A workshop to be held at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies, The Graduate Center, City University of New York on March 14th and co-organized by Terra Nuevo, IDDRI and the RBIIS.
The scope, focus, and methodology of this workshop have been determined in dialogue with the participants, through their reactions to a draft discussion document prepared and circulated by the organizers. A substantial consensus has emerged regarding the objective to be pursued, and can be phrased as follows: How to understand the structure of power within the global political economy to redress political imbalances created in a very interdependent but unequal world and enable new governance frameworks to bring more transformative change?
Any one of the topics to be discussed in the workshop could be the subject of an entire seminar. Often they are treated separately, and it is hoped that linking them in a single discussion can help to construct a strategic overview of the issues involved. Each topic will be introduced by three “kick-off” speakers, who will have five minutes each to express a few key ideas leaving 35 minutes for discussion. The aim, obviously, is not to explore the questions exhaustively, but rather to define and flesh them out for further research and reflection. Follow-up to the workshop will be discussed in a final, forward-looking wrap-up session.
The majority of the participants are academics, while others come from the worlds of government, civil society and social movements. An effort has been made to frame questions in ways that speak to problems encountered in real life in order to help bridge the gap between theory and practice.
