Course: Security and Society Summer School 2022 - Online from Warsaw

Deadline: May 15, 2022

The 8th Security and Society Summer School, hosted by Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, Poland, has moved online due to the refugee crisis resulting from the Russia-Ukraine war. Nonetheless, the topics of this summer school are even more relevant today. This online course presents two of the most popular features of the Security and Society Summer School - the two-week intensive course on Central Europe & Security Issues with an optional four-week research internship with the Terrorism Research Center. The efforts of this research internship result in publication.

This course offers a broad overview of the modern security challenges faced by the countries of Central Europe and more broadly by NATO and the European Union. This year we will focus on the regional and global implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, along with the broad topics of war, international law relating to war, and peacebuilding. Other topics include hybrid threats, cybersecurity, and terrorism. In the era of globalization and interconnectivity emerging security threats affect the whole world. Thus, much of this course will taught toward understanding how these issues are also affecting other geopolitical hotspots around the world.

View the syllabus for this course here. In addition to academic credit, this program is very much a resume-building experience.

Program dates: June 20 - July 29, 2022
Application deadline: May 15, 2022
Cost: $750 (coursre only) / $1270 (course + internship)
Credits: 6 ECTS (3 US semester)
More information and enrollment

We invite you to visit us at www.SRAS.org to learn more about our organization and our programs abroad and online.

CFP: 2020 RCPR General Conference - "International migration, minority protection, and de-securitization"

Deadline: February 21, 2020


Though minority issues have long been linked to security considerations, in the past decades, greater attention has been given to the concept of securitization, namely the process through which an issue is considered an existential threat requiring exceptional measures. Securitization has become a recurrent theme in regards to both ‘old’ (national, ethnic, linguistic, religious) minorities as well as migration issues and the settling of ‘new’ minorities stemming from recent migratory flows. As a consequence of securitization, minority members and migrants have become targets of reactionary, exclusionary and discriminatory policies. Thus, there remains  the great challenge of how to contest and reverse such processes (Balzaq, 2015), in particular how to de-securitize minority issues and minority communities. 

As the antithesis of securitisation, de-securitization refers to the process by which an issue is taken out of the emergency mode and is brought back to normal political bargaining dynamics; though the concept has a variety of theorizations (Hansen, 2012). Whereas scholars have long investigated and debated the concept of securitization of minorities, less is known about its twin process through which migrant and minority communities could be de-securitized. Indeed, de-securitization of minorities has been mostly debated on the theoretical level (Huysman, 1995; Roe, 2004; Jutilia, 2006; Aradau 2015); fewer studies have looked at how such a process unfolds in practice, often lingering on the role of potential de-securitizing actors at the international level (Galbreath and McEvoy 2012; Nancheva, 2017; Skleparis, 2018). Empirical research in this regard is scattered. Neither has research on de-securitization dialogued much with the extensive scholarship on policy tools to address ethnic issues and deal with minorities, whether old minorities (e.g. power-sharing, consociationalism, minority rights) or new migrant communities (e.g. multicultural policies, intercultural initiatives, civic integration practices). There remains much to explore in how institutional and legal/policy solutions interplay with de-securitization processes and how to translate the concept of de-securitization in legal and policy measures.

The aim of the panel is to fill these gaps, bringing together empirical analyses of discourses and practices of de-securitization vis-à-vis both the migrant population and old national/ethnic minorities. Situated at the intersection between security studies, migration studies, and scholarship on minority rights/protection, the panel addresses questions such as: How can de-securitisation of minorities be achieved? Through which specific dynamics does it unfold? Why does it occur and what are its cause modes? Under what conditions could minorities be de-securitized? When is it possible to speak of successful de-securitization? How should de-securitization be measured? Who can act as de-securitizing actors? To what extent and in what way specific policy tools to deal with minorities, such as multicultural measures, recognition of minority rights or power-sharing mechanisms, spark processes of de-securitization? Which institutional solutions and policies for minorities best foster processes of de-securitization?

The panel is open to contributions from different disciplines in a comparative and/or single case perspective. In order to submit your proposal, send an abstract of no more than 400 words to the panel chair Andrea Carlà (Eurac Research): andrea.carla@eurac.edu


This conference takes place in Innsbruck, Austria from August 26-28.