Cooperating Across Global Regions: Societal Actors, Transnational Mobilization, and Regional Integration 1960s-2020
Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation
Research
Duisburg, Germany, 8-9 June
2020
Call for Papers
Convener: Professor
Wolfram Kaiser (University of Portsmouth) in cooperation with the Centre for
Global Cooperation Research (University of Duisburg-Essen)
Societal actors like political parties, trade unions,
business organizations and non-traditional non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) forge and maintain transnationally constituted informal networks and
formalized organizational structures. Much has been said about how they
cooperate at the regional level as in the context of the European Union (EU) or
globally, where they interact with International Organizations (IOs). Instead, this exploratory workshop will focus on
their cooperation at the trans-regional or trans-continental level, for
example between Europe and Latin America.
Cooperation at this intermediate trans-regional level
may have been, or may continue to be induced, by historical experiences with
contemporary impact (e.g. Empire, political exile), cultural proximity or
language commonalities. Alternatively, or in addition, such mobilization could
have been, or could continue to be, geared towards fostering common ideological
goals like social justice, or more concrete policy objectives in delineated
policy areas like market liberalization or environmental protection.
Cooperation among societal actors at the trans-regional level may also have
been directed at supporting processes of de-colonization and national
independence as in Africa during the 1960s, or regime transition and democratic
stabilization as in Latin America during the 1980s.
Lastly, such cooperation has frequently also sought to
initiate and support the formation of regional integration organizations (RIOs)
in different global regions. Transnationally constituted societal actors have
used RIOs to create, maintain and strengthen transnational identities. They
have often also seen RIOs as suitable intermediate governance structures for
promoting their political visions and policy objectives, or they have
challenged these organizations as frameworks for implementing reforms
criticized as neo-liberal for their allegedly negative consequences e.g. for
employment conditions or the environment.
Against this background this workshop will take an interdisciplinary perspective on the
origins, practices and implications of trans-regional cooperation among
transnational societal actors. The workshop will adopt a globally
comparative approach and include relations among transnational societal actors
from Western Europe as well as e.g. Latin America, Africa, and South-East Asia.
It will seek to mobilize research focussing on the origins of such cooperation
from the 1960s up to the present day, taking as its starting point the
consolidation of Western European integration in the late 1950s and the 1960s,
de-colonization in the Global South in the same period and the formation of
RIOs such as the Organization for African Unity (OAU, now AU) in 1963, the
Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967 and Mercosur created in
1991 after the transition to democracy in Latin America in the 1980s. At the
same time, the workshop also invites papers based on ongoing social science
research to conceptualize and study empirically the role of societal actors in
trans-regional cooperation in conjunction with the formation and consolidation
of RIOs.
Relevant disciplines include, but are
not limited to (contemporary) History, Area Studies, Political Science,
Sociology. We especially welcome papers that contribute to answering one or
more of the following research questions:
- Who
has initiated, or initiates, trans-regional cooperation among societal actors,
e.g. individual policy entrepreneurs, established national or transnational
regional organizations, or RIOs that require societal interlocutors?
- What
have been, or are, the original motivations for forging trans-regional links,
e.g. access to material resources, exchange/transfer of political ideas,
creating transnational solidarity, effecting regime transition, or building
momentum for the creation of RIOs?
- How
does cooperation take place? Is it more informal or formalized? How is it
funded? Are the relations characterized by dependencies or are they among
equals?
- What
are the roles of trans-regional cooperation among societal actors for
governance at different levels, i.e. do they strengthen policy debate and
facilitate the transfer of political ideas and policy solutions? Do they feed
into the politics of RIOs or of free trade agreements like between the EU and
Mercosur, for example, and in what ways?
Please submit your proposal in one Word document with two elements:
- an
abstract of your paper of no more than 300 words
with information on its focus, key arguments and empirical basis.
- a
short biographical note with information on your
institutional affiliation and relevant ongoing research projects and/or
publications.
Please submit proposals to Wolfram Kaiser (Wolfram.Kaiser@port.ac.uk)
by 6 February 2020.
All invited paper-givers are expected to submit an
outline paper of 8-10pp with key arguments as well as a select bibliography
(including esp. works in languages other than English) by 15 May 2020.
Travel and accommodation expenses will be covered for
presenters within the limits of the applying regulations.