PONARS-Eurasia Conference
From 6-8 May 2012, the University of Tartu hosted the PONARS-Eurasia Conference “Continuity and Change: Examining Regime Trajectories and Security in East Europe and Eurasia”. The conference was co-sponsored by PONARS-Eurasia and the Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) of the University of Tartu.
| The conference brought together about 20 members of PONARS-Eurasia to Tartu to discuss aspects of the relationship between domestic politics and security across East Europe and Eurasia. Topics of discussion included democracy, financial crisis, and regional integration in East Europe; the impact of internal dynamics in Russia on Russian foreign policy; and domestic challenges to regional security cooperation in Central Asia. The public events of the conference featured these issues, with panelists from PONARS-Eurasia and the University of Tartu.
The conference was open to the public on May 7, featuring several panels on regime change in Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, on Baltic achievements, setbacks and challenges after two decades of independence as well as on Russian political economy. See the detailed programme of the public event on May 7, 2012
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The public session of the PONARS conference can be viewed here. Please scroll down and click on the specific sections, listed by the name of the speaker.
About PONARS-Eurasia:
PONARS-Eurasia is a network of over 85 scholars that promotes academic policy engagement on Russian and Eurasian security, foreign policy, and politics. Its members come from institutions throughout Russia, Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe, and North America.
Its activities and products focus on issues that are vital to global security and that play out in important ways not only for the states and populations of the post-Soviet space but regionally and globally as well. By engaging scholars with regional expertise and encouraging them to reach out across their regional specialties, PONARS-Eurasia serves as a unique resource for government and international policymakers as they frame questions and policies concerning national and global interests.
In addition to a publication series and website, PONARS-Eurasia convenes an annual series of conferences and workshops. A major annual conference is held each fall in Washington, DC. PONARS-Eurasia also holds a series of international conferences to facilitate engagement and outreach to various academic and policy communities. Such conferences have been held in Bishkek, Istanbul, Moscow, Odessa, and Tbilisi. They are held in partnership with local institutions, including American University of Central Asia, Koc University (Istanbul), and IMEMO (Moscow).
PONARS-Eurasia is housed at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES) at The Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University and is financially supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. From 2007-2009, the program was located at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Between 2001-2007, the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS, the precursor to PONARS-Eurasia) was part of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The program was launched in the late 1990s by Prof. Celeste A. Wallander, who is currently serving as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Russia and Eurasia Policy at the U.S. Department of Defense.