PAST AND FUTURE (OF) WORLD POLITICAL ORDER(S): Joint Research Seminar Uni. Erfurt/ESPOL

The initiative by ESPOL-ICL and the University of Erfurt to set up a Joint Seminar on the “Past and Future (of) World Political Order(s)” addresses a series of alarming global challenges the ‘world’ is facing today, and seeks to analyse their impact on human life on a planet divided into distinct political communities or states. Indeed, we are currently witnessing the proliferation and intensification of claims about radical change, whether the change is welcomed or feared. Such claims circulate around the future of the state especially, and hence around the historically and globally dominant form of political organisation. It seems unclear whether in light of these challenges the political organisation of human communities on the planet as it developed and consolidated historically is about to change radically or to reproduce endlessly, and how changes in technology, the environment, and the economy transform the fabric of human societies.
With the ESPO-ICL/Erfurt University Joint Seminar students from both institutions pursue the question of what ‘political organisation’ means nowadays by exploring and interrogating the hermeneutical, social, and political forces involved in four of the most pressing issues of our times: environmental degradation, the spread of digital/computing technologies, the financialisation of the economy, and the transformation of violence and hostility, and how the changes in these areas impact on the state-centric form of ‘world political order(s).’

For this purpose, the seminar will organize encounters of students and professors of both universities with high-ranking practitioners (at least 1 per workshop) who will present how they engage with the problems and challenges addressed in the seminar. This will include a presentation of their education and training, career trajectory, current employer and work
environment, range of responsibilities and activities, difficulties in achieving their mission, and actual influence on the possible transformation of ‘world political order(s)”. Each presentation will be followed by a discussion with the students and a lecture by one of the professors which will aim at contextualizing and problematizing the discussion.

You will find all the information here.