APISA – CLACSO - CODESRIA South-South Comparative Research Seminars
Theme: Regionalism in the South and the New Global Hegemony Dates: 21 - 23 September, 2007
Venue: Accra, Ghana.

Call for Applications
The Asian Political and International Studies Association (APISA), the Latin American Council of Social Sciences (CLACSO) and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) are pleased to announce the Africa/Asia/Latin America scholarly collaborative initiative encompassing joint research, training, publishing and dissemination activities by researchers drawn from across the global South, and to call for applications for participation in the South-South comparative research seminar series they are organising within the framework of the initiative. The theme that has been selected for the third seminar being hosted under the auspices of CODESRIA is: Regionalism in the South and the New Global Hegemony. The seminar will take place in Accra, Ghana, from 21 to 23 September, 2007.

Within the ambit of the APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA collaboration, a series of activities and programmes has been scheduled for implementation over the period to the end of 2007, among them three annual comparative research seminars. The seminars are designed to serve as a research forum for the generation of fresh and original comparative insights on the diverse problems and challenges facing the countries of the South. In doing so, it is hoped also that the seminars will contribute to the revival and consolidation of inter-regional networking among Southern researchers, foster a culture of Southern scholarly cross-referencing, and contribute to a type of theory-building that is more closely attuned to the shared historical contexts and experiences of the countries and peoples of the South. The seminars are rotated among the three continents where the lead collaborating institutions are located, namely, Africa, Asia and Latin America. This way, participants in the seminars who are also drawn from all three continents are exposed to the socio-historical contexts of other regions of the South as an input towards the broadening of their analytical perspectives and the improvement of the overall quality of their scientific engagements. The inaugural seminar was held on the African continent, with Pretoria, South Africa, serving as the host city; other seminars have been held in Kampala, Uganda; Caracas, Venezuela;Bangkok, Thailand; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and San Jose, Costa Rica.

1. OBJECTIVES:

The underlying objective of the comparative research seminars is to offer participants an opportunity to transcend the limitations of received wisdom emanating from structures and processes of knowledge production and dissemination that are characterised by various degrees and layers of inequality. In doing so, it is hoped both to motivate and equip participants in the seminars with the critical theoretical and methodological perspectives that might be appropriate for gaining a full understanding of the specific situation of countries and peoples located outside the core of the contemporary international system. The main premise for this effort is the glaring inadequacy of the theories and methodologies developed in the North, and crystallised in the mainstream social sciences, to provide the required instruments for the attainment of a sound and holistic understanding of the problems confronting – and, in many cases, overwhelming the countries of the South. Through the seminars, it is hoped to be able to mobilise scholars from across the South to reflect on the alternatives that are available for overcoming the present situation. This way, the seminars will contribute to the promotion of a better understanding of the theories and methodological approaches developed in different regions of the South as alternatives to the dominant, Northern-biased paradigms that have shaped the social sciences. It is also expected that participants will become acquainted with the local intellectual environment in the regions where different sessions of the seminar are hosted, and strengthen their comparative research capacities in the process. In sum, the seminars are structured to serve as a unique forum for enhancing a deeper understanding among Southern scholars of the history, politics, economy and culture of the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, and offer an opportunity to participants to develop long-lasting collaborative relationships with their counterparts from other Southern countries.

2. ELIGIBILITY FOR PARTICIPATION:

Scholars resident in countries of the South and who are pursuing active academic careers are eligible to apply to participate in the seminars. Each applicant should have an advanced university education and an established track record of research and publishing in any of the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities. Selection for participation will be on the basis of a competitive process. All together, 12 people will be selected for participation in the institute on the basis of four each from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The full participation costs of the selected laureates will be covered, including their travel costs (economy return air tickets), accommodation and subsistence.

3. COORDINATION:

Each seminar in the series is convened and coordinated by an experienced Southern scholar recognised for the versatility of his/her knowledge, acknowledged for his/her skills in applying the comparative methodology, and known either for the depth of work s/he has done in different regions of the South or for his/her capacity to draw on experiences from across the South in his/her writings. The convenor/coordinator will be responsible for establishing the comparative framework for the seminar and will work with each participant to determine his or her primary area of focus. S/he will also undertake the task of synthetising results produced by the researchers into one major publication that will be designed to serve as a major statement on the theme of the seminar.
4. THE 2007 SEMINAR: For the 2007 session of the South-South comparative research seminar that is to take in Africa, it has been decided by APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA to host it in Accra, Ghana. CODESRIA will assume overall responsibility within the tri-continental partnership for the session. The local institutional host in Accra that will be working closely with CODESRIA in managing the seminar is the Third World Network (Africa). The seminar will run from 21 to 23 September, 2007. It is a requirement that prospective laureates should have a demonstrable working knowledge of the English language. APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA will work together with the local host to facilitate the procurement of entry visas to Ghana for the prospective participants whose applications are successful. At the end of the seminar, each participant will be expected to produce a publishable article which will be considered for inclusion in the book of proceedings that will be issued.

The theme of regionalism is one which has enjoyed a new lease of life in research and policy circles over the last decade or so, after a period of lull – even outright disinterest – premised on various considerations, including the lackluster performance of some of the regional integration and cooperation schemes that proliferated in the 1960s and 1970s, political conflicts/rivalries among some of the cooperating partner-countries as the fervour of the struggle for independence waned, and the ideological hostility that was manifest in the 1980s and 1990s towards South-South regional schemes. In the context of the structural adjustment programmes that were vigorously promoted across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean in the 1980s and 1990s by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, regional integration and cooperation projects were distinctly discouraged as a strategic policy option that was passé, particularly for developing countries. The political and geo-strategic sources of opposition to South-South integration and cooperation schemes were clear enough; during the 1980s and 1990s, an array of new technical arguments was deployed to complement pre-existing political hostility to regional cooperation among the countries of the South. South-South regional schemes were not only considered to be inefficient and sub-optimal, they were also treated as trade-diverting and market-distorting; global economic welfare, it was argued, would be better served by the World Trade Organisation framework and mixed North-South cooperation schemes structured around a hub-and-spoke model.

The discouragement of South-South regional cooperation during the 1980s and 1990s went hand-in-hand with the vigorous promotion of structural adjustment programmes across the South. However, the poor record of the structural adjustment programmes themselves, together with the international geo-political and economic re-alignments arising from the end of the old East-West Cold War, the worsening of the structural imbalances in the international economic system by the rapid push for the liberalization of local markets and international trade and financial flows, and the emergence of new global hegemonic pressures combined to revive the idea of regionalism and to spur the investment of new energies in various kinds of integration and cooperation schemes across the international system, North and South. This revival was manifested across the global South through the revamping and/or rationalisation of existing cooperation and integration schemes, as well as the launching of new initiatives. Some of the cooperation and integration schemes were launched or revived as part of the generalised responses in different parts of the world to the real and/or anticipated pressures of globalisation. But at the same time, global hegemonic forces in the North also introduced a variety of cooperation and integration schemes that promised the expansion of some existing trade and investment zones and the creation of new ones even as they pressed for the application by key countries of the South of the WTO’s provisions for trade in services, including but not limited to financial services. Several of the schemes that were introduced were led by the key Northern powers and were meant to incorporate countries of the South; they constituted a central component of the new hegemonic processes in the post-Cold War global system. From the US-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas which seemed designed to rival - if not undermine the MERCOSUR arrangement – to the EU’s scheme for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with various African and Caribbean sub-regional groupings, and the pursuit by the US of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the notion of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) zone, the exercise of new hegemony has mainly expressed itself through trade- and investment-based integration and cooperation schemes that are also designed to produce big power geo-political and strategic security dividends whilst preserving economic dominance. The response in the South to this new expression of hegemonic power by the United States and the European Union has been fragmented and dispersed, evidenced most clearly in the stymied debate over the restructuring of the international development/financial architecture and the reform of the United Nations system. Within this fragmented and dispersed Southern response, there have been elements of defiance. The most prominent of these are centred on the World Social Forum movement and its campaign for an alternative, people-driven globalisation, Hugo Chavez’s counter-hegemonic Bolivarian alternative for the Americas, attempts at the revival of the spirit of Bandung, and the pursuit of tri-continental strategic coordination as in the case of the IBSA (India, Brazil and South Africa). Nevertheless, in a majority of cases, acquiescence to the projects of the hegemonic forces borne out of various factors and considerations seems to be the dominant policy response in the South to the new global hegemony, an indication of the weakened position of much of the global South in the post-Cold War global order. Participants in the 2007 workshop will be invited to reflect on these issues, drawing examples from the different regions of the global South to examine on-going processes of regionalism, the range of issues arising from them, the new patterns of hegemony that underpin the international political economy, attempts at the development of counter-hegemonic responses, and what the new hegemonic processes mean for the future of integration and cooperation in the South.
5. APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS:

Every researcher wishing to be considered for selection as one of the 12 scholars to be invited to participate in any of the comparative research seminars organised within the framework of the APISA-CLACSO-CODESRIA tri-continental partnership is required to submit an application that will comprise the following key items of documentation:

a) An outline research proposal, written in English, on the subject on which s/he would like to work. The topic selected must be related to the theme of the seminar and should have a demonstrable comparative potential. Proposals should not exceed 10 pages in length and should have a clearly defined problematic which can be followed through further research and culminate in a publishable scientific paper; b) A covering letter, of one-page, which should indicate the motivation of the prospective researcher for wanting to participate in the seminar series and explaining how they envisage that they and their institution will benefit from the programme; c) An updated Curriculum Vitae complete with the names of the professional and personal references of the researcher, the scientific discipline(s) in which s/he is working, the nationality of the applicant, a list of recent publications, and a summary of the on-going research activities in which the applicant is involved; and d) A photocopy of the highest university degree obtained by the applicant and of the relevant pages of his/her international passport containing relevant identity data;
6. APPLICATION PROCEDURES AND DEADLINE As the comparative research seminars involve the participation of researchers from Africa, Asia and Latin America, it has been decided that applicants resident in Africa should submit their applications to CODESRIA, those resident in Asia to APISA and those resident in Latin America to CLACSO. The full contact details for APISA, CLACSO AND CODESRIA are reproduced below for the attention of all prospective applicants. The deadline for the receipt of applications is 17 August, 2007. Applications found to be incomplete or which arrive after the deadline will not be taken into consideration.

An independent Selection Committee charged with screening all applications received will meet shortly after the deadline for the receipt of applications. Successful applicants will be notified immediately the Selection Committee completes it work. Notification of results will be dome by e-mail, fax and post. The results of the selection exercise will also be published on the websites of APISA, CLACSO and CODESRIA.

Latin American and Caribbean applicants should send their applications to:

CLACSO, (2007 South-South Comparative Research Seminar)

Callao 875, 3º (1023) Buenos Aires, ARGENTINA Tel: (54 11) 4811-6588 / 4814-2301; Fax: (54 11) 4812-845 E-mail: [email][email protected] Website: www.clacso.org Asian applicants should send their applications to:

APISA, (2007 South-South Comparative Research Seminar)

Strategic Studies and International Relations Program Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, MALAYSIA Tel: 603- 89213647; Fax: 603-89213332 E-Mail: [email][email protected] Website: www.apisainfo.org African applicants should send their applications to: CODESRIA, (2007 South-South Comparative Research Seminar), BP 3304, CP 18524, Dakar, SENEGAL Tel: (221) 825 9822: Fax: (221) 824 1289 E-mail: [email][email protected] Website: http://www.codesria.org