Conference Panels

ISA 2025

Europe’s position and role in the world has been subject of intense debates that touch on ideational, hierarchical, and material issues. In terms of ideational questions, criticism of Eurocentrism addresses a rationalist modern ideal of governing, relating to expertise and bureaucracy, and the consequences it had for the destruction of the planet. This criticism also questions Europe’s colonial legacy. However, European modernity has a janus‐faced character, as it also stands for the development of representative democracy, human rights, and new forms diplomacy, including digital diplomacy. Regarding the hierarchical and material questions, Europe’s economic prosperity and diplomatic power, the question of centre versus periphery in the world economy, and again the question of the planet’s future are at stake. In addition, the role of Europe and the European Union in the world are now challenged with the war against Ukraine and a changing world order. Importantly, Europe is not identical with the EU. The panel brings together contributions that tackle these challenges, theoretically and/or empirically, with a focus on ideas, images and constructions of Europe and the EU in times of the Anthropocene.

ISA 2025

Europe’s position and role in the world has been subject of intense debates that touch on ideational, hierarchical, and material issues. In terms of ideational questions, criticism of Eurocentrism addresses a rationalist modern ideal of governing, relating to expertise and bureaucracy, and the consequences it had for the destruction of the planet. This criticism also questions Europe’s colonial legacy. However, European modernity has a janus‐faced character, as it also stands for the development of representative democracy, human rights, and new forms diplomacy. Regarding the hierarchical and material questions, Europe’s economic prosperity and diplomatic power, the question of centre versus periphery in the world economy, and again the questin of the planet’s future are at stake. In addition, the role of Europe and the European Union in the world are now challenged with the war against Ukraine and a changing world order. Importantly, Europe is not identical with the EU. This panel unites contributions that tackle these challenges, theoretically and/or empirically, with a focus on European foreign policy and diplomacy in the changing world order.

ISA 2025

Anticipatory governance in the polycrisis of the Anthropocene requires taking into account various entanglements, relying on a more systemic approach, thinking in networks, including contexts, and taking into account that there is no effect of a policy or action that does not also have a side‐effect. Today, it is no longer possible to separate out or to compartmentalise different problems and solutions. If what matters is specific context and relations, then it is not possible just to import knowledges, policies, organisational procedures, and technologies from elsewhere into separate fields. Anticipatory governance is then not merely a matter of specific policy knowledge or emergency response coordination but of enhancing our capacities of self‐organisation that not only includes humans but also their societal and natural environment. The panel aims at exploring exactly what this might mean in practice. Starting from the current state of the art in the field of anticipatory governance it focuses on the comparative study of conceptualisations, policies and practices across a wide range of policy areas, from disaster response to community development, to post‐conflict peacebuilding. Papers include theoretical and conceptual reflexions as well as policy‐field related insights and concentrate on three themes: Opacity, Cybernetics and Resilience.

ISA 2025

The Russian War on Ukraine is a conflict between an autocratic regime and the liberal democracies of the West. It has signaled a clear challenge not only to the material power of the liberal international order (LIO) but also to some of the most sacred cosmopolitan norms of its populations. Pro‐Western Ukrainians see LIO membership as a matter of existential self‐interest. Yet democracy in the West is challenged not only by external authoritarian threats. It is also under attack internally – often by the very same forces that speak most loudly of the need to defend it. Indeed, in a paradoxical twist, population segments that in previous decades vociferously condemned western wars can be seen today variously encouraging the arming of Ukraine with offensive weapons, disavowing journalism on US involvement in the Nord Stream pipeline attacks, and defending the state‐lead chilling of anti‐war ‘disinformation’ in social media. Conversely, on a global scale, emerging states such as India, Pakistan, South Africa, have abstained from condemning Russia in UN General Assembly votes, and balked on the ICC warrant against Putin. This roundtable discusses the implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine for the LIO,focusing specifically on its impact on ideological (re)alignment.