The exercise of authority by international institutions raises a number of puzzling challenges across the disciplines that study the international. Recent history has seen a substantial increase in the number of international institutions, the claims to authority of which may rival not only the traditional bailiwick of sovereign states, but also the authority of other partially overlapping international institutions. How are those clashes of authority and frictions between actors resolved, if at all? How do the various subjects addressed by international authority – such as governments, corporations, NGOs, individuals, as well as international institutions themselves – respond? Even though conflicts of authority is a problem that political and legal practice and theory have had to deal with for centuries, new international institutional frameworks challenge established solutions to such problems, both in practice and in theory.
For example, recent contributions in international legal theory raise questions about interaction between the national and the international. But constitutionalism, pluralism or global public law approaches often concentrate on the international, while guiding principles, like subsidiarity or federalism, are yet to be analysed in more detail. Likewise, research in political science on multilevel, global governance raise questions about how the agents involved resolve conflicts of competence and jurisdiction not just between different levels, but also among international institutions themselves. Relatedly, while much recent political theory starts from the assumption that states are being challenged in their traditional mandate and capacity to govern, the resulting calls for international institutional reform suggest new puzzles about how to settle clashes of authority in lieu of sovereignty.
Thus, for its third workshop, the AUSTAT network invites submissions from international and comparative constitutional law, political science, international relations and political theory to address the exercise of authority by international institutions. For this workshop, we are particularly interested in papers dealing with the vertical interplay between international institutions and domestic authorities and the horizontal interplay between different international institutions. We welcome both empirical studies, dealing for instance with conflicts of authority in or between particular issue-areas, and theoretical, conceptual and normative analyses, which may address for instance how new forms of authority challenge established conceptions of democracy, legitimacy, the rule of law, etc.
We invite those interested in presenting a paper to submit a max 500 words abstract and a short biographical note using this online form form by 15 January 2012. We will select papers in January 2012, and expect full papers to be submitted by 15 April 2012. In part, papers will be selected in order to have coherent sets of contributions fit for joint publication after the workshop. The workshop takes place on May 3-4, 2012, at the Centre franco-norvégien en sciences sociales et humaines in Paris, France. The AUSTAT network will reimburse travel and accommodation expenses for all selected participants.