Conference, 16-18 juin 2010, Genève

The objective of the workshop is to look “beyond Copenhagen” and assess the state of the art in regional environmental governance. Although there is a long history of work about regions in different disciplines, a recent review concluded that (a) the nature of “regions” have mostly been assumed rather than explained, (b) the substantive focus has largely been international security and economic integration, and (c) the dearth of comparative work has undermined progress both in theory and practice. The proposed workshop seeks to address these shortcomings through an explicit emphasis on an interdisciplinary dialogue, encompassing comparative perspectives as well as practical value.

Call for Papers

The REGov workshop is designed as an encounter between scholars and practitioners. In addition to six thematic roundtable discussions with invited participants, there will be four open panels with 4-5 presentations. We welcome proposals for the open panels that fit under one or more of the six workshop themes:

1. What is a region?
2. Environmental regions in multi-level governance
3. Regional economic dynamics and the environment
4. Regional security and the environment
5. New environmental regionalism
6. Environmental regionalization, democracy, and civil society

Abstract submission

Abstracts of 400-500 words must be sent as e-mail attachments to abstracts@reg-observatory.org by January 15, 2010. We especially encourage submissions by doctoral students and early career researchers in the fields of political, human, and economic geography; international relations; international political economy; and political science.

Please indicate the theme(s) your abstract best fits, include up to five keywords, and omit your name and institutional affiliation from the attachment. All abstracts will be evaluated in double-blind peer-review by at least three experts. Notifications will be made on March 1, 2010.

Finalized papers submitted for the workshop will be published in a proceedings.

Workshop fee

Thanks to generous financial contributions from the Swiss Network for International Studies, the University of Geneva, and the Mountain Research Initiative, there will be no conference fee. Participants will be responsible for funding their own travel and accommodation.