BEAR Team Workshop and Public Round Table at Wroclaw University – November 29-December 1, 2018

Photo credit: University of Wrocław 

2018/2019 BEAR Team Workshop and Public Round Table

Willy Brandt Center for German and European Studies, Wroclaw University (Poland)

November 29 – December 1 (2018)

Diversity and sovereignty in the zone between the EU and Russia

The workshop will put together the expertise of the BEAR Network state team members on the policies formulated and implemented by Russia and the EU with regard to the contested areas of diversity and sovereignty in between them. The workshop will focus on the politico-strategic management of diversity by Russia and the EU regarding the contested areas as well as application of specific instruments of power (soft power, hybrid power, power of attraction). Its main research interest will be twofold: (1) The policies of Russia and the EU vis-à-vis the de facto states such as Transnistria or Abkhazia (and recently the Donbas region) and how the de facto states fit into the contending integration schemes, (2) The policies of inclusion and exclusion of minorities by Russia and the EU and the positioning of the respective minorities within the incentive structure constructed by Moscow and Brussels.

Interested in this zone of contact and contestation between the EU and Russia on issues of citizenship, minority rights and de facto states, this workshop’s main questions are the following:

• How do the EU and Russia affect intra-state policies of minority inclusion/exclusion?
• How do the politics surrounding ethnically/linguistically identified de facto states (e.g., Transnistria) and similar territories of contested sovereignty (e.g., Donbas, Crimea) affect the EU integration process?
• How do states in the region instrumentalize/securitize minority issues?
• What are the power instruments the EU and Russia apply in the domains of contestation?

Find the final program here.