PRIF researchers will contribute to this year’s EISA Pan-European Conference on International Relations in Lisbon, Portugal, through presentations, panels and roundtables: Pascal Abb, Jana Baldus, Claudia Baumgart-Ochse, Sophia Birchinger, Nicole Deitelhoff, Jonas Driedger, Caroline Fehl, Ivan Kharitonov, Veronika Klymova, Frank Kuhn, Sabine Mannitz, Sarah McKee, Fumie Nakamura, Clara Perras, Mikhail Polianskii, Victoria Scheyer, Johanna Speyer, Isabelle Stephanblome, Christin Stühlen, Liska Suckau, Mina Trpkovic, Simone Wisotzki, Jonas Wolff, Yaolong Xian and Xinyu Yuan.
On the Tuesday, September 1, Pascal Abb and Jonas Wolff, together with Piki Ish-Shalom (Hebrew University of Jerusalem), will discuss their paper “The conceptual politics of democracy in the US-China rivalry: Discursive tactics and conceptual contradictions in China’s White Paper on Democracy” as part of the session “The Autocratic Toolkit: Foreign Interference and Narrative Warfare” (4–5:30 p.m.) In their paper, the authors trace the discursive tactics and contradictions characterizing China’s attempt to present its political regime as a particular, yet superior democracy while simultaneously acknowledging its dictatorial nature.
On Wednesday, September 2, Nicole Deitelhoff, Sarah McKee and Johanna Speyer will take part in the roundtable “World Order Crises Across Time and Space” (11 a.m.–12:30 p.m.), chaired by Johanna Speyer. The roundtable examines crises of international order from a historical and global perspective. Drawing on examples such as the collapse of the League of Nations, the reform of the international economic order after the end of the Bretton Woods system and the coexistence of Western and non-Western orders, the participants will discuss different forms of order crisis and consider what they can contribute to current research on the crisis of the liberal international order.
On Friday, September 4, Pascal Abb takes part in a panel discussion on “From Principle to Practice: China's Expanding Security Role in Myanmar”, where he will present his paper “From Belt and Road to cross-border security: Myanmar and the transnational expansion of China’s security apparatus” (9–10:30 a.m.). It situates the Myanmar case within China's broader ambition to project security capacity into partner states, showing how the proliferation of Chinese interests in fragile Belt and Road partner countries is changing the meaning of non-interference in Chinese foreign policy and leading to a more active role in global security governance.
When: September 1–4, 2026
Where: Iscte – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Avenida das Forças Armadas, 1649-026 Lisbon
More information about the registration and the detailed conference program can be found here.