help to bridge the classic challenges for the scientific method with respect to the study of humans, such as subjective-objective, individual-collective, and standardized-variable? Can the big data approach affect these contradictions, admit to standardize and individualize at the same time, and manage to explain and describe the subjective and the objective dimensions of human existence at the same time? What are the implications beyond science from the various answers to the above questions?

Conference Programme

Thursday June 25, 2015

09.30 Opening of Symposium: Welcome and Introduction
Urban Strandberg & Christian Munthe – organizers
Göran Blomqvist, Managing Director, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond – sponsor

10.00-11.00 Big Data and Shifting Concepts of the Human
Carrie Figdor, Associate Professor, University of Iowa

11.00-11.30 Coffee

11.30-12.30 Big Data in the Brain
Anil Seth, Professor, University of Sussex

12.30-13.30 n Etudes: Artistic Interventions
Palle Dahlstedt, Composer and Improviser, Professor, Aalborg University, University of Gothenburg, and Chalmers University of Technology

13.30-14.30 Lunch

14.30-15.30 Getting Out of the Clouds: What the Quantified Self Community and Anthropologists have in Common
Dawn Nafus, PhD, Anthropologist at Intel Labs

15.30-16.00 Coffee

16.00-17.00 Salvaging Humanity from Big Data Nihilism
Paul Verschure, Professor, Catalan Institute of Advanced Research, and Universitat Pompeu Fabra

17.00-17.30 Discussion and End of Day 1 (no social programme for the evening)

Friday June 26, 2015

9.30-10.30 Big Data for Us
Barry C Smith, Professor, University of London

10.30-11.00 Coffee

11.00-12.00 Visualizing Big Data: Inside and Outside the Single Screen
Patrik Svensson, Professor, Umeå University

12.00-13.00 Big Data on Varieties of Democracy
Staffan I. Lindberg, Professor, University of Gothenburg

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.00 Encounters with Data in the World of Run-Away Bits
Irina Shklovski, Associate Professor, IT University of Copenhagen

15.00-16.00 Not by Data Alone: The Promises and Pitfalls of Data Analysis in Understanding Consciousness
Paula Droege, Senior Lecturer, Pennsylvania State University

16.00-16.30 Coffee

16.30-17.30 Discussion and End of Symposium

The Relationship between Migration and Corruption

The Center for European Research (CERGU) and School of Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg welcome you to an exploratory workshop on the relationship between international migration and corruption.

Literature on international migration contains many examples and anecdotes of corruption during various stages of the migration process. However, few scholars have placed explicit emphasis upon the relationship and potential conceptual linkages between international migration and corruption. The aim of this workshop is therefore to gather scholars from various academic disciplines to think further about the role of corruption for/in international migration – with regards to both regular and irregular migration, in sending and receiving countries, and in relation to the administration, organization and control of migration.

During the workshop we will have the opportunity to listen to presentations and comments from scholars working on issues relating to international migration as well as corruption in various geographical contexts and from various disciplines.

The keynote speaker is Dr. Darshan Vigneswaran from the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of several books and articles on territory, immigration control and informality – mostly concerning Southern Africa: ‘Territory, Migration and the Evolution of the International System’ (2013, Palgrave), ‘Mobility Makes States: Migration and Power in Africa’ ((Ed) 2015, University of Pennsylvania Press), ‘Criminality or Monopoly? Informal Immigration Enforcement in South Africa’ (Journal of Southern African Studies, 2010) and ‘Incident Reporting: A Technique for Studying Police Corruption’ (Policing and Society, 2011).

Program

9:00-10:00 – Welcome and Keynote Speech (Room A319)
Darshan Vigneswaran, Department of Political Science and Co-Director of the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, University of Amsterdam
Making Mobility Pay: The Migration/Corruption Nexus

10:00-10:30 – Coffee Break

10:30-11:30 – Introductory Session (Room C417)
Bo Rothstein, Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg
Social Trust, Quality of Government and Ethnic Diversity
Camilla Orjuela, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg
Studying Corruption in Development and Post-Conflict Settings
Chair: Jonas Lindberg, Department of Economy and Society, University of Gothenburg

11:30-13:00 – Lunch Break

13:00-15:30 – ’Notes from Fieldwork’ (Room C417)
Anja K. Franck, Centre for European Research (CERGU) and School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg
The Role of Corruption in Immigration Control and Administration in Malaysia and Greece
Lisa Åkesson, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg
Incidents of Corruption in Portuguese Migration to Angola
Johan Lindquist, Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University
Encapsulation, Protection, Extraction: The Regulation of Indonesian Transnational Migration
Sofie Jonsson, Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg
The Linkages between Corruption and Human Trafficking
Firas Jonblat, Journalist from ‘Fortress Europe’ produced by Swedish Public Service Broadcaster (Sveriges Radio)
The Escape from Syria-- Refugees’ Paths towards what is known as Fortress Europe

Chairs: Carl Dahlström and Frida Boräng, Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg

15:30-16:00 – Coffee Break

16:00-17:00 – Final Discussion: What have we Learned and What are the Ways Forward?
Chairs: Darshan Vigneswaran and Anja K. Franck

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The conference will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus. The conference sessions will be held at the School of Global Studies, Konstepidemins Väg 2.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg City with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Contact

Anja K. Franck
Conference Organizer
anja.franck@globalstudies.gu.se
+46 (0) 31 786 1414

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

Hur tänkte vi och hur blev det? Tjugo år sedan folkomröstningen om svenskt medlemskap i EU

CERGU, CES och Brännpunkt Europa vid Göteborgs Universitet arrangerar den 14 november en heldag med fokus på Sveriges inträde och medlemskap i EU. I tre paneler förklarar vi varför Sverige gick med i EU, minns tillbaka på vad som hände 1994 och diskuterar vad Sveriges medlemskap betytt. Vi inleder med forskare som arbetat med Sveriges EU-medlemskap på olika sätt, fortsätter med personer som var i den absoluta hetluften när det begav sig, och avslutar dagen med att nuvarande och före detta Europaprogram-studenter, som själva var för unga för att delta i folkomröstningen, ger sin syn på Sverige och EU.

Program

14 november 2014, Göteborgs Universitets huvudbyggnad, Vasaparken

10.00-10.15 – Välkomnande och introduktion till dagen
Helena Lindholm Schulz, prorektor vid Göteborgs Universitet.
Urban Strandberg, studierektor för Europaprogrammen.
Linda Berg, föreståndare för Centrum för Europaforskning.

10.15-11.45 – Forskarperspektiv på Sveriges relation till EU och EU-inträdet
Kerstin Jacobsson, professor i sociologi vid Göteborgs universitet.
Malena Rosén Sundström, doktor i statsvetenskap vid Lunds universitet.
Bo Stråth, professor emeritus i historia vid Helsingfors universitet.

Moderator: Rutger Lindahl, professor emeritus i statsvetenskap vid Göteborgs universitet.

13.15-15.00 – Sverige vid folkomröstningen – förväntningar och resultat
Frank Belfrage, diplomat, chefsförhandlare om det svenska medlemskapet 1991-94, Sveriges ständiga representant vid EU 1994-99.
Ulf Dinkelspiel (M), Europaminister 1991-1994, chefsförhandlare EG-frågor 1988-91.
Eva-Britt Svensson (V), f d ordförande i Folkrörelsen Nej till EU, f d Europaparlamentariker.
Marita Ulvskog (S), Europaparlamentariker, civilminister 1994-96.

Moderator: Daniel Naurin, docent i statsvetenskap vid Göteborgs universitet.

15.00-15.30 – Kaffe & mingel

15.30-16.30 – Nuvarande och tidigare Europaprogramstudenter diskuterar Sverige och EU
Adam Cwejman (FP), projektledare Timbro, f d ordförande i LUF.
Joel Furvik, student på Europaprogrammet.
Magnus Nilsson (S), kandidat Europaparlamentet, f d ordförande i Socialdemokratiska studentförbundet.
Kristina Lovén Seldén, doktor i sociologi vid Göteborgs universitet.

Moderator: Ann Ighe, doktor i ekonomisk historia vid Göteborgs universitet.

Arrangörer:
Centrum för Europaforskning; Centrum för Europastudier och Brännpunkt Europa.

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The seminar will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus at the University Main Building in Vasaparken.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg City with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Contact

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se

A Europe in Crisis, A Europe in Flux

The 2014 Annual Conference of the Comparative European Politics Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association presents 'A Europe in Crisis, A Europe in Flux'.

Organized by Gregg Bucken-Knapp, School of Public Administration and Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg
Umut Korkut, Glasgow School for Business and Society, Glasgow Caledonian University

While scholars of European comparative politics focus on a broad set of substantive research questions, an increasingly shared realization unites them: in the wake of the recent global economic crisis, fundamental transformations in European politics are taking place. New challenges have emerged in both dramatic and subtle ways. These challenges can be seen in recent debates over the free movement of peoples, concerns over the viability of the European social model, problems with the quality of democracy in the EU and EU's periphery in the East and South, the specter of a security crisis in the heart of Europe, ongoing revelations that corruption is deeply entrenched in many European polities, the continued growth of far-right populist parties in both national and EU elections, and a growing skepticism among the general public towards the European project as a whole.

Against this backdrop, the University of Gothenburg, in co-operation with the Comparative European Politics Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association, organizes a conference on November 6-7 in Gothenburg, Sweden, co-hosted by the School of Public Administration and the Centre for European Research at the University of Gothenburg, with generous funding from the Swedish Network of European Research in Political Science (SNES). This one and a half day conference provides an ideal setting for scholars of European politics to explore these transformations across countries and policy settings from a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches.

The following topics will be discussed:

· The Policy and Implementation Challenges of European Multi-Level Governance: From Localities to Brussels

· The Discursive Framing of Political Problems in European Polities: Policymakers, Bureaucrats, Media and Civil Society

· Political Economy and The Politics of Economic and Social Policy Reform in Post-Crisis Europe

· Immigrant Entry and Integration Policies: Permeability in the Walls of Fortress Europe?

· Putting European Politics under the Microscope of Arts & the Humanities

· Corruption Across Europe: Institutions, Actors and Ideas

Program

6 November 2014

12. 00 - 12.15: Welcoming the participants by Gregg Bucken-Knapp and Umut Korkut (B228)

12.30 – 14.00: Panel 1: Discursive Research in European and National Politics (B228)

Chair: Umut Korkut, Glasgow Caledonian University

- Mark Shaw, Durham University, “Brussels, bureaucrats, and Britishness: Discourses on European integration and institutions in the UK press”

- Karin Zelano and Gregg Bucken-Knapp, University of Gothenburg, "Narrating free movement- a qualitative media analysis of free movement migration to Sweden 2003-2014"
- Dmitriy Nefёdov, Mariya Pozhidaeva, Siberian branch of Russian Presidential Academy, “For friends to remember, for foes to fear": the use of patriotic symbols in information war”.
12.30-14.00: Panel 2: Crisis of Governance and Corruption (B009)
Chair: Mikko Kuisma, Oxford Brookes University
- Katja Sarmiento-Mirwaldt, Brunel University, “Why conservatives put up with crooks?”

- Anja Karlsson Franck, University of Gothenburg, “The migration-corruption nexus: Findings from Greece."

14.00-14.30: Coffee break

14.30 – 16.00: Panel 3: Crisis of Governance and European Union (B009)

Chair: Jonas Hinnfors, University of Gothenburg

- Christina Griessler, Andrassy University, Budapest, “The EU enlargement crisis and its impact on the countries of the Western Balkans”

- Michele Knodt and Anne Tews, Technical University of Darmstadt, “Understanding Local Policy and Implementation Challenges in the European Multi-Level System. From Perception to Action.”

- Christopher Starke, University of Munster, “Understanding European Solidarity: The Role of Communication in Explaining European Solidarity”

- Roman Senninger, Aarhus University, “‘Going beyond institutions’: Analysing parliamentary control activities in EU Affairs”
14.30 – 16.00: Panel 4: Crisis of Governance and Migration (B228)

Chair: Gregg Bucken-Knapp, University of Gothenburg

- Aleksandra Wójcicka, Centre of Migration Research, Warsaw University, “Going Home: Return migration, Occupational Mobility and Educational Mismatch”

- Alexandra Boussiou and Antonis Kontis, National Kapodestrian University of Athens, “Comparative Analysis of irregular migration control policies: The cases of the US, Germany and Greece”

- Lena Karamanidou, City University London, “One step forward, two steps back: Immigration and Citizenship in Greece”

- Saban Taniyici, Necmettin Erbakan University, “A Comparative Analysis of Immigrant Language Policies in the US and Western Europe”

16.00 -16.30: Coffee break

16.30 – 18.00: Panel 5: Crisis and remembering how it used to be (B228)

Chair: Mikael Nygård, Åbo Akademi University

- Mikko Kuisma, Oxford Brookes University, and Umut Korkut, Glasgow Caledonian University, “Making people remember how things used to be: Collective memory and discursive governance”

- Sergei Bogdanov and Irina Yakovleva, Lomonosov Moscow State University, “Education as an instrument of integration policy: modern situation and historical lessons”

-Kesi Mahedran, The Open University, “'I used to be a European Citizen': Narratives of European Citizenship in the European Public Sphere”

19.30: Conference dinner. Restaurant to be announced.

7 November 2014

9.20 - 10.00: Keynote Speech: Professor Andras Bozoki, Central European University (Lecture Theatre Dragonen)

10.00-10.30: Coffee Break

10.30-12.00: Panel 6: Crisis of Democracy (B228)

Chair: Prof. Andras Bozoki, Central European University

- Ersin Kalaycioglu, Sabanci University, Sabanci University, “Turkish Politics between Democracy and Authoritarianism”

- Umut Korkut, Glasgow Caledonian University, “A Conservative putsch at EU’s periphery: Crisis of Democracy in Hungary”

- Derek Hutcheson and Bo Petersson, University of Malmö, “Impending Regime Crisis in Russia”
10.30-12.00: Panel 7: Gendering Politics and Policy in European Societies (B228)

Chair: Andrea Spehar, University of Gothenburg

- Fabrizio de Francesco and Sebastian Dellepiane Avellaneda, University of Strathclyde, “Diffusion and anti-diffusion of the same sex-marriage: Shifting from mechanisms to mobilization”

- Mikael Nygård, Åbo Akademi University, and Janne Autto, University of Lapland, “Finnish family policy at the crossroads? The financial crisis and its repercussions on state support for families with children”

- Meryl Kenny and Maarja Lühiste, University of Leicester, “Pathways to Power: Women’s Representation in the 2014 European Parliament Elections”

12.30. Conference Lunch. Restaurant to be announced.

Practical Information

Conference Venue

The seminar will be held on the University of Gothenburg campus at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Sprängkullsgatan 19.

Airport Transfer

Göteborg Landvetter Airport is western Sweden's largest international airport with scheduled flights as well as charter flights. The Airport Coaches offer transportation between Göteborg Landvetter Airport and Gothenburg City with departures every fifteen minutes. For timetables and more information visit http://www.flygbussarna.se/en/landvetter

Contact

Angie Sohlberg
Research Administrator at CERGU
+46 725320072
angie.sohlberg@gu.se

Birgitta Jännebring
Research Coordinator at CERGU
+46 735968402
birgitta.jannebring@cergu.gu.se