2001 Fellowship Programme
2001 Conference Programme

1. Rethinking Security for the 21st Century

2. The Economic, Political and Social Implications of the Internet: just how radical will they be?

3. Human Rights as Collective Rights:
benefits and pitfalls

1. Rethinking Security for the 21st Century
Download Dr Coker's Introductory Paper

• Merton College, Oxford

• 23-31 March 2001
  
  
  
  

Senior Fellow

Speakers

Advertised Synopsis
The end of the Cold War encouraged us to think we would feel more secure. Instead developed societies in particular feel even less secure than ever. Rather than the threat of nuclear war we face a variety of risks, some environmental, others social, all potentially demoralising. Our sense of insecurity is now determined by a range of different issues: migration; disease (especially AIDS); environmental pollution and crime. War itself is now less and less immediate in our imagination. What has happened? Why are we less fearful but more anxious than ever? This conference will look at the changing security agenda and the dynamics of insecurity which has emerged since the end of the Cold War: the result of globalisation and the emergence of risk societies. It will focus on individual challenges such as crime and disease in the context of security thinking. It will require us to ask to what extent transnationalism is forcing us to rethink security. And it will ask what strategies are best suited to make people feel more secure in the future, whether universal, regional, or local, government or private. Should we be managing insecurity, containing challenges or going further and trying to resolve problems with the confidence sometimes shown in the past?

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2. The Economic, Political and Social Implications of the Internet:
just how radical will they be?

Download John Naughton's Introductory Paper

• Endicott House, MIT, Boston, United States
  
• 26 June - 3 July 2001
  

Speakers

Advertised Synopsis
The Internet, together with new communications technologies and a precipitous decline in the cost of data transfer look set to transform the infrastructure of the 21st century world. Businesses, governments, NGOs and other organizations are being compelled to transform how they operate and relate to one another, while individual societies and the world in general have to face the danger of 'digital divides' exacerbating existing inequalities. A grasp of the attendant economic, political, social, and cultural implications of these developments is vital for the formation of policy in this area. This conference will consider aspects of the communications revolution, including: how communications technology is likely to evolve in the near future; how it is affecting and will affect the way humans interact, and the impact this might have on society (both domestic and international); the changes the Internet is bringing to how we shop, do business, and invest, including the implications of e-business for traditional economies and governmental structures, as well as claims of a new economic paradigm; how the role of NGOs might develop in the face of these innovations; how technological changes might alter the way societies govern themselves, either in more democratic or more authoritarian ways; the extent to which the Internet should or even can be regulated - and by whom - and the implications for free speech and libel laws; how the technology will transform public education and learning; the danger of the evolution of an information underclass on domestic as well as international scales; and the challenges and opportunities which a wired world will pose to national security. To promote original ideas in this area, the conference will examine these questions as part of a scenario building exercise, designed to encourage an integrated consideration of the disparate strands of the issue at hand and to generate outlines of a series of possible futures which might - without engaging in prediction - illuminate the opportunities and dangers ahead. This conference is being held with generous sponsorship from Equant/Global One.

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3. Human Rights as Collective Rights:
benefits and pitfalls

Download Neal Ascherson's Introductory Paper

• Madingley Hall, Cambridge
  
• 28 October - 4 November 2001

Senior Fellow

Speakers

Advertised Synopsis
Human rights considerations play a central role not only in domestic constitutional arrangements, their long-established home, but also more and more in international affairs. A thornier question is what rights can be said to reside in a collective or group - be it ethnic, linguistic or religious. The international community does recognize such collective rights to a limited degree. Self-determination is inherent in a people, not in individuals, and, under the Genocide Convention, states are bound to intervene in other states' affairs because of an attack on an identifiable group in a way which more indiscriminate mass slaughter alone does not compel. This conference will examine some of the difficulties inherent in the question of collective rights, with particular consideration of the place of minorities in national political arrangements and in international affairs, including: How far do such rights go, or are even self-determination and genocide concepts too fraught with difficulty to be used except as justifications? What sorts of groups can make a claim to this kind of right? How can a group with a claim to collective identity and rights assert itself and have its assertion recognized? How can such rights be exercised and who can claim to speak on behalf of a group especially where traditional power structures are not democratic? How can the exercise of collective rights be reconciled with the rights of other groups, or to individual rights both within and without the collective, when there is a clash?

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Summary of all Conferences

2001 Fellowship Programme
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1. Orientalism Today

2.Relations Between the United States and Europe: Future Prospects

Orientalism Today

• Hotel Richmond, Istanbul
  
• 5-7 October 2001

Speakers

Brief Description
Istanbul stands at the crossroads between Europe and Asia. It is an ideal place to consider how people from different cultural backgrounds view each other and how those views affect international relations. Looking at film and the press, what in particular is the role of the media in this? How might cross-cultural views be affected by new communications technologies? How might Turkey specifically be affected by cultural assumptions at home and abroad, given its key strategic role in the Middle East and Central Asia, as a member of Nato and as an aspirant member of the European Union?

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Relations Between the United States and Europe: Future Prospects

• Scotland House, Rond Point Schuman, Brussels
  
• 16-17 November 2001

Speakers

Brief Description
Relations between Europe and the United States seems as strong as ever, but face a number of difficult challenges, particularly in the fields of security and economics. Nato has not only survived the end of the Cold War, confounding some commentators, but has expanded and been more active militarily than ever before in its intervention in the Balkans. However, there are possible strains in the alliance as the United States, with the advent of a new administration, debates its own national interest and looks to protect it with a missile defence system. Some European allies fear that this will leave them out in the cold and destabilize arms control. Political integration in Europe, on the other hand, is starting to take on a military dimension with plans for a rapid reaction force. This might operate neatly within Nato structures or might, as some critics fear and some supporters wish, outgrow Nato as the European Union becomes more assertive on security matters. In their economic relations, the US and the EU have generally worked together within the WTO and the Bretton Woods institutions to resolve disputes and to manage globalization and its attendant squalls. However, disputes over issues such as intellectual property and trade in bananas have at times been bitter, and may presage further tensions as the political balance and economic conditions change. This seminar will examine what shape the transatlantic alliance is in and discuss the different possible directions it may take in the future.

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