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Call for Papers – 2nd Announcement / Deadline 31 May 2005

‘International Organisations and Global Environmental Governance’
2005 Berlin Conference on the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change
Berlin, 2-3 December 2005

The Berlin Conference Steering Committee and the Environmental Policy and
Global Change section of the German Political Science Association and its
partners invite papers for the 2005 Berlin Conference on the Human
Dimensions of Global Environmental Change, to be held in Berlin on 2-3
December 2005. This conference will be the fifth event in the series of
annual Berlin Conferences. This year’s discussions will address the theme
‘International Organisations and Global Environmental Governance’.

Keynote speakers include:
Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Dr Klaus Toepfer, executive director, United Nations Environment Programme
Juergen Trittin, federal minister of the environment, nature conservation
and nuclear safety, Germany (tbc)

The pressing problems of global environmental change have generated new
theoretical understandings, methodological refinements and empirical
knowledge of its institutional dimensions. Most of this work, however, has
concentrated on the principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures
that underlie the emerging system of global environmental governance. More
systematic work has yet to be done on the actors at the international level
that identify, analyse, manage and evaluate the pressing problems of global
environmental change, notably the plethora of intergovernmental
organisations and programmes that are entrusted with assisting in the
mitigation of, and adaptation to, global environmental change. We make these
organisations hence the central focus of the 2005 Berlin Conference.

The conference will focus on all types of international organisations,
agencies, programmes, bureaus and secretariats that address global
environmental change. These will include

- all relevant agencies of the United Nations system, ranging from the UN
Environment Programme (UNEP) to the secretariat of the UN climate convention;

- the many intergovernmental agencies outside the UN system, such as the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), or the World Bank;

- regional integration schemes such as the European Union (EU), the African
Union (AU), or the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);

- new forms of intergovernmental mechanisms that have some actor-quality,
such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC);

- nongovernmental transnational actors, such as Greenpeace, the World Wide
Fund for Nature (WWF) or the Global Climate Coalition; and

- novel multi-stakeholder organisations beyond the state, such as the Forest
Stewardship Council (FSC) or the World Commission on Dams (WCD).

Regarding these types of actors, we hope that the conference will advance
knowledge on five questions:

1. Effects: What are the actual effects of international organisations in
global environmental governance? Most international organisations have
clear-cut and ambitious mission statements and policy planning documents,
yet the real-world influence of these agencies is often unclear and
sometimes in doubt. While much previous research has concentrated on
understanding the effectiveness of international regimes, we hope to devote
this conference to furthering the understanding of the effectiveness of
international organisations as actors in international politics. Papers
could examine, for example, the influence of international organisations on
the generation, synthesis and dissemination of technical or scientific
knowledge; on the initiation, negotiation and further development of
international agreements; or on the implementation of international policies
and programmes ‘on the ground’ in specific countries.

2. Design: Second, we solicit papers that focus on the design of
international organisations and programmes in order to understand how
different types of organisational design influence the effects of
organisations. Such design features could include rules of access and
participation, types of mandate, specification and legalisation of rules,
voting procedures, or intra-organisational design features such as degree of
hierarchisation and types of organisational cultures and procedures.
3. Interplay: Third, we seek to increase understanding of the role of
international organisations within larger regimes or public policy networks,
including the interplay of international organisations within the UN system
and its influence on organisational effectiveness, feedback processes with
private and public-private actors, the role of international organisations
in initiating or supporting public-private partnerships, and the vertical
interplay across scales.

4. Integration: Fourth, we invite papers that analyse policy integration
within international organisations. Papers may either deal with the
integration of different environmental issues in the policies of one
organisation or with the integration of environmental concerns in the work
and functioning of international organisations that are not primarily active
in environmental policy.

5. Theories: Fifth, and interlinked with the four analytical clusters of
questions above, we hope to contribute to a better theoretical understanding
of the role of international organisations and a better methodological tool
kit to use in this endeavour. To this end, we particularly invite
theoretical, methodological or conceptual papers, in addition to empirical
papers that have a clear theoretical or methodological motivation. All
theoretical approaches that can offer some contribution to understanding
international organisations are welcome, ranging from functionalism,
sociological institutionalism, rational institutionalism, organization
theories or constructivism to more normative approaches, such as world
federalism or theories on the democratic accountability and legitimacy of
international and transnational organisations.

Finally, we invite papers that focus on teaching global and national
environmental governance, in line with the United Nations Decade on
Sustainable Development in Higher Education. We especially encourage paper
submissions about teaching programmes that focus on global environmental
institutions and organisations that respond to the particular requirements
of global environmental change, including its complexity, global causes and
impacts, and the need of interdisciplinary understanding.

The 2005 Berlin Conference has been endorsed by the core projects
‘Institutional Dimensions of Global Environmental Change’ and ‘Industrial
Transformation’ of the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global
Environmental Change (IHDP). Papers that focus their analysis of
international organisations on the key questions of these two global
research programmes are therefore particularly invited for presentation. We
especially welcome papers that analyse international organisations with a
view to problems of fit, scale, and interplay. The Conference has also been
endorsed by the Association for Ecological Economic Research (VOEW) and the
German Federation of Scientists (VdW).

The 2005 Berlin Conference is organised by the Global Governance Project
(Glogov.org) of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (Institute for
Environmental Studies), the Freie Universitaet Berlin (Environmental Policy
Research Centre), the University of Oldenburg and the Potsdam Institute for
Climate Impact Research. Additional support is provided by Volkswagen
Foundation, Germany.

The conference will be held in English. Proposals for papers or for
side-events should be sent by e-mail to [log in to unmask] The body
of the e-mail (no attachments please) should contain

- the title of the proposed paper,

- an abstract of less than 300 words (longer abstracts will be rejected. No
graphs, references, tables etc. in the abstracts please), and

- the complete address and professional affiliation of all (co)-author(s).


The deadline for proposals is 31 May 2005.


All paper submissions will be reviewed by an international review panel.
Notification of the decision will be sent by e-mail no later than 30 June
2005. Full papers are expected by 15 November 2005.

We are making all efforts to ensure funding to reimburse the travel costs of
some conference participants, with a preference for junior colleagues and
colleagues from developing countries. Paper presenters and other
participants are asked to contribute a registration fee of 120 Euros (50
Euros for students with valid student ID) upon registration.

More information is available at the conference website at
http://www.fu-berlin.de/ffu/akumwelt/bc2005/index.html.

Conference Chair
Frank Biermann, Institute for Environmental Studies at Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam; and Global Governance Project
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Conference Co-Chair
Bernd Siebenhuener, School of Computing Science, Business Administration,
Economics and Law, Carl von Ossietzky Universitaet Oldenburg; and Global
Governance Project
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Conference Manager
Anna Schreyoegg, Global Governance Project
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