RegistrationVenue mapConference programme


Thursday, 16 November 2023

12:30 Registration open and light snacks provided

13:15 – 13:30 Welcome

13:30 – 15:00 Standards of Citizenship

In the context of global transformations citizenship as a legal and political status is undergoing fundamental changes. We are increasingly witnessing residence without citizenship and citizenship without residence. The panel takes up the latter aspect: tracing practices of selling citizenship and residence rights it asks why forms of monetized residence and citizenship acquisition are spreading. Are there any rules and standards? Should there be standards and who would be entitled to formulate and enforce them? 

Participants:

  • Dimitry Kochenov, CEU Budapest, Mercator Fellow of the RTG
  • Kristin Surak, London School of Economics and Political Science
  • Martijn van den Brink , Hertie School Jacques Delors Centre, Berlin
  • Eva-Maria Schäfferle, Goethe University Frankfurt/M, Leibnitz Research Group “Transformations of Citizenship”
  • Manuela Boatca, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
  • Chair: Sandra Seubert, Goethe University Frankfurt/M

15:00 – 15:30 Coffee break

15:30 – 17:00 Standardization versus innovation – challenges for the resilient state

In this panel, we explore the contradictory effects of standardization on state resilience. Resilience presupposes flexible adaptation to changing circumstances, which can be promoted by innovation. On the one hand, standards of governance aim to enhance resilience, e.g. when the European Union promotes sustainability. On the other hand, the process of standardisation propels sclerotic bureaucratisation and thus reduces flexibility and innovation. This becomes evident in the role of public administrations. Being themselves subject to governance standards aimed at enhancing resilience, e.g. de-bureaucratization and better rule-making, they are also promoters for innovation in the civil society and the economy by shaping institutional frameworks and processes, distributing money and enabling diffusion of knowledge. Standardization, however, reduces their potential for flexibility and innovation. The presentations in the panel shed light on those different aspects, jointly providing a bigger picture of the complexities, challenges and potentials for state resilience between standardization and innovation in the bureaucracy.

Participants:

  • Alexander Ebner, Goethe University Frankfurt/M: The ambivalence of standardization on the path to state resilience. Towards an analytic framework
  • Robert Kaiser, Universität Siegen
  • Discussant: Filippo Reale, Goethe University Frankfurt/M
  • Chair: Nathalie Behnke, TU Darmstadt

17:00 – 17:30 Coffee break

17:30 – 18:00 Introducing the RTG and its research programme (Jens Steffek, TU Darmstadt)

18:00 –19:30 Keynote on Power and Soft Standards in Global Governance (Duncan Snidal, University of Oxford)

19:45 Conference dinner (speakers only)

Friday, 17 November 2023

9:0010:30 Democracy, (EU) citizenship and rule of law standards in the EU

Rule of law and fundamental rights are considered key values in the EU. They are promoted as standards of good governance and violations are increasingly sanctioned. In the context of the rule of law crisis and tendencies of democratic backsliding in several member states the panel addresses normative and pragmatic challenges of governing with standards. It considers questions of legitimacy and efficiency of implementation and also reflects on the relation of rule of law, democracy and citizenship in the EU more generally.

Participants:

  • Dimitry Kochenov, CEU Budapest, Mercator Fellow of the RTG
  • Sarah Ganty, Yale Law School; CEU Vienna; Ghent University
  • Dirk Jörke, TU Darmstadt
  • Sandra Seubert, Goethe University Frankfurt/M.
  • Chair: Ute Sacksofsky, Goethe University Frankfurt/M.

10:3011:00 coffee break

11:0012:30  Accountability and transparency – global standards and local practices

The Panel will focus on two standards – accountability and transparency – that have been at the core of most projects that intend to enhance good governance. We will compare the developments and the experiences that have been made in advancing them, particularly on the local level. Which practices did change and with which consequences? How much contestation and resistance or feedback and learning did occur across various levels? What is the relationship between the two standards? Did they eventually promote good governance or at least good enough governance in individual cases?

Participants:

  • Aarti Gupta, Wageningen University, Mercator Fellow of the RTG
  • Maryam Deloffre, George-Washington University, Mercator Fellow of the RTG
  • Julia Drubel, TU Darmstadt
  • Chair: Markus Lederer, TU Darmstadt

12:30 13:30 Lunch break (Catering)

13:30 15:00 Standards of governance in global financial infrastructures

Standards have a long tradition in the governance of global finance, for example with regard to banking regulation. However, even more powerful than inter-governmental regulatory standards are infrastructure standards, where powerful actors can impose their economic model upon other actors, due to the dependence of the latter upon the services provided by these infrastructures. Given the importance of these infrastructures, it does not surprise that the latter increasingly have become an instrument of politicization, as highlighted by the discussion on “weaponized interdependence”. Currently, we are witnessing considerable tensions about standards in global financial infrastructures between increasingly powerful emerging economies and Western powers as defenders of the existing infrastructures. The panel will discuss these tensions for a number of core standards in fields such as trans-border payment systems, digital finance, central bank digital currencies or accounting.

Participants:

  • Barbara Brandl, Goethe University Frankfurt/M
  • Carola Westermeier, Justus Liebig University Giessen
  • Andreas Nölke, Goethe University Frankfurt/M
  • Chair: Jean-Christophe Graz, University of Lausanne

15:00 – 15:30 Coffee break

15:30 – 17:00 Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Standards of Governance

  • Barbara Brandl, Goethe University Frankfurt/M
  • Petra Gehring, TU Darmstadt
  • Ute Sacksofsky, Goethe University Frankfurt/M
  • Jens Steffek, TU Darmstadt
  • Chair: Julia Drubel, TU Darmstadt

Conference registration

Thank you for your registration. We are currently unable to accept any further registrations.

Please contact „shk@standards-of-governance.de“ if you have any questions.


Venue Map

Address:

Technische Universität Darmstadt
Rundeturmstraße 10, 64283 Darmstadt
Building S3|20 – Room18

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