The academic workshop “The EU and the Crisis of the International Liberal Order: A Systemic Crisis?” took place at the Global Studies Institute (GSI) of the University of Geneva on 4-5 April 2019. The goal of the workshop was to analyze the ongoing multi-dimensional crises of the International Liberal Order (ILO) in relation to the overlapping crises in the European Union (EU). Through concrete examples of crises – legitimacy of international institutions (ILO and EU levels), Brexit, environmental challenges, rise of populism and trade wars – the purpose of the workshop was to apply a “systemic” approach, usually restricted to hard science disciplines, (and the concept of “systemic crisis”) to broader socio-economic systems.
Following a Call for Papers in November 2018 we selected 17 papers that allowed us to constitute 6 thematic panels. Each panel was chaired by a senior researcher and was organized as follows: first, presentations by all young researchers followed by comments made by the chair to all the papers/presentations and a final discussion with the audience. Overall, all participants were actively engaged in the discussion. Junior researchers approached different crises from the perspective of their different disciplinary backgrounds, and all the senior researchers commented and discussed in detail every contribution and presentation made during these two days. At the end of the second day of the workshop, we held a global final panel with the participation of all the researchers and brainstormed on the nature and definition of a “systemic crisis”. We also discussed different opportunities for future collaborative projects and publications.
In addition to the workshop, we organized a larger public conference on Brexit. Prof. Tobias Lock presented Brexit as constitutional crisis both for the EU and for the United Kingdom. A junior researcher from the GSI, Angus Wallace, gave comments on Prof. Lock’s presentation. Two seminars took place around the workshop. The first was with Prof. Oran Young from UC Santa Barbara in the USA and the second with Dr Guy Fiti Sinclair from Victoria University in New Zealand. Finally, the workshop was followed by a Labéro© (within the GTGLab), something we see as a very important moment for exchanging ideas and encouraging future projects.
The list of participants to the workshop is as follows (order of appearance in the programme):
- Nicolas Levrat, University of Geneva, GSI, GTGLab (Switzerland)
- Didier Wernli, Hong-Kong University, University of Geneva, GSI, GTGLab (Switzerland)
- Guy Fiti Sinclair, Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand)
- Juho Korhonen, Brown University (USA)
- Tobias Lock, National University of Ireland Maynooth (Ireland)
- Oran Young, University of California, Santa Barbara (USA)
- Felipe Albuquerque, University of Lisbon (Portugal)
- Thibault Biscahie, York University, Toronto (Canada)
- Tamas Ziegler, ELTE University, Budapest (Hungary)
- Sophie Meunier, Princeton University (USA)
- Flore Vanackère, University of Geneva, GSI, GTGLab (Switzerland)
- Silvia Rainone, Tilburg University (The Netherlands)
- Zuzana Novakova, Erasmus University, Rotterdam (The Netherlands)
- Dirk Helbing, ETH Zurich (Switzerland)
- Manfredi Valeriani, LUISS and UHH, Hamburg (Germany)
- Johann Wolfschwenger, University of Geneva and ULB, Bruxelles (Belgium)
- Maryna Rabinovych, University of Hamburg (Germany)
- Florent Pepin, University of Geneva, GSI (Switzerland)
- Kazushige Kobayashi, Graduate Institute (Switzerland)
- Léa Moreau Shmatenko, University of Geneva, GSI (Switzerland)
- Angus Wallace, University of Geneva, GSI (Switzerland)
- Reinhilde Bouckaert, United Nations University, Bruges (Belgium)
- Sandra Lavenex, University of Geneva, GSI (Switzerland)
- John Marijn, NYU Law School (USA)
- Daniel Matthews-Ferrero, University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom)
- Joost Pauwelyn, Graduate Institute (Switzerland)
- Brice Didier, University of Geneva, GSI (Switzerland)
- Yuliya Kaspiarovich, University of Geneva, GSI, GTGLab (Switzerland)