Invitation and Call for Papers to the conference
“Whither Europe? Borders, boundaries, frontiers in a changing world”
Göteborg University 16-17 January 2003





Since the end of the Cold War the situation in Europe may be described as a 
state of flux characterised by contradictory processes. The process of 
political and economic integration is partially followed by social and 
political disintegration. Old political borders are losing their 
traditional importance, which opens up for the creation of new communities 
as well as the disruption within old. The enlargement of the European Union 
will cross old frontiers, but also result in a new internal European 
borderline between insiders and outsiders. To what extent this new line of 
demarcation will be excluding to its character remains to be seen.

As a normative civil system, Europe pretends to move its frontiers towards 
east and south, a process that takes place in a framework of globalisation. 
As a peace project, the European Union has put an end to interstate wars 
between the Member States. However, intrastate conflicts and social and 
political violence has not disappeared in Europe, and could also within 
Member States even be on the increase.

A conference with the above-mentioned theme will address the contemporary 
and future Europe in discussions regarding the implications of new regional 
identities due to the changes raised in this brief introduction.

The conference will be held at the School of Economics and Commercial Law 
at Göteborg University 16-17 January 2003. The first day of the conference 
will offer plenary talks and panel discussions, while the second day will 
be dominated by a variety of workshops.

The conference is organised by:
Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence at Göteborg University
Centre for European Research at Göteborg University (CERGU)

The organising Committee is:
Professor Per Cramér, Jean Monnet Chairholder, Department of Law,
Professor Rutger Lindahl, Jean Monnet Chairholder, Department of Political 
Science
Professor Ulla Björnberg, Department of Sociology
Professor Björn Hettne, Department of Peace and Development Research
Associate Professor Per Månson, Department of Sociology
Associate Professor Mats Andrén, Department of History of Ideas and Theory 
of Science

CALL FOR PAPERS

We welcome paper proposal in anthropology, business, economics, government, 
law, modern history, politics, sociology, and other fields that investigate 
relevant aspects. So far three workshops are proposed:


“Human rights”

This workshop will address issues on human rights connected to 1. 
Minorities and citizenship rights. New kinds of boarders is likely to 
sharpen and complicate minority tensions. 2. Refugees and migrants. How are 
living conditions and asylum status granted to different kinds of migrants 
and refugees? 3. Family ties across boarders  problems regarding marriage, 
care of dependant relatives (old parents and children) 4. Trafficing and 
prostitution, women and children -  questions concerning human rights in 
the treatment of the persons concerned within the country to which they 
have been brought and also in the country to which they are sent when 
discovered. We welcome papers dealing with the mentioned and other aspects 
of human rights.


“Migration, citizenship and identity”

The second workshop deals with the wide range of topics that has to do with 
migration, citizenship and identity in relation to changing frontiers and 
new borders in post communist Europe. In Eastern Europe the independence 
has brought statelessness for parts of the populations. In Western Europe 
the migration of the last decades has in a number of ways questioned the 
established cultural boundaries and thus has become a key factor for recent 
discussions political as well as within the social and human sciences on 
citizenship and identity. The coming membership in the Union for Central 
European states presents new aspects on the theme. The workshop welcomes 
papers on historical and up to date aspects of the theme.


“The development of a new European Security architecture”

Since the early 1990's we find a diffuse European political landscape in 
which there exist neither a classical balance of power structure nor a 
functioning effective all-European peace order based on mutual 
trust.  Furthermore, the agenda of Security Policy has been given a 
somewhat new character where the risks for interstate conflicts to a large 
extent has been substituted for less concrete threats such as imploding 
state structures, ethnically motivated strives within states, terrorism, 
environmental catastrophes etc.
The structures for Security Policy co-operation that were established 
during the Cold War have successively been reformed and developed with the 
objective to answer up to these new threat perceptions as well as to 
further a process whereby the idea of balance of power in Europe is 
transcended.
The objective of the workshop is to address questions relating to the 
construction of a new European security architecture beyond the classical 
logic of balance of power.

-----------------------------

The deadline for papers is Friday, November 1, 2002. Send or email the 
paper to:

Mats Andrén
Associate Professor
CERGU
Box 711
SE-405 30 Göteborg
SWEDEN
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Rene Bekkers
-----------------------------------------------
ICS/Department of Sociology
Heidelberglaan 1
3584 CS Utrecht
The Netherlands

Phone: +31 30 253 3213
Fax: +31 30 2534405
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
personal URL: http://www.fss.uu.nl/soc/homes/bekkers
URL Department of Sociology: http://www.fss.uu.nl/soc

Visiting address: Martinus Langeveld gebouw (former CGZ), room H086