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November 30 - Dec 1st, 2023
Fulda University of Applied Sciences

The role and position of Europe in the world has been subject of intense debates in IR and beyond in the last decades. Different strands of argumentation touch on ideational, hierarchical, and material issues. On the ideational side, criticism of Eurocentrism addresses on one hand a set of ideas, theories and practicing of a rationalist modern ideal of governing, relating on expertise and bureaucracy, and the consequences it had for the destruction of the planet. On the other hand Eurocentrism critique questions Europe´s colonial legacy. However, European modernity has a janus-faced character, as it also stands for the development of representative democracy and human rights. Regarding the hierarchical and material questions, Europe´s economic prosperity, the question of centre versus periphery in the world economy, and again the question of the planet´s future are at stake: How does Europe, how does the European Union situate itself in the Anthropocene? In addition, the role of Europe and the European Union in

the world are now challenged with the War against Ukraine, the question being how European States and the EU can position themselves in a changing world order. Importantly, Europe in all this is not identical with the European Union.

The workshop unites contributions that tackle one or several of these questions and challenges, theoretically and/or empirically.

Please do send your abstract until October 15th to Claudia.wiesner@sk.hs-fulda.de

The workshop is fully funded for accepted papergivers, including travel and accommodation.

The workshop is funded by the Fulda Centre of Transnational Governance www.centreoftransnationalgovernance.de
and the Point Alpha Research Institute (PARI) www.pari-geisa.org

September 11 and 12, Fulda University of Applied Sciences

Despite the activities of the EU and national institutions as well as intermediate institutions and actors, research as well as opinion surveys diagnose a growing gap between what has been termed “EU elites” and EU citizens. The EU has a legitimacy problem, support rates have been decreasing during the peak of the financial crisis and despite the economic situation improving, votes for populist, extremist, anti-EU and anti-democrat parties and movements are on the rise throughout the EU. At the same time, the Europeanisation of politics and decision making continues to impact and transform the national democratic systems of the member states.

What explains the distance between EU institutions and EU citizens? The event will present the first results of the Jean Monnet research projects "Debating Europe" and the Jean Monnet Chair "BridgE" on this question. A total of 18 international focus groups have been and are being conducted in Bulgaria, Finland, France, Croatia, Slovenia, and Germany as part of the projects. Twelve of them have already taken place, and the results are available.

There are three public panels:

The interim results of the Jean Monnet Network “Debating Europe” will be presented on September 11 at 6:00 pm by Claudia Wiesner (Fulda University of Applied Sciences), Cecile Robert (Sciences Po Lyon) Willy Beauvallet (Université de Lyon II), Ana Matan; (University of Zagreb), Meta Novak (University of Ljubljana), Niilo Kauppi and Kim Zilliacus (University of Helsinki) and Ruzha Smilova (Centre for Liberal Strategies).

On September 12 at 9:30 am, social scientists Virginie van Ingelgom (Leuven), Celine Belot (Grenoble), and Claudia Wiesner (Fulda) will discuss the relationship between citizens and the EU.

On September 12 at 5:00 pm, as the concluding event of the Jean Monnet Chair "Bridging the Gap between the EU and its Citizens," a discussion will take place on the consequences and possibilities the EU has to become closer to its citizens. Representatives from political practice will participate and discuss, including Thomas Berger for Europe Direct, Peter Schaub for Europa-Union, and Marianne Müller for Pulse of Europe, as well as Muriel Pluschke (Fulda University of Applied Sciences).

We look forward to your participation.

Hochschule Fulda

Leipziger Straße 123

Raum 22.302

Online participation is possible, please register with vivian.seidel@sk.hs-fulda.de.

For more information, visit

www.debating-europe.de

https://www.hs-fulda.de/sozial-kulturwissenschaften/ueber-uns/jean-monnet-chair

July 17-20, Fulda University of Applied Sciences

 We are delighted to invite you to the upcoming Fulda MUN 2023!

The UN Simulation Fulda MUN - Model United Nations (MUN) 2023 conference organized by the projects PATRAPO(Practising Transnational Politics), Transnational Governance andHuman Rights (HAW International), and Brigde Programm Hesse-Ukraine, will take place from July 17-20 at the SK Faculty of Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

This on-site UN simulation will bring together students from Fulda University of Applied Sciences from the Master programs MAHRS and ICEUS as well as students from our partner universities, the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv (Ukraine), the Università Autonoma de Madrid(Spain), the University of Zagreb(Croatia) and MacEwan University in Edmonton (Canada).

This year's MUN will focus on two topics that hold significant importance in today's world - "Countering disinformation for the promotion and protection of humanrights and fundamental freedoms"and "Natural Disasters in conflictregions".

We would like to invite you to attend the Fulda MUN 2023 conference as either a visitor or an observer. This will provide you with an excellent opportunity to witness the negotiation and collaboration between international delegates, the drafting and adoption of resolutions on the conference topics, and participation in various events that are part of the conference.

We are looking forward to your participation!

The Fulda organization team: Claudia Wiesner, Philip Liste, MurielC. Pluschke, Clara Umstätter, Zhylien Kaja, Vivian Seidel, Pauline Woods, Vanessa Wintermantel.

When? June 06, 2023

Where? Hochschulzentrum Fulda Transfer, Heinrich-von-Bibra Platz 1a, Fulda

In this roundtable discussion, David Chandler, (University of Westminster), Niilo Kauppi (University of Helsinki), and Claudia Wiesner (Fulda UAS) will discuss various perspectives of (post)modernity and its implications in today's world.For an online participation please register here

Will be held March 29 - April 1, 2023 in Helsinki. It will serve at presenting and discussing first findings of the focus group discussion, discussing them against state-of-the-art findings in EU studies and political sociology.

Link

Call for papers: Panel

European governance of the Anthropocene

Panel to Section ST09: International Relations in the Anthropocene (Section Chairs: David Chandler and Delf Rothe)

Governing the Anthropocene requires to take into account various entanglements, rely on a more systemic approach, thinking in networks, and taking into account that there is no effect of a policy or action that does not also have a side-effect. This thinking is at odds with a policy field tradition that is used to separating fields, with e.g. healthcare, nature protection and economics being separated portfolios. The first goal of the panel is thus to discuss conceptions, possibilities and practices of governing democratically in the Anthropocene, that is, of governing complexity. The second goal is to tackle a lack in current research: While the Anthropocene as a challenge is debated in International relations and Political Theory alike, this is not yet the case for the debates on Europe and the European Union. This lack is surprising, since the EU as a polity is decidedly engaged in a number of relevant policy fields and strategic approaches, namely climate change, security, new technologies or artificial intelligence, and it is also regularly claiming for more resilience – but so far, these fields of EU politics are not discussed in connection to the Anthropocene debates and approaches. This might, however, be in fit with the European Union very much incorporating and practicing a rationalist modern ideal of governing, relating on expertise and bureaucracy. To be able to govern in the Anthropocene, then requires to overcome these.

The panel is part of EISA Section ST 09, International Relations in the Anthropocene. It aims at opening this debate, inviting papers that discuss the European governance of the Anthropocene with regard to questions such as

• How is governance of the Anthropocene (to be) conceptualized, and how is it practiced in contemporary Europe and the contemporary EU?
• How are policy fields such as climate change, artificial intelligence or security governed in the EU and/or Europe? Which strategies are deployed?
• Which patterns of governance can we detect, and how do they refer (or not) to governing complexity, networks and systems?
• Which possibilities does the EU offer for new types of entangled and more systemic governance in the Anthropocene?
• Which concepts, theories and historical ideals of European integration – e.g. federalism – can serve as inspiration?

Please do create an account in the EISA system HERE
Contact and submit your abstract to panel convenor Claudia Wiesner

*Deadline for submission 7 March 2023*

Section Title: “Debating democracy in/and Europe”

Section Chair: Claudia Wiesner (Fulda)

Section Co-Chair: Claudia Landwehr (Mainz)

Section Topic:

Within academia as much as in political practice, democracy remains a contested concept. Its contestation concerns a number of different aspects: On one hand, while most democratic theorists, politicians and citizens endorse and claim to promote democracy, they hold different ideas about what democratic rule implies and requires. On the other hand, recent approaches in the social sciences that focus e.g. on political movements, and activists in these movements themselves, are critical of established concepts of representative democracy that they criticize as e.g. being male- or Western-dominated. Moreover, citizens hold different views of how to conceptualize and judge representative democracy, and these differences are influenced by their national backgrounds and the fact of whether they regard the national level or the EU as a polity. Finally, besides such discussions inside Western and European states, democracy both as a concept and in the shape of the liberal western democracy is challenged by autocratic politicians and states. The War against Ukraine has repeatedly been framed as a war between an autocracy and the liberal Western European democracy. In sum, democracy as a concept is widely contested and debated today. Understanding the plurality of conceptions of democracy voiced in academic and public discourses and held by political actors thus is an essential task for political scientists and scholars of democracy and concepts.

Against this backdrop, it is the goal of the section to bring together scholars and panels that analyse and discuss how democracy is (to be) debated and conceptualized today, inside and outside Europe. Panels in this section will address conceptions of democracy in light of the foci of the current academic debate sketched above, with regard to contemporary challenges such as populism, polarization and autocratization, and regarding democracy and democratization beyond the nation state, with a particular emphasis on the European Union. Panels and papers are invited to discuss questions such as:

• Which distinct conceptions of democracy can we identify in academia, public discourses and among political elites?
• How do these relate the concept of democracy to other significant concepts like representation, participation, autonomy, freedom, or power?
• How is democracy conceptualized and debated in various for a and by different actors?
• What concepts of democracy do citizens use or construct, and do citizen conceptions of democracy systematically diverge from those of political elites?
• To what extent are (some) democratic societies losing a shared understanding of democracy?
• Can and will the resulting loss of procedural consensus destabilize democratic regimes?
• What can political science and democratic theory contribute to public discourses about democracy, its challenges, and potential reforms?
• How is democracy conceptualized in the framework of the European Union and its multilevel system – both by citizens and elites?

Please submit your panel and paper proposals via your My ECPR account here

Deadline for submission: February 28^th!

Presentation of Results of Research Sabbatical, 07 February 2023, 17:00-18:30

As last event of our lecture series will be a presentation of the results of Prof. Dr. Claudia Wiesner's research sabbatical. Prof. Wiesner will talk about what she found out in her research semester in summer semester 2022. After the presentation there will also be time for questions and discussion. The presentation will take place at Fulda University of Applied Sciences in room 22.302. Since the event is hybrid, you can also participate online. For online participation please register here.

Virtual Visit, 31 January 2023, 17:00-18:00

Reinhard Bütikofer, another Member of the European Parliament (Greens), will virtually visit Fulda University of Applied Sciences. He will talk about his work in the European Parliament and in this context discuss the role the European Union plays in the war against Ukraine and how his work is related to that. There will also be room for questions after the presenation. The visit will be online, if you wish you are also welcome to watch the streaming on-site at Fulda University of Applied Sciences (room 22.302). For online participation please register here.

Virtual Visit, 24 January 2023, 17:00-18:00

Sven Simon, Member of the European Parliament (EPP), will virtually visit Fulda University of Applied Sciences. He will talk about his work in the European Parliament, with a special focus on his work on international relations, partners and trade. This visit will be online-only. If you wish to participate, please register here.

Lecture and Discussion, 16 January 2023, 19:00-20:30

Location: Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Building 22 Room 302

David Chandler, Professor of International Relations of University of Westminster visits us at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. Everyone interested is welcome to join the lecture and discussion. It is possible to either participate on-site or online. For an online participation, please register here.

Lecture and Discussion, 20 December 2022, 17:00-18:30

Location: Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Building 22 Room 302

We will welcome Emilia Palonen at Fulda University of Applied Sciences where she will reference on "Populism: a Threat or Challenge to Democracy". Everybody who is interested is welcome to join the lecture as well as the discussion that will follow.

Since the event is hybrid, you can also participate online. If you wish to participate online, please register here.

08.12.2022, 10:00

The Schader Stiftung is organizing an event on the European Union and the war. If you are interested, find more information here

Lecture and Discussion, 05 December 2022, 19:00-20:30

Location: Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Building 22 Room 302

Muge Kinacioglu (Leiden University) will visit Fulda University of Applied Sciences to give a lecture on "Global Challenges: The Russia-Ukraine Conflict".  The lecture will be followed by a discussion with the audience.

For online participation please register here.

Lecture and Discussion, 29 November 2022, 17:00-18:30

Discussion, 22 November 2022

"Do We Need Deeper Cultural And Political Integration?". Master students of Intercultural Communication and European Studies will discuss different questions related to this. We are excited to hear what students will say.

Roundtable Discussion, 3 November 2022: 18:00-19:30

The discussion will take place in Fulda Transfer, Veranstaltungssaal, Eingang 1a. Everyone is warmly invited to come. The discussion chair is Michèle Knodt (TU Darmstadt). Panelists are Claudia Wiesner (Fulda University of Applied Sciences), Philipp Genschel (Jacobs University Bremen), Doris Wydra (University of Salzburg) and Knud-Erik Joergensen (Aarhaus University).

 The discussion will be streamed. If you want to register for an online participation, please write an email here.

November, 4 2022 there will also be a workshop on the topic "The war against Ukraine and EU-Studies" with international scholars discussing on the topic. Find more information in the program below.

18 October, 2022

This winter semester the prepatory seminar for the MUN 2023 next summer starts.

Find out more about dates and content here.

EUROPE DIRECT Fulda und Pulse of Europe Fulda laden dich zum philosophischen Workshop ein: „Alter Europe“ – Europas Zukunft in unseren Händen

Meike Gleim (wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin der HS Fulda, Künstlerin und Philosophin) und Loretta Mesiti (Dramaturgin) aus Brüssel leiten den Workshop. Dieser wird in Kooperation mit dem Fulda Centre for Transnational Governance durchgeführt.

📅 📍 Wann & Wo? Der Workshop findet am 15. September von 17:00 Uhr bis 20:00 Uhr im Hochschulzentrum Fulda Transfer, Heinrich-von-Bibra-Platz 1a statt.

“AlterEurope” ist ein philosophischer Workshop, der dich dazu einlädt, Europas Zukunft mitzugestalten und sich gemeinsam mit Philosoph*innen und Schriftsteller*innen zu fragen, wie ein anderes Europa - ein AlterEurope - aussehen kann. Paul Valéry fragte vor hundert Jahren, ob Europa in Zukunft das sein wird, was es in Wirklichkeit ist, ein Zipfel des asiatischen Kontinents? Diese provokante Frage zeigt uns, welche Aufgabe vor uns steht. Was können wir tun, damit Europa den Herausforderungen der Zukunft begegnen kann?

Wenn du Interesse an einen Dialog über Europas Zukunft hast, melde dich bitte formlos per E-Mail bis zum 12. September an: europedirect-events@hs-fulda.de. Bitte beachte, dass die Teilnahme an der Veranstaltung begrenzt ist. Du wirst eine Bestätigung zu deiner Registrierung erhalten und alle weiteren Informationen.

Wir freuen uns auf einen spannenden Austausch zur Zukunft Europas mit dir!

June, 30-July, 06, 2022, Fulda University of Applied Sciences

The PATRAPO (Practicing Transnational Politics) and Transnational Governance and Human Rights (HAW International) projects will host a Model United Nations (UN simulation) from July 4^th-6^th, as well as an associated social program from June 30^th-July 2^nd, 2022. We invite you to attend events at this year's MUN as visitors or observers, in order to gain insight into how the international delegates negotiate, draft and pass resolutions on the topic of the Ukraine War.

Students from Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv (Ukraine), University of Zagreb (Croatia), and MacEwan University in Edmonton (Canada) will participate in the MUN, along with Fulda University of Applied Sciences students and an online delegation from the Autonomous University of Madrid.
We are looking forward to your participation!

The Fulda organization team: Claudia Wiesner, Philip Liste, Meike Schmidt-Gleim, Muriel C. Pluschke, Maria Keller, Clara Umstätter.

12 May 2022, 15:20-16:50

As part of the European week, the CoG will participate in the European Home Parliaments.

European HomeParliaments are an initiative of the NGO “Pulse of Europe”, an independent citizens’ initiative founded in Frankfurt am Main in 2016. “Pulse of Europe” aims at making the idea of European Citizenship visible and audible, and at strengthening the links between EU-politicians and ordinary citizens.

A Home Parliament is a private discussion group of 4 to 8 people with the slogan ‘‘Have a say in the big issues!‘‘. It is moderated by a host, who can either invite his/her friends  or have him/herself assigned to an interesting discussion group. It all takes place either online via Video-HomeParliament, WebEx, Zoom etc. or in a face-to-face meeting.

Find out more by checking last years event here.

For more information and registration contact Maria Keller.

10 February 2022, 9:50-11:20

Central Banks have decisively changed their role in the last decades.
While they had for a long time mainly been seen as guarantors of
monetary stability, they more and more took on the function of political
players in manifold respects. This change intensified during the
financial crisis after 2008, and once again in the COVID pandemic.
Prof. Dr. Joscha Wullweber (Universität Witten Herdecke) and Prof. Dr.
Claudia Wiesner (Fulda UAS) will present their work in this field and
discuss the changed function of Central Banks.

Wullweber, Joscha (2021): Zentralbankkapitalismus, Suhrkamp

Macchiarelli, Corrado; Monti, Mara; Wiesner, Claudia; Diessner,
Sebastian (2020): The European Central Bank between Financial Crisis and
Populisms, Palgrave Macmillan

Find the event at Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

 If you wish to participate, please register here.

27 January 2022, 17:00-18:30

The European Commission has found Google to be dominant on various internet markets and between 2017 and 2019 adopted three decisions against Google, condemning as abuses of Google's dominant position various practices relating to; the promotion of Google’s own specialised services in search results, Google’s exploitation of the Android operating system for mobile devices and Google’s imposition of exclusivity requirements towards certain customers of its internet advertising service.

The talk will explain the conceptual and practical challenges relating to the application of EU competition law to the internet, through the process of lengthy investigations conducted by the European Commission, followed by litigation before the European Courts. The talk will also consider how competition law enforcement fits into the wider policy concerns about the dominance of internet services by a few companies, looking ahead to the regulatory initiatives now being taken in Member States and by the EU’s proposed Digital Markets Act.

 If you wish to participate, please register here.

 Find the event at Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

20 January 2022; 9:50-11:20

The public is a sphere with special features. This special space between state and society does not exist per se but needs to be brought to life and be cultivated - again and again. Both, state and society struggle with silos, which in part can only be brought to mutual exchange through major efforts. This raises the responsibility of the citizens, especially in the face of the upcoming systemic transformations, which demand participatory impact assessment and collaborative governance.

All of us can build bridges and open new horizons for deliberation: By broadening our imagination, we can reconsider the existing, question assumptions and create something new.

New architectures for decision-making have to be designed with anticipation and by co-creation - in order to change the way in which public administration and politics deal with complexities and capacities. Too much too ask or a prerequisite for a common future? Caroline Paulick-Thiel will present selected examples from her work with Politics for Tomorrow and open them for debate.

Caroline is strategic designer and expert for responsible innovation and transformative learning. Educated in Design (BA) und Public Policy (MPP), she has extensive experiences in the development and direction of co-creative processes for public challenges.

If you wish to participate, please register here.

Find the event at Fulda University of Applied Sciences.

13-15 January, Online

A group of master students of Human Rights Studies in Politics, Law and Society (MAHRS) and Intercultural Communication and European Studies (ICEUS) will take part in an international model of a European Council meeting.

Our students will represent the countries Poland and Cyprus and take up the roles of the European Council, the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC), Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) and the Environmental Council (ENVI).

We are looking forward to three interesting day filled with new learnings, fruitful discussions and international encounters.

16 December 2021, 9:50-11:20

This week's guest is Prof. Dr. Klaus Armingeon of University of Zurich. He will present a paper that he has written together with the collegues (Caroline de la Porte; Elke Heins; and Stefano Sacchi) and will focus on the recovery fund Next Generation EU which has been established in response to the economic crisis resulting from the covid-19-pandemic.

You are welcome to join and discuss with us.

If you wish to participate, please register here.

9 December, 9:50-11:20

"How gender responsive were Finland's covid-19 recovery policies", Dr. Anna Elomäki

"Large-Scale and Green? The German Covid-19 Stimulus Package in international comparison", Prof. Dr. Stefan Wurster

"The German covid-rescue package and gender equality", Prof. Dr. Claudia Wiesner

The second event of the lecture series politics and policies in the EU focuses on covid rescue packages that were introduced in response to the covid-19 pandemic. There will be a focus on how gender-repsonsive these packages were by using Germany and Finland as an example.

Everyone is welcomed to participate and discuss with our three presenters, Dr. Anna Elomäki (Tampere University, Finland); Prof. Dr. Stefan Wurster (TUM, Germany); Prof. Dr. Claudia Wiesner (Fulda University of Applied Sciences).

Please register here.

"Research counting for nothing:

How competion, quantification and key performance indicators affect #ichbinhanna and the quality of research"

2 December, 9:50-11:20, Webex

The guest of our first event of the lecture series "Politics and Policy in the EU" is Dr. Amrei Bahr of Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf. All faculty students of Fulda University of Applied Sciences and everyone interested is warmly invited to join the discussion.

If you wish to participate, please register here.

18 November 2021, 9:50-13:45

The European Commission will virtually visit Fulda University of Applied Sciences and the master students of Intercultural Communication and European Studies. Three different topics will be presented:

1. EU-Asylum Policy presented by Unit Asylum of the Directorate general for Migration and Home Affairs

2. The Green Deal (achieving climate neutrality and financing the transition) presented by the Unit Climate Finance, Mainstreaming, Montreal Protocol by the Directorate genderal Climate Action

3. Development and cooperation presented by the Unit Political Strategy and Communication by the Directorate general International Partnerships

We are looking forward to very interesting visit!

30 November 2021, 17:10-18:40

We are very happy to announce that MEP of Hesse, Engin Eroglu, is coming to Fulda University of Applied Sciences to talk to students of the Department of Social and Cultural Studies and answer their questions. He is member of the Committee on Economic and Social Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Affairs. All interested students are welcome to participate and ask questions.

We are looking forward to an interesting visit and discussion!

January, 13-15, 2021

We warmly invite all interested students of the Fulda University of Applied you to participate in the Global Model European Union (GLOBALMEU).

GLOBALMEU is the simulation of a European Council Meeting in Brussels with students from other European and non-European universities. Students will play the roles of member statedelegations, heads of governments or ministers, European Commissioners
or members of the press.
Apart from the students' own preparation, there will be a 1-2 hours preparatory meeting in advance.
The participation at GLOBALMEU will be online.
The event can be attended as additional element of the Europazertifikat. All participants will also receive a certificate of attendance.
If you are interested or have any further questions, please contact:
Maria Keller