Conference
Explaining, Exploring and Expanding the European Peace
27-28 October 2022
Università di Parma | via Università 12 - Parma
[Click here or on the image to download the Conference Flyer]
The B4Peace Final Conference will be held in Parma, from 27 to 28 October 2022.
During the event, scholars and academics will discuss the challenges to European peace, as well as tools to prevent and manage them effectively. The Conference will feature plenary sessions and some thematic panels in 2 main interdisciplinary areas:
- The determinants of external peace: positive peace, justice, security and international order;
- The determinants of internal peace: welfare state and second welfare, social cohesion policies.
The Conference will be hosted by the University of Parma (Parma, via Università 12) and will be held in blended mode (it will be possible to discuss papers remotely), although the activities will be mainly in presence. The working languages will be Italian and English.
More information on how to reach Parma
Participation to the Conference is free of charge, Participants should take care only of their travel and accommodation
Up to 10 young scholars (PhD students, research fellows) selected by the Scientific Committee will be offered free accommodation in one of the hotels affiliated with the University of Parma.
All participants in attendance will be offered a conference kit, coffee breaks and meals during the conference.
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Abstract:
The pax europea, i.e. the long period of peace that has lasted within the Union since 1945, tends today to be taken for granted by European citizens, especially by the younger generations; yet, unlike other regions of the world, the democratic systems of the member states of the European Union have been able not only to guarantee their populations freedoms, the protection of fundamental rights and security from external aggression, but also to offer what we can define as "internal peace", that is, social cohesion programs and increasingly advanced welfare policies, especially through the active role of the Third Sector and the new role of business in this area. According to the most critical views, however, it must be borne in mind that European prosperity has also been achieved at the expense of the more peripheral areas of the world, and that the prosperity that characterizes our continent is maintained and strengthened at the expense of societies that are still tormented by war and poverty.
Today the European peace, in this dual sense of internal security (social cohesion and inclusion) and international security (absence of war), seems to be challenged by multiple dynamics that are underway both outside and inside the borders of the European Union: military conflicts (e.g. the recent war in Ukraine, but also conflicts in the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel), increasingly pressing waves of migration on European states (and, in reaction, the emergence of sovereignism and populism in Europe), increasingly frequent attacks on democracy and the rule of law, new poverty and social exclusion. How can the Union safeguard the area of peace and democracy that it has managed to build and maintain for over seventy years? What structural reforms, legal instruments and social policies will Europe have to implement to meet these challenges?
The Conference will host scholars belonging to Research Centers and Universities to discuss these issues through a legal, economic, sociological and political view. All proposals - especially interdisciplinary ones - related to the fields of International Law (evolution of the concept of international security, transitional justice), Political economy (Welfare state, Second welfare, Corporate social responsibility, Shared social responsibility), Sociology (critical views on European progress, post-colonial studies) and Political Science (decline and/or transformation of war, conflict resolution, peace research) are more than welcome.
