CfP: Institutional Dynamics in World Politics

The organizers invite papers for a workshop on the theme Institutional Dynamics in World Politics: Explaining variation in the scope, pace, and direction of international institutional change. The Workshop is to be held at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) from April 7-8, 2011. The goal of the workshop is to develop our understanding of international institutional variation and change by shifting the IR literature’s focus from comparative statics to models which emphasize the dynamics of international institutional variation and change. To do this we propose to focus on further developing key insights from historical institutionalism such as (but not limited to): path dependence, unintended consequences, timing and sequencing effects, critical junctures, and networks. The program chairs welcome both theoretical contributions that seek to further develop these concepts and methods, and also small- or large-n empirical studies. For sample questions that the workshop hopes to address using these concepts, please see the full call for papers. Please email paper abstracts of up to 500 words by November 30, 2010 to tki-workshop@wzb.eu. The final papers will be due by March 14, 2011.