Place
Unicom Building
Room: 7.1020
Mary-Somerville-Straße 7
28359 Bremen
Time
2 pm. - 6.30 pm (Friday), 9 am - 3 pm (Saturday)
Scientific Administration

International Organizations (IOs) are vibrant actors in global social governance. They provide forums for exchange, contention and cooperation; they prepare, guide and supervise interna-tional treaties; they direct, finance, and implement projects, and exercise many more duties. The study of IOs in general has tremendously improved and advanced in recent decades. However, our knowledge about the involvement, influence and impact of IOs varies signifi-cantly by policy fields. While scholarship on IOs focuses often on issues areas like security, economics or environmental policies, we know comparatively little about IOs in issues areas related to social policies.

This workshop seeks to fill this gap in IO social governance. Papers prepared for this workshop have two purposes. On the one hand, they will shed light on IO involvement in a particular social policy field by describing the community of engaging IOs. They explore how a particular social policy field is constituted and which major or dominant IOs are setting the trends. On the other hand, the contributions will examine the leitmotifs these IOs promote in "their" field by exploring and analyzing the discourse they produce. By exploring the population of IOs setting and spreading ideas, the papers will provide novel knowledge about the architecture of arguments in global social governance.

The discussions will be guided by the following questions:

  • What IOs are active in different social policy fields? How are the social policy fields constituted by specific types and constellations of IOs?
  • What ideas are these IOs promoting? How can IO discourses over specific social policy issues be characterized? How has IO discourse developed over time? What were watersheds in the discursive framing of social policy ideas?
  • Who are the addressees of IO discourses/activities? What kind of impact does the IO discourse/activity have on these addresses? (vertical perspective)
  • How (and why) do IOs cooperate with other IOs/NGOs/commercial enterprises in so-cial policy fields? (horizontal perspective)


Generalising on the different fields presented, we hope to be able to present findings on a more encompassing definition of the "architecture of arguments" in global social governance, and the patterns of discourse characterizing global social policies.


Day 1 – May 24

12:00-13:00 Lunch in the University Mensa (optional)

13:00 Introduction
Alexandra Kaasch (University of Bielefeld), Kerstin Martens and Dennis Niemann (University of Bremen)

13:15-14:30 – Slot 1
Chair: Michael Windzio (University of Bremen)
Family Policy as Object of Global Social Governance
Rianne Mahon (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Disabilities as a "New" Global Social Theme
Nina Kolleck & Johannes Schuster (Freie Universität Berlin)
Discussant: Sigrid Hartong (Helmut Schmidt University)
Followed by plenary discussion

14:30-15:00 Coffee Break

15:00-16:15 – Slot 2
Chair: Keonhi Son (University of Bremen)
Global Discourses, Regional Framings and Individual Showcasing: Analyzing the World of Education IOs
Dennis Niemann, Kerstin Martens (University of Bremen)
Children's Rights
Anna Holzscheiter (TU Dresden)
Discussant: Rianne Mahon (Wilfrid Laurier University)
Followed by plenary discussion

16:15-16:45 Coffee Break

16:45-18:00 – Slot 3
Chair: Fabian Besche (University of Bremen)
International Organisations’ Involvement in Youth (Un)Employment as a Global Policy Field
Ross Fergusson (The Open University)
The Global Social Governance of Pensions
Martin Heneghan (University of Sheffield)
Discussant: Armando Barrientos (University of Manchester)
Followed by plenary discussion

18:00-18:30 Wrap-up day 1

20:00 Dinner (Ratskeller Bremen)

Day 2 – May 25

9:00-10:15 – Slot 4
Chair: David Krogman (University of Bremen)
IOs, Care and Migration: The Case of Migrant Health Care Workers
Nicola Yeates (The Open University)
Global Social Health Governance & Climate Change as a Global Social Challenge
Alexandra Kaasch (University of Bielefeld)
Discussant: Lorraine Frisina (University of Bremen, CRC 1342)
Followed by plenary discussion

10:15-10:45 Coffee Break

10:45-12:00 – Slot 5
Chair: Helen Seitzer (University of Bremen)
Global Labour Standards
Friederike Römer (University of Bremen)
Inequality and (Inclusive) Growth
Chris Deeming (University of Strathclyde)
Discussant: Heiko Pleines (University of Bremen, CRC 1342)
Followed by plenary discussion

12:00-13:00 Buffet Lunch (in-house)

13:00-14:15 – Slot 6
Chair: Friederike Römer (University of Bremen)
State, Rule, and System: International Organizations and Global Water Politics
Jeremy Schmidt (Durham University)
IO Agency in Regime Complexes [Food Security]
Matias E. Margulis (University of Edinburgh)
Discussant: Chris Deeming (University of Strathclyde)
Followed by plenary discussion

14:30-15:00 Wrap-up day 2
and future plans