Regional Environmental Governance.

The workshop “Regional Environmental Governance: Interdisciplinary Approaches, Theoretical Issues, Comparative Designs[1]” is designed to foster constructive encounters and fruitful exchange between scientists and practitioners with an active interest in the environmental dimensions of regional governance.

The idea behind the workshop arises from two concerns. The practical concern stems from growing unease with mounting transaction costs of global regimes and creeping “global convention fatigue” that are producing a shift in the locus, impetus, implementation, and innovation to regional levels. The theoretical concern stems from the observation that studies of regional politics are currently expanding beyond traditional preoccupations with economic integration and security cooperation.

At the interface between these two concerns, important theoretical and practical questions emerge with respect to the emergence and manifestation of regions from the perspective of the environment; the evolution, desirability, effectiveness, and efficiency of regional environmental governance; relationships within, among, and beyond regions in multi-level arrangements; and the repercussions of regional environmental governance for democratic legitimacy, accountability, and transparency.

The workshop will take place in Geneva, June 16-18, 2010. It is organized around six themes (What is a region? Environmental regions in multi-level governance; Regional economic dynamics and the environment; Regional security and the environment; New environmental regionalism; Environmental regionalization, democracy, and civil society) brought together by three cross-cutting issues (Power and the politics of scale; Effectiveness and efficiency; Democracy, Justice, and Ethics).

Submissions by doctoral students and early career researchers in the fields of political, human, and economic geography, international relations, international political economy and political science are especially encouraged. Abstracts must be sent to abstracts@reg-observatory.org[2] by January 15, 2010. For more information, you can visit the ReGov website[3] or contact the scientific committee chairman, Bernard Debarbieux[4].

Illustration: incurable_hippie, « DSCF3211 », 27.7.2009, Flickr[5] (licence Creative Commons[6]).