Call for papers. International Conference: Geopolitical Challenges of the Russo-Ukrainian War, from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean

Call for papers
International Conference
Geopolitical Challenges of the Russo-Ukrainian War, from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean

Romanian Centre for Russian Studies from the University of Bucharest (Romania) in partnership with the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Oslo (Norway) invite you to the international conference “Geopolitical challenges of the Russo-Ukrainian war, from the Black Sea to the Arctic Ocean” in November 3^rd – 5^th, 2022.

The conference will held in hybrid format: in-person meeting in Bucharest, and virtual meeting on specialized platform. We encourage, of course, in-person participation in the conference.

Protracted conflicts around the Black Sea have represented sources for constant divergence and scarce regional cooperation. This has paved the way in the last decades to a gradual weakening of the European security. Despite the initial hopes after the fall of Communism for building long-lasting settlements among the former Soviet republics and across the entire continent, pockets of instabilities have developed all around the Black Sea. These have undermined fundamentally the European security.

The fate of the Ukrainian territories inhabited by Russian-speaking majorities became the main concern among all tension vectors around the Black Sea. While the annexation of Crimea in 2014 set the stage for a resource-consuming indirect conflict between Kiev and Moscow, February 24^th 2022 and the events that followed brought back to Europe the reality of a full-scale war. The fear of war has surpassed Ukraine’s borders generating insecurity waves across the entire continent, including in the Baltic and Arctic regions. This has already caused effects difficult to imagine in the years and even months prior to the Russian attack. The monumental change in Sweden’s centuries-old neutrality policy and Finland’s shift from its traditional priority for productive bilateral relations with Russia change the security paradigm around the Baltic Sea, Arctic Ocean, and the entire continent.

We encourage scholars from different disciplines and career stages to send their contributions. We welcome submissions from fields such as history, international relations, security and war studies, cultural studies, history, comparative politics, economics, gender studies, political science, and any other pertinent field of research, as we aim to bring together the latest research that has the potential to shed light on the current events and the new European security reality, transformed dramatically by the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The most successful applicants will be invited to contribute to a relevant peer-reviewed volume of studies.

The Conference Committee will consider papers and panels, theoretical or empirical contributions, related but not limited to the following topics:

• Geopolitical challenges in the Black Sea region;
• Geopolitical challenges in the Baltic and the Arctic;
• The transformational dynamics of the intelligence community in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war;
• Western support for Ukraine: drivers, dynamics, geopolitical implications;
• Ukrainian migration towards the West: political, economic, social, and cultural effects and implications;
• Women’s role in the Russo-Ukrainian war;
• How has war propaganda been shaped in Russia and Ukraine? How did it influence the development of the war?
• Has the Russo-Ukrainian war changed Russian political culture or exposed it?
• The economic impact of the war on a European and global scale
• Origins of the Russian aggression in Eastern Europe;
• To what extent are security arrangements still viable on regional and global level? Predictions and possible outcomes of the Russo-Ukrainian war.

As part of our endeavour to support early career researchers of Russian studies we offer to a limited number of participants financial support to cover accommodation (three days in three stars hotel) and travel (in the limit of 250 euros). Awardees will be selected based on the quality of their accepted abstracts and a motivation letter submitted alongside the abstract, in which candidates clarify their request for financial support.

Please complete the following form, which includes your abstract (up to 500 words), a short biography (up to 150 words) and, optionally, the motivation letter (up to 500 words), all of them in English, and send it via email at mariusdiaconescu@istorie.unibuc.ro until September 25^th, 2022.

Successful applicants will be announced via email by October 3^rd, 2022.

Scientific committee:

Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu (University of Bucharest)

Arild Moe (Fridtjof Nansen Institute)

Iver Neumann (Fridtjof Nansen Institute)

Armand Goșu (University of Bucharest)

Radu Carp (University of Bucharest)

Organizing committee:

Marius Diaconescu (University of Bucharest) – mariusdiaconescu@istorie.unibuc.ro

Anne-Kristine Jørgensen (Fridtjof Nansen Institute) – akjorgensen@fni.no

Ana-Maria Albulescu (University of Bucharest) – ana.albulescu@icub.unibuc.ro

Iulia Mustățea (University of Bucharest) – iulia.mustatea@icub.unibuc.ro

Contact

office@russianstudiesromania.eu or emails of the organizing committee members.

Please do not hesitate to contact us, should there be any questions.

Conference language: English

For info and updates, visit our website, Facebook and Twitter.

The Romanian Centre for Russian Studies team is looking forward to welcoming you in Bucharest!