In a world emerging from widespread crisis, some regions thrive and have been strengthened whilst others struggle to recover.  Unforeseen events affect regions unevenly, presenting at once opportunities and challenges, prosperity and deprivation. How regions emerge from negative or positive shocks depends on their capacity to learn from their own experience and from that of others, as well as their ability to adapt to new environments in a global economy.

The RSA 2014 Global Conference in Brazil will focus on thinking about paths, policies and ideas to strengthen vulnerable places and to develop cohesive and resilient territories. We acknowledge that only adaptive and flexible regions can succeed in an ever-changing world. This conference offers to all those who share an interest in regional and urban issues an opportunity to explore and discuss these key issues. Our discussions will be stimulated and enriched by the RSA’s well established tradition of embracing and accepting diverse perspective, disciplinary backgrounds and ideas.

Conference Themes

Special Sessions

• SSa. Regional History – Between Time and Space
• SSb. Cross-National Policy Transfer and Learning in Regional and Urban Policy
• SSc. Global Urban Environmental Change, Health and Well-being

Plenary Sessions

For more information, please click here.

Introduction: Main currents in Brazilian socio-economic development

Historically, changes in the orientation and the scope of the Brazilian government interventions have been associated with deep economic and social transformations. In the 1960s and 1970s, the economic outcomes were decisively affected by militarism that turned out to reinforce economic growth with social exclusion. It also led to increasing productive internationalization where key agents have been the transnational corporations from many developed countries. However, the so-called Brazilian model of development led to further concentration of income, wealth, and land ownership. As Celso Furtado pointed out, it was a false modernization as it benefited only a minority reinforcing the structural heterogeneity and inequality. After the 1970s, questions have been raised about the pattern of Brazilian industrialization that led to failed expectations. Those millions of Brazilians that had hoped for a fair and sustainable economy and society were disappointed by stagnant incomes and higher inflation.

Since the 1990s, Brazil has been subject to a new dependency where financial capital tends to dominate social and economic dynamics in a historical setting where the redefinition of the elites is part of the overall financialization process.  Consequently, as of the early 2000s, Brazil has been considered as a promising emerging economy by global institutions and investors. From 2000 to 2008, the expansion of the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—benefited from the combined commodity and credit cycle. During this period, Brazil experienced high rates of economic growth and was able to promote the inclusion of large portions of the population in the financial, labor and goods markets. As a result, the economy has experienced near full employment during the two years prior to the financial crisis. Income inequality dropped and inflation was kept under control. Interest rates trended downward. However, external imbalances grew and the manufacturing share of output declined while exports have been mainly driven by commodities. In this setting, the newly discovered underwater oil reserves are a major opportunity and challenge: whereas they can provide funds for investing in education and health services, they also raise the prospect of a possible Dutch disease.

Following the global crisis, Brazil has been seriously affected by the decline of commodity prices. In the last decade, Brazil did not improve key structural features of its economy leading to a sustainable business environment. The lack of long-term investments in infrastructure, for example, is part of the scenario that dampens the expectations around the sustainability of economic growth and social inclusion. As of 2012, only 1.5% of Brazil’s GDP goes on infrastructure investment from all sources, both public and private. To catch up, Brazil would have to triple its annual infrastructure spending for the next 20 years (The Economist, 28th September 2013)

In the aftermath of the global crisis, government intervention have supported aggregate demand and supported social inclusion. However, there are signs that the speed of the consumption and investment growth has been diminishing in a scenario characterized by inflation pressures, lower expectations of bank profitability and a diminishing rate of job creation, among other issues.  Considering the global economic integration, Inflationary pressures have put on pressure on domestic interest rates which attract “hot money” from international “carry-trade” operators and finance. Indeed, this attraction turns out to be considered necessary by the Brazilian government in order to address the trade deficit but renders the economy vulnerable to sudden changes in investor sentiment.

In this context, the long term sustainability of development, growth and social cohesion is called into question.

Call for Papers

This conference will focus on various aspects of inclusive and sustainable growth from the broader perspective of examining their interlinkages with other economic, social, and political processes. Concerns with social inclusion extend well beyond issues of justice and fairness, since the degree of economic inequality also affects social cohesion and political stability, and can also have negative implications for economic growth and sustainability. The broad themes to be covered are noted below. Papers falling within the broad topic of the conference though on aspects not explicitly noted here are also welcome. We welcome contributions from Brazilian and non-Brazilian economists, sociologists and political scientists.

1. Economic growth and development

Main drivers of Brazilian development and growth; Structural change and manufacturing; Economic and social implications of agribusiness;The South-South relations and the impacts on economic growth; Building the human and technical infrastructure: changes in education, training and in technology ;Productivity and growth; The role of foreign transnational corporations;Foreign direct investment and trade during development;The role of Brazilian transnationals ;The role of the State in Brazilian development

2. Problems and challenges associated with Brazilian development

Industrial output in the context of globalization; Balance of payments constraints; The challenges of transnationalization ; The rise of China and its implications on the structure and performance of the Brazilian economy; Challenges to Brazilian enterprises in the context of capital globalization

3. Inequality

Income and wealth distribution; Main drivers of wealth concentration; The rise of rentier incomes; Fiscal policy  and inequality; Gender inequality ; Generational inequality; Policies to lower inequality; Patterns of regional and local inequality

4. The role of finance

Global finance and the implementation of macroeconomic policy; Banking dynamics; Challenges to the development of capital markets;The policy of financial inclusion; Credit cycles and  bubbles; Rentier interests, finance, and monetary policy

5. Wage, employment, and social policies

Main patterns of job creation; Sectoral composition of employment creation and destruction; Gender challenges in the labor market; Educational challenges, employment and wages; Labor market flexibilization: social and economic impact; The role and scope of social and wage policies; Social policies  and poverty; Migration trends; Labor organization and distributive conflicts: the evolution of Trade Unions in Brazil;The changing nature of social classes in Brazil

6. Inclusion and sustainability: major challenges for Brazil

Inclusion and exclusion drivers in the Brazilian pattern of development: economic, social and political inclusion; Regional distribution; Physical sustainability: issues of resources, transport and pollution; Social sustainability; Political sustainability in the context of current social and economic problems; Sustainability of current welfare policies;Regional inclusivity

7. The global crisis and the Brazilian economy

The impacts of the crisis on the Brazilian Economy; Policy responses to the crisis; Public banks after the global crisis;Recovering from the crisis: the Brazilian and international experiences compared

Timetable

Deadline for abstracts: February 20, 2014, Deadline for papers: April 15, 2014

Discussion Forum begins on May 3, 2014, Discussion Forum ends on May 31, 2014

Abstracts and papers should be submitted to weabrazilconference@gmail.com

More information are available on the website of the World Economic Association (click here).

What shapes peace? We are familiar with the top-down interventions organised around military, statebuilding and governance interventions, but what about the local infrastructures of peace that involve local agency? How does this agency create new institutions or interacts with existing ones? What are the sources of inspiration for these local infrastructures, and how do they relate to local, national, regional and international norms and structures of peacebuilding? These issues of hybridity, friction, socialisation and norm-formation raise important questions about the location of power, the temporal nature of international interventions, and the interaction of the top-down and bottom up. In particular, it raises questions about the nature of the state and the role of the international community is a globalised, and globally governed, world.

The ‘local turn’ has raised issues of power, structure, and agency. In particular it has placed the tension between international and local forms of peace mobilisation, and the nature and role of the state into the spotlight, as forms of agency and the state are often entwined in any peace process and settlement. The international community tends to follow liberal peace norms; global governance introduces neoliberal rationalities, and the state is perceived, top-down, as the repository for these contradictory processes. State formation arguments, however, tend to see the state as being formed by local and regional power and violence. All of these perspectives on the political and structural processes that institutionalised peace appear to be oppositional, and offer little space for local agents of peace to engage in peace-making and peace or state formation.

And yet, evidence is growing that peace forms, if only in isolated pockets, on the ground through various forms of contestation, just as the state forms through violence or other clashes of power. Local infrastructures for peace have been seen as a way of building a new social contract, connecting the state to its people, as well as being guided by international liberal and neoliberal preferences. For scholars of peace and conflict studies, such processes are a fundamental challenge. Thus, the conference welcomes single paper and panel proposals on issues relating to Local Infrastructures of Peace and Peace/State Formation, including but not limited to:

– Local initiatives of peacebuilding
– Theoretical and conceptual investigations of the factors underlying peacebuilding
– The institutional characteristics of local peace initiatives
– The relationship between local initiatives and the nature of the state
– The relationship between the state and the international
– Local to global peace networks

Deadline for paper and panel proposals: 31 May 2014.

Proposals should be 250 words maximum and sent to: iapcs@manchester.ac.uk Registration costs are £20 for paid academics and £10 for students and the unwaged. The registration fee is waived for current members of the IAPCS.

Conference Committee: Roger Mac Ginty, Oliver Richmond, Birte Vogel, Ioannis Tellidis and Jasmin Ramovic. For questions email birte.vogel@manchester.ac.uk

PILAS, the postgraduate affiliate of the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS), is inviting postgraduate researchers to debate and reflect on the place of Latin America within a changing international context, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Discussing contemporary regional integration processes, scientific and technological advances, ongoing socio-political movements, and the existing poverty and inequality, among other topics, PILAS Annual Conference 2014 aims to extend the debate across disciplinary boundaries and explore the implications of change. How do we develop new forms of regional integration? What is the role of the region within the international community? How can we explore the emergence of new cultural and ideological phenomena?

Students are invited to submit abstracts on ANY ASPECT of their research and ANY DISCIPLINE within the field of Latin American Studies for PILAS 2014. We are looking forward to receiving a wide range of interdisciplinary postgraduate research on Latin America. PILAS also welcomes papers that engage with the conference’s main theme, “Where is Latin America heading?” We welcome papers from across the disciplines, as we wish to attract as many views on Latin America as possible. Following last year success, in 2014 we will also be making a “Poster Presentation” space available throughout the conference.

Call for Panels (Now Open):

To submit an abstract of a panel: http://pilasuk.wix.com/conference2014

A Panel proposal should include:

• Title of the proposed panel
• Short abstract (a maximum of fifty words)
• A long abstract (a maximum of five hundred words)
• Name of the convener/s (no more than three)
• At least two participants

After the deadline, within ten days, we will contact the accepted panels which will be ready to get paper proposals when the Call for Papers open.

Call for Papers:

To submit a paper proposal: http://pilasuk.wix.com/conference2014

A Paper proposal should include:

• Title of the proposed paper
• Short abstract (a maximum of fifty words)
• A long abstract (a maximum of five hundred words)
• Name of the author/s
• An indication of whether it is a submission to a Panel or as an individual paper.

Individual papers will be taken together in panels as the organisers see fit, therefore we suggest participants to propose a paper to an already accepted panel. However, if no panel suits your proposal we still encourage you to send you work.

Call for Posters

A Poster proposal must include:

• Title of the proposed poster
• Abstract (a maximum of three hundred words)
• Name of the authors.

A final version of the poster will be required for its revision once accepted.

All posters must be portrait, size A1. The author is the only responsible for printing.

All students planning to attend PILAS 2014 – whether to present a paper or simply to enjoy the conference – should register for the conference.

Key Dates:

Call for Panels: Now Open.

Deadline: 17th of February, 16.00 hrs.

Call for Papers/Posters: 24th of February.

Inscriptions: Now Open – until May 5th

More info: pilas.slas.org.uk or pilasblog.wordpress.com

Welcome to the international research conference on conflict and protest movements research. This confererence is organised by the Spaces in Conflict and Crisis research group in partnership with Aula Ciutat and the Observatoire de Conflits from the Quebec University in Montreal (Canada) and will be hosted by the Instituto Interuniversitario de Desarrollo Local at the University of Valencia (Spain).

Conflicts around planning issues represent an important element in urban politics. Their relevance as a vehicle of political mobilization is growing alongside their impact in terms of public opinion. This congress responds to a social claim in a context of increasing criticism on metropolitan governance and planning practices in many cities: the need for more discussion and reflection on the causes, dynamics and outcomes of locational, spatial, urban or territorial conflicts.

This conference aims at bringing together different perspectives on conflicts around urban planned developments, with a focus on the role planning practices may play both in defining/framing and in possibly solving/reframing conflicts. In particular, it will focus on crucial aspects of urban geography: the multi-scalarity of urban phenomena and policies; new approaches in conflict and protest movement research; the spatial dimension of social mobilization; the growing claim for deliberative democracy mechanisms or the limits to existent institutional structures and practices for decision-making.

Call for Papers

The conference invites contributions focusing on (although not necessarily limited to):

• Conflict research theories and methodologies: papers focusing on methodological approaches, states of the art and theoretical frameworks around the concepts of urban protest, spatial, locational or urban conflicts, neoliberal urban planning and  disenfranchisement.
•  Strategies, actors and new social movements:  papers focusing on actors, strategies and the changing nature of conflicts and participants in conflicts, from NIMBY attitudes to more general and complex protest movements, such as 15M or Occupy the Wall Street movements. In general, about the transformative potential of social mobilization.
•  Contesting urban planning and projects: the changing nature of urban planning practices and their influence on public opinion formation, including forms of protest and social mobilization in opposition to planned developments. Reflections or case studies on urban, spatial or locational conflicts.

Abstracts (in English, max 500 words) and a brief biographic note of the author(s) (English, max 200 words) should be sent to conflictsinthecity@gmail.com. Additional enrollment will be accepted limited to room capacity. PhD Students are encouraged to submit paper proposals based on their doctoral research.

Important dates

20th December at 15:00h: Deadline for abstracts submission.

20th January 2014: Publication of the list of accepted papers.

1st March 2014: Deadline for the submission of full papers

For more information, please click here.

The world is in the midst of a profound change in the way that security is conceptualized and practiced.  Up until 1989, security was largely viewed either as ‘internal security’ or as ‘national’ or ‘bloc’ security and the main instruments of security were considered to be the police, the intelligence services and the military.  This traditional view of security fits uneasily with the far-reaching changes in social and political organisation that characterize the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

What we call the ‘security gap’ refers to the gap between our national and international security capabilities, largely based on conventional military forces, and the reality of the everyday experience of insecurity in different parts of the world.  To some extent, public security capabilities are beginning to adapt to the changing nature of insecurity – with new doctrines or new military-civilian capabilities.  But it is also the case that the gap is being filled by private agents – warlords, militias, private security companies, NGOs, for example – and, even though some new forms of hybrid security provision may improve people’s lives at least temporarily, this new market in security may have dangerous implications.

This conference will examine the relationship of law, justice, and in/security at the current juncture by focusing on two broad themes:
a) Is the international legal regime adapting to address the ‘security gap’ and how effectively?
b) What is the role of novel legal instruments, such as international justice and transitional justice, in relation to the ‘security gap’?

Security related law is undergoing fundamental changes with the growing importance of human rights law, international criminal law and transitional justice.  These changes reflect the continuing adaptation and reformulation of legal rules and instruments, as well as the development of new ones.  One example is the extension of responsibility for protection and prevention from states to individuals in cases of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.  The rules concerning state responsibility are also changing, such as the duty of the state to protect its population and the basis for other actors to fulfil this duty when it fails to do so.

Nevertheless, the current legal regime represents a mismatch of new families of law that extend internal notions of the rule of law, based on individual rights, beyond the nation-state, and classical international law that applies to states, such as international humanitarian law, as well as domestic law.  The tensions, gaps and contradictions inherent in this regime raise a number of unsettled questions, for example what body of law should apply in situations like those associated with ‘new wars’ or the ‘war on terror’.  The security implications of novel legal instruments, such as international criminal courts and various mechanisms of transitional justice, are also largely unclear, especially from the perspective of the security of individuals and communities rather than states.

‘Law, Justice, and the Security Gap’ is conceived as a forum for reassessing security related law and legal instruments and examining their relationship to contemporary forms of insecurity.  The conference seeks to foster a multi-disciplinary discussion that draws on a wide range of approaches and intellectual resources in law and the social sciences and to engage both scholars and practitioners.  Advanced PhD students and early-career researchers are also encouraged to apply.  We invite theoretical and conceptual contributions as well as empirically focused case-studies.

The conference is convened in the framework of the research programme Security in Transition: An Interdisciplinary Investigation into the Security Gap, funded by the European Research Council at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, Department of International Development, London School of Economics & Political Science. Partial contribution to the costs of attendance may be available for accepted participants, depending on needs and resources.

Submission

Please send a paper abstract of 300-500 words and a CV to Pippa Bore p.j.bore@lse.ac.uk by 6 January 2014.  For more information see www.securityintransition.org.