Call for Papers for International Conference:

The Financial Crises in comparative regional perspective:

Can Europe Learn from other Regions?

Research College (Kolleg-Forschergruppe, KFG) “The Transformative Power of Europe”,

Freie Universität Berlin

Berlin, 23-24 November 2012

 

The European financial crisis, the Asian crisis in 1997 and the Latin American crisis in 1982 are all regional phenomena. Due to political, economic and financial regional interdependencies of private and sovereign financial institutions, the crises spread within the regions. The responses to the crises required a regional and transnational coordinated response. The workshop seeks to explore the factors that shaped the different regional responses to the crises with an emphasis on regional architectural designs, historical paths, regional ideational legacies, inter-regional social learning and diffusion of ideas. 

The workshop will address three sets of questions:

First, on the descriptive level, how did actors—local, regional and international—frame each of the three crises? What types of bodies of knowledge were used to frame them? What kinds of “solutions” were considered, and how were they legitimized?

Second, on the causal level, how can we explain the differences between the responses to the three crises? Can liberal, realist and functional theories provide sufficient explanations? What was the role of regional path dependencies? Can we identify regional policy legacies that shaped the responses?

Finally, what are the likely effects of a crisis on the region’s future institutional path and architecture?

The workshop seeks to contribute to the literature of comparative regionalism, EU studies, social learning literature, epistemic communities and IPE.

We invite paper proposals on any topic or period which address these questions. All papers must be based on original research. Paper proposals must include the name of the paper-giver, a short CV and a paper abstract of no more than 250 words. The deadline for the submission of paper proposals is 31 May 2012. Paper proposals have to be sent to ariekrampf@zedat.fu-berlin.de.

Successful applicants will be informed on or shortly after 10 July 2012. Papers should be sent by October 30 2012. The KFG “The Transformative Power of Europe” will cover the overnight accommodation in Berlin and reasonable travel costs.