Boundaries and Borders in an Evolving World Order: Challenges and Prospects

This conference will critically examine key dimensions of two competing trends in contemporary life: on the one hand, the movement across borders of people, goods, services and information and, on the other hand, the reassertion of national, ethnic, racial and religious boundaries within national societies. The tensions between these two competing trends raise fundamental questions about the adequacy of existing explanatory frameworks and policy prescriptions in addressing the challenges posed to world order in a whole set of issue areas that include migration, forced displacement, inclusive governance, identity formation, human protection and accountability. Ongoing global debates on how to address these challenges range between calls for rethinking the moral relevance of borders and the hardening of social boundaries within national societies, and calls for the securitization of policy prescriptions so as to ensure sharper distinctions between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders.’
This conference will provide an interdisciplinary forum for scholars, government officials, representatives of intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and civic leaders to critically discuss some of the main challenges in these and related issue areas and explore the prospects for sustainable policy options consistent with international norms and standards. It is the expectation of the organizers that several publications (books and/or special issues of scholarly journals) will result from the conference.

The organizers invite interdisciplinary proposals employing various conceptual and methodological approaches. All types of submissions (individual papers, panel proposals, and roundtables) are welcome. Panel and roundtable proposals must include at least three papers, a chair and a discussant (the chair may also serve either as a paper presenter or as a discussant). Proposals may address a broad range of issues including, but not limited, to:

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George Andreopoulos
City University of New York

Tina Mavrikos-Adamou
Hofstra University

Stephen Rosow
State University of New York at Oswego

e-mail: ciss2016@isanet.org