Conference: The Politics of Virtual States

To register go to
http://www.dur.ac.uk/sgia/events-new/virtual/

Conference Program


DAY 1 (Thursday 20th March)

8:45 – 9:30 am Registration/Coffee

9:30 – 9:45 am Opening/Welcome

9:45 – 10:30 am Keynote Speech – Prof. Nick Rengger, University of St. Andrews
On the characters of modern virtual states: Two Questions

10:30 am – 12 pm Panel 1
THE ROLE OF THE STATE – Challenging traditional perceptions of statehood
· Nina Caspersen (Lancaster)
Democratisation in virtual states: a contradiction in terms?
· Nkolika E. Obianyo (Nigeria)
Reconstructing the State in Africa: Good Governance, Market Reform and Virtual governance-Is the State still Relevant? - The Experience of Nigeria
· Tim Montgomery (Sheffield)
Virtually real – on the political fluidity of sovereignty

12:00 – 1:00 pm Lunch

1:00 – 2:30 pm Panel 2
IDENTITY AND DIASPORA – Exploring the world from a virtual base
· Athina Karatzogianni (Hull)
Media representations of small states, cross-border interests and local violence in an era of fast virtual communications
· Joanne Wallis (Cambridge)
Roots and Routes: Transnationalism and the development of the deterritorialized Tongan nation-state
· K. Luisa Gandolfo (Exeter)
The Influence of Socioeconomic Conditions on the Palestinian Diaspora Identity: the Case of Jordan

2:30 – 3:00 pm Coffee

3:00 – 4:30 pm Panel 3
SECURITY, TERRITORY AND LEGITIMACY – New locations of power and influence
· Veronique Barbalet (York)
Rebellious diplomacy: the socialisation of armed non-state actors into the Westphalian state system
· Laura Khor (St. Andrews)
A Terrorist Diagnosis for “Failed States”
· Roger MacGinty (York)
Reconstruction in the absence of the state: The case of post-July 2007 war Lebanon

4:30 – 6:00 pm End of Panels for Day 1, participants to settle into accommodation for
the evening

6:00pm Documentary and Dinner at Josephine Butler College


DAY 2 (Friday 21st March)

10:00 – 10:30 am Coffee

10:30 am – 12 pm Panel 4
BIG POLITICS, SMALL STATES – The virtual state as a means to an end
· Michael Strauss (Paris)
Guantanamo Bay as a Westphalian Laboratory
· William Vlcek (London)
Behind an offshore mask: the nomad and the sovereign in global finance
· Scott Littlefield (Cambridge)
Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transdniestria: Virtual States towards Other Ends?

12 – 1pm Lunch

1 – 2:30pm Panel 5
CASE STUDY: KURDISTAN
· Denise Natali (Exeter)
The Logic of the Kurdish Quasi-State
· Natalie Hausknecht (St. Andrews)
Is a virtual state enough? Autonomy, federalism, and sovereignty in Kurdistan
· John Myhill (Haifa) (to be confirmed)
Virtual states in the `Arab world’

2:30pm Closing Remarks by the DIAC Committee