Borders, Cooperation and Regional Conflict in Post-Soviet Contexts: Between Integration and Disintegration?

Photo by: mortsan (CC BY 2.0)

Tbilisi, Georgia, 28 – 30 April 2013

The end of the Cold War has fundamentally changed the nature of borders within the emerging political spaces of the former Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union created thousands of kilometres of new state borders which have been redefined in terms of national sovereignty, as frames for free and sovereign action, but which also have becomes sites of hardening, closure, of new visa restrictions and, perhaps most seriously, of territorial conflict. This conference will focus on Post-Soviet states and their borders. But it is not simply about state borders as such – it is also about border conflicts, patterns of economic, political and social interaction, and actual and potential projects of regional cooperation and the geopolitical role of the European Union in contributing to regional stability.

This conference is timely in that it will bring together researchers who been studying regional issues in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Black Sea. Furthermore, a major objective of the conference is to debate the role and aims of the EU in redefinition, negotiation and conflict over post-Soviet space. This includes local perceptions of the evolving quality of the EU’s social and political influence within Post-Soviet contexts, e.g. in countries such as Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Ukraine.

Organisers:
> Georgian Institute of Public Affairs
> University of Eastern Finland – Karelian Institute and VERA Centre for Russian and Border Studies
> University of Warsaw – Centre for European Regional and Local Studies EUROREG
> Carleton University – Centre for Governance and Public Management

More about the conference: Borders, Cooperation and Regional Conflict in Post-Soviet Contexts: Between Integration and Disintegration?

Download: conference programme.