Good Governance in the Balkans Conference (7-8 November 2013) in Zagreb, Croatia

The conference “Good Governance in the Balkans: Status and Perspectives?” will take place in Zagreb, Croatia, on 7-8 November 2013. The conference shall serve as an exchange platform, which for the first time shall bring together some 60 participants from the region and beyond, actors from public administration, politics and academia concerned with the issues of good governance in the Western Balkans. Given the EU-accession of Croatia in July 2013, Zagreb as a symbolic venue where also lessons learned and regional perspectives can be shared seems to be most convenient.


The main objectives of the conference are:

• Gaining an overview of the most important good governance research and policy projects in the region (peer exchange);
• Discussing the “good” and the “bad “of good governance concepts, including indicators, standards, practices and regional variances;
• Bringing together researchers and policy-makers to discuss how to build bridges between research and policy-making and how future agendas in this field could look like. 

The conference organizers are seeking contributions of academic and policy research papers; Relevant reform projects able to demonstrate substantial results and best practices – success stories; Case-studies, regionally relevant projects and initiatives; and Elaborated concepts for conference panels (including aims, the names of the panelists including their CV’s and the structure of the panel). Topics to be addressed by contributions are:

• Assessing the “Good” of “Good Governance”: Indicators, meanings and regional variants of good governance in the Western Balkans
• Management, Efficiency and Accountability of Public Services: Public service reforms, including resistance to reforms; Improving quality of public services – specific policy fields, case-studies; Public-private partnerships, risks and potentials; Effects and examples of informal governance; Effects and examples of bad governance; New forms of governance in the Western Balkans; Budgeting; Nepotism and petty-corruption
• Intervention, Integration and Good Governance: Role of the EU-integration process in promoting good governance in the Balkans; Role of the international community in promoting good governance and lessons learned in the Balkans
• Management, Efficiency, accessibility and Independence of the Judicial System: Rule of law; Judicial reforms; Fighting corruptions: assessing anti-corruption initiatives
• Good governance, civil society and democracy: Citizens’ participation; Civic networks and cooperation of NGO’s with the state; Role of the parliaments in promoting and ensuring good governance

Contributions have to focus empirically and/or theoretically on countries of the Western Balkans or the Western Balkans as a region. Comparative contributions may include additional countries or regions as well.


Eligibility
The call for contributions is open to Individual researchers, public administration officials, research institutions, think-tanks, independent policy-making institutes and other institutions dealing with the conference topics.


Costs
The conference will take place at the Hotel International, Zagreb. The organizers will cover travel and accommodation expenses for all selected participants. Opportunities for co-financing will arise should the travel costs in individual cases exceed the average expenses per participant attending the conference.


Application
The deadline for submissions is 20 August 2013. Selection by Committee is on September 20, 2013.

All interested participants and institutions are requested to submit an abstract of the paper or a proposal for their contribution with no more than 300 words, including a one-page CV of the person(s) who would attend the conference.

Submissions must be sent no later than 20 August 2013 togoodgovernance@balkanfund.org with the following email subject: Good Governance Conference 2013. All documents have to be in English and need to be merged into a single PDF file. The result of the selection process will be announced by the end of September 2013.

For additional inquiries write to Igor Bandovic, European Fund for the Balkans: igor.bandovic@balkanfund.org and Jan Kreuels, RRPP Western Balkans: jan.kreuels@rrpp-westernbalkans.net.

izvor: mladiinfo