Dear friends and colleagues of the Kolleg-Forschergruppe,

Welcome to the latest edition of our newsletter!

After a short summer break with lots of personnel turnover in both fellows and staff, we have again held a number of events this fall, concluding a bustling year at the KFG.

In Singapore, the roadshow of the “Oxford Handbook on Comparative Regionalism” was kicked off with a very successful workshop. The handbook (co-edited by Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse) will be published by the beginning of March 2016, in time for the International Studies Association Annual Conference taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, where the KFG will, once again, host a reception to keep up the tradition.

At the KFG, Senior Fellows Wolfram Kaiser and Kiran Patel gathered an illustrious group of scholars. They conducted an author workshop on "Cooperation, Competition, and Transfers" to discuss the EU among international organizations.

We are delighted to point to several new issues of our Working Paper Series, published in the last weeks. Once again they illustrate the diverse and extraordinary work of scholars affiliated with the KFG.

And new faces have begun their stay at the KFG – we were glad to welcome distinguished researchers at the KFG in an exciting welcome week. We are looking forward to their projects, enriching and expanding the KFG’s work with their expertise.

We wish you happy holidays and a successful year 2016!

Warm regards,

Tanja A. Börzel, Thomas Risse & the KFG-Team

A number of distinguished and interesting people joined the KFG recently. We are glad to introduce our new Senior Scholars, PostDocs, and PhD Candidates.

The Research College “The Transformative Power of Europe”, Freie Universität Berlin and the National University of Singapore jointly organized a two-day workshop on “Comparative Regionalism: State of the Art and Future Directions” in Singapore from 1-3 October 2015. The workshop involved four panels and two roundtable discussions with scholars from across the world on selected chapters from a new handbook on comparative regionalism, edited by Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse.

The KFG is pleased to announce the publication of the “Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism”, co-edited by the KFG directors Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse. The edited volume will be out in time for the International Studies Association Annual Conference taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, on 3-6 March, 2016. The Handbook – the first of its kind – assembles leading scholars to take stock of a research field located at the interface of area studies, comparative politics, and international relations. It is a volume testifying to the strength and promise of comparative regionalism.

On 29 October 2015, KFG Senior Fellows Wolfram Kaiser and Kiran Klaus Patel held an author´s workshop in Berlin. A number of distinguished scholars examined how the EU is involved in exchange with other International Organizations. Resulting from the workshop, five papers that were discussed will be published in the European Review of History in 2016-17.

KFG Senior Fellows Wolfram Kaiser and Kiran Patel are organizing an international conference to take place in Berlin in April 2016. This conference will explore continuities in European Empire traditions in the internal operations and external relations of the present-day European Union in historical perspective focusing on the period up to the early 1990s. It will inter alia address the EU’s global promotion of regional integration.

KFG Senior Fellow Jeffrey T. Checkel, Simon Fraser University, won the prestigious Humboldt Research Award in 2015. On this occasion, the KFG and the Alexander von Humboldt - Foundation would like to cordially invite you to his lecture on the dynamics of civil war.

The lecture titled “The Social Dynamics of Civil War” will take place on Wednesday, 27 January, 2016, from 4 pm to 6 pm in room 22/G at Ihnestr. 22, 14195 Berlin and will be followed by an informal reception hosted by the KFG.

The International Studies Association (ISA) is the world's leading network for scientists in the International Relations field. It unites over 6,500 members worldwide. ISA’s Annual Convention is the main event to meet most of these members. Next year the convention, which takes place for the 57th time and routinely draws over 6,000 visitors, will be held in Atlanta, Georgia, from Wednesday 16 March to Saturday 19 March. Scholars, practitioners, and students of international affairs will be making their way to Atlanta to discuss and exchange ideas in hundreds of panels and symposia under the headline “Exploring Peace“.

In the last months, several fellows have been publishing KFG Working Papers on a broad range of interesting topics.

Emanuel Adler and Inken von Borzyskowski tell us about their time at the KFG.