Public Lecture & Round Table Discussion – “Between Limited Statehood and Contested Orders: How to Foster Societal Resilience in the EaP Countries”.
On October 1, 2019 the Georgian Institute of Politics (GIP), in the framework of the Horizon 2020 EU-LISTCO project, hosted a public lecture and a round table discussion to dissect the risks coming from contestations of the liberal international order, and discuss ways to foster social resilience in the Eastern Partnership countries. The event took place at the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.
The event kicked off with the public lecture, “Contestations of the Liberal International Order from Within – The US and Europe Compared”, held by Prof. Tanja Börzel & Prof. Thomas Risse. Prof. Dr. Tanja A. Börzel is professor of political science and holds the Chair for European Integration at the Otto-Suhr-Institute for Political Science, Freie Universität Berlin. Prof. Dr. Thomas Risse is director of the Center for Transnational Relations, Foreign and Security Policy at the Otto-Suhr- Institute of Political Science at the Freie Universität Berlin.
In their public lecture, Prof. Börzel and Prof. Risse dissected the main challenges for the Eastern Partnership countries: limited statehood and contested order. While these are broader phenomena, liberal order being contested even within the EU, to some extent, it is important to strengthen resilience in the EaP countries, and maintain their trust in the EU institutions. “An attitude that “one size fits all” has failed and the EU needs a new institutional design for EaP,” – spoke Prof. Börzel.
The following discussion focused on how the EU can best support the three frontline EaP states on a rocky road of building resilient societies in a fragmented and politically volatile region. The roundtable discussion “Between Limited Statehood and Contested Orders: How to Foster Societal Resilience in the EaP Countries” featured EU-LISTCO partners Dr. Agnieszka Legucka (Polish Institute of International Affairs), Maksym Bugriy (Ukrainian Institute of Public Policy), and Prof. Kornely Kakachia (Director, GIP). In addition, the panel included H.E. Hubert Knirsch (Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to Georgia) and H.E. Giedrius Puodžiūnas (Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania to Georgia), who remarked on the policies on the ground and the instruments that the EU countries bring to strengthen Georgia’s democracy and resilience. The discussion was moderated by Dr. Stefan Meister (Director, South Caucasus Office, Böll Foundation).
The EU-LISTCO is a research consortium that consists of 14 partner organizations and us financed by European Union’s Horizon 2020 framework. The project explores the challenges of areas of Limited Statehood and Contested Orders in EU’s neighborhood regions in the East and South. The GIP, together with the IDC Herzliya, co-leads the work package three, which analyzes the impact of global and diffuse risks in EU’s neighborhood regions.
