Institute of Western and Southern Slavic Studies
invites to participate in an international academic conference
Changing the Framework. Institutions in East-Central Europe and the Balkans After 1989
Warsaw, 29-31 January 2018
Monitoring the changes unfolding in the sphere of institutions that are accompanying the systemic transformation in the East-Central Europe and the Balkans allows a much detailed insight into the logic, mechanisms and direction of cultural changes that are taking place in those regions, and at the same time, it enables one to pose questions related to their sources, patterns and course. It also creates an opportunity to recognize and analyse the configuration of factors determining the dynamics and specifics of the processes of institutionalization.
The geographically uneven discussion on the institutional dimension of the transformations of the political systems in the area in question encourages a closer scrutiny of the institutionalization processes through the prism of strategies used by the local communities, be it national, regional or vernacular, that are manifested in the said processes. It should be noticed however that the institutionalization processes (understood more generally here, not only as the reshaping of the organizational framework, but also as a shift in the hitherto popular patterns and social practices) taking place at the moment very often go hand in hand with the extension of the field of activity via networking, i.e., acquiring new circles of recipients as well as searching for new forms of communication and participation.
Therefore the aim of the conference is above all to look at the different ways of adaption and implementation of the organizational patterns of social activity. As it is there that the similarities and differences in the transformation of political systems are reflected, particularly in terms of the manner it was carried out, its social perception and the diversity in the interpretation of the processes characteristic thereof, depending on the experience of individual countries and regions modified by their culture, history and politics.
As the starting point for further considerations let us suggest the following subject areas:
- institutions in the context of designing the new social order; old and new forms of organizing social practices; the course of the changes in formal and informal institutions; institutions in public and private space;
- empowerment of institutions; the new language of institutions, new institutions: the instruments of power or civic institutions;
- the memory of institutions; institutions as carriers of memory, institutions in the memory of a community; institutions in the process of redefining identity and group memories; mythologization in/of institutions, axiological reference systems of institutionalization processes;
- the change of institutional infrastructure; crisis/collapse/reorganization of technical and administrative foundations of an institution; extending the area of social impact thanks to new technologies/media; institutional implementation of innovation;
- cultural differences in the institutional mirror; the centres and peripheries as well as globality vs locality in institutionalization processes;
- psychological and sociological aspect of the processes of institutionalization; modernization in the context of institutionalization; the critique of the institution – critical institution; neoinstitutional theory in the context of institution research in the process of transformation.
Contact address: zmianaram@uw.edu.pl
Conference languages: Polish and English
Timing: lecture – 20 mins.; bulletin – 10 mins., poster
Participation fee: 350 PLN/85 EUR (PhD students 200 PLN/50 EUR)
The organizers expect the conference material to be published in the form of a reviewed book or a conference-related issue of a journal. The deadline for submitting papers for print: 31 March 2018.
For more information and registration form: https://instytucje.wordpress.com/