Call for Papers & Thematic Panels

Deadline 15 October 2022, 23:59 CET

In the last decade, home-grown and external shocks have fuelled a debate about the future of Europe’s engagement with the rest of the world. Should the European Union continue to be actively involved far beyond its borders and adopt a leading role in global and transregional affairs? Or should the EU reconsider its priorities and focus primarily on internal policies as a way to become less dependent on the rest of the world? Proposals to enhance European sovereignty involve deliberate attempts to reduce some international entanglements while reinforcing ties with selected countries, be they prospective EU members or strategic partners.

The EUIA23 conference offers a forum to debate the diverging pathways for the EU’s engagement or disengagement with the world. To foster an interdisciplinary and international debate, we invite contributions from all policy domains and actors involved in the redefinition of Europe’s place in international affairs. Such a debate also includes how non-European actors perceive and react to the EU’s involvement or disentanglement in their region.

In addition to academic panel discussions, the conference will allow for substantive policy dialogue through keynote speeches by political leaders and roundtables with practitioners. Other programme highlights will include networking sessions, awards, and interactive events with leading journals in European Studies.

The EUIA conference calls for submissions from established academics, practitioners, early-career researchers and doctoral candidates. Scholars from non-EU countries are strongly encouraged to submit proposals. A solidarity fund will provide support to selected participants coming from non-OECD countries.

The programme is open to a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, as well as to interdisciplinary fields, in order to advance the debate on the EU’s pathway towards or away from close interdependence with other world regions, be it with the immediate neighbourhood or via interregional relations.

Thematic Panels:

The information below facilitate submissions of papers that focus on specific issues pertaining to the theme of #EUIA23 conference. If your paper focuses on either of these themes, please submit your abstract through the general ConfTool platform and provide the number and the name of the thematic panel in your keywords. The goal of these thematic panels is to bring together papers on closely related topics.

Panel 1: EU and Management of Migration Flows

EU policy instruments that externalise migration control to neighbouring countries have been developing over the past fifteen years. Academic research on this phenomenon has well documented these policies, analysed their underlying international relations, and tried to assess their impact on migration movements. More recently and increasingly, research looks at the perspectives, interests and policies on migration cooperation in the countries targeted by the EU's border externalization policies. The EUIA  conference welcomes papers that explore the ways in which EU seeks to engage with countries of migrants’ transit or origin. Are we seeing new ways of engagement, e.g. the conclusion of formal and informal arrangements? To what extent does the EU seek to shield itself off from non-cooperating countries, e.g. by building fences or embarking on contested border protection practices? And finally, what are the non-European perspectives and reactions to this ever expanding policy space?

Panel 2: EU and Global Governance of Value Chains

The globalized economy is based on sophisticated international networks of commercial exchanges among nations. While this economic model has led to remarkable gains in economic  efficiency, its impacts on environmental and social sustainability and on human rights are contested. The EUIA  conference welcomes papers that explore European and International policies on the sustainability of international trade and investment and of the value chains that they consist of. Do trade and investment agreements, whether bi-, pluri- or multilateral, advance environmental and human rights protection? Will attempts to govern value chain due diligence of corporations be successful in protecting the environment, human rights and in addressing climate change?

Panel 3: The European Green Deal and its External Dimensions

Since 2019, the European Union has pursued a variety of climate and environmental goals under the aegis of the European Green Deal (EGD), a strategy first published by the European Commission. The EGD and its implementing policies address climate change, biodiversity, circular economy, and other issues and have the potential to transform and ratchet up Europe’s approach to environmental issues. As part of the EUIA, this theme focuses on the external dimensions of the EGD, related EGD sectoral strategies and implementing policies, in two ways. First, it calls for papers that look at the ways in which the EGD is discussed and instrumentalised by the EU and other countries in an international context, such as under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or the Convention on Biological Diversity. Second, it calls for papers that examine how the EGD and its domestic effects in Europe ‘spill over’ into other jurisdictions via routes outside of international negotiations – such as via policy learning (including ‘negative’ policy learning that avoids EU approaches) or policy diffusion.

Panel 4: The EU and the Eastern Neighborhood in the New Geostrategic Environment

The EU’s recent decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova EU candidate status in unprecedented circumstances created new pathways for the EU’s engagement with its Eastern European neighborhood, while potentially requiring us to question the existing EU frameworks.. As such, we invite submissions that focus on theoretical and policy relevant implications of the EU’s Eastward enlargement for the balance of power and domestic processes in the region as well as the EU’s ability to pursue its strategic objectives and also to project its norms and values in the former Soviet republics, Russia’s and China’s responses to it and the evolution of policies in the new geostrategic environment. Studies utilizing cutting-edge empirical approaches, novel data, and/or providing the perspectives of the countries in the region towards the EU are particularly welcome.

Panel 5: Future Challenges and Opportunities for the EU’s Digital Strategic Autonomy

The 2022 Strategic Concept calls for the new toolbox for a more proactive EU’s engagement in the cyber and digital domains, whereas the EU’s Digital Compass spells out an industrial policy to strengthen the EU’s ability to act in these rapidly changing spaces. The goal of this panel is to engage in a dialogue on the relevant set of tools and corresponding capabilities that can enhance the EU’s capacity to act and project its human-centric approach to digital development, the possible fragmentation of cyber space by revisionist powers, an ongoing transformation of the digital domain and of the global governance architecture as well as the emerging cyber security challenges emanating from state and non-state actors. Both theoretical and empirical papers are welcome.  

We also welcome suggestions for additional thematic panels on other topics. If you would like to propose a thematic panel, please do not hesitate to contact the conference organisers at EUIA@cris.unu.edu before October, 1st.