NISPAcee Annual Conference, Working Group on Good Governance, Human Rights and Development in Weak, Crisis and Post-conflict States, Ohrid, 23-26 May 2011‏

The newly-established NISPAcee Working Group ‘Working Group on Good Governance, Human Rights and Development in Weak, Crisis and Post-conflict States’ has been officially approved for the 20th Annual Conference of NISPAcee in Ohrid.

Call for Paper Proposals 2012
Human rights and development both aim to promote well-being and freedom, based on the inherent dignity and equality of all people. Applying human rights based approach to development will enable governments to enhance the effectiveness of their work through a focus on equality and non-discrimination, accountability, justice, and transparency as the core of human development.

Yet, while the implementation of human rights standards and international human rights mechanisms in the decision-making processes at all levels of public governance is generally acknowledged as a priority for public management reforms in weak, crisis and post-conflict states, including in the post-Soviet region, the links between human rights, good governance and economic development, in particular at the local level, and the relationship between human rights and the Millennium Development Goals remain not properly understood and, thus, underexplored. This means that new and important issues, such as state failure or the links between social exclusion, discrimination and poverty are not systematically studied either. Partly, this might be explained with higher priorities by international and national human rights organizations during the first decade of the reforms, who focused their efforts on adoption of human rights standards in the legislation of post-Soviet countries and THE ratification of key international documents, such as the European Convention on Human Rights, European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, etc. At the same time, there has been growing understanding of the links among human rights, effective governance and economic development whereas issues such as justice, accountability, poverty reduction, employment, social inclusion, non-discrimination, public health, conflict prevention, women and children are fundamental concern of local development.

Against this background, the proposed Working Group invites papers in four inter-related thematic areas:
(1) in-depth analysis of how human rights frameworks affect conditions for effective governance and economic development in the post-Soviet states;
(2) the mechanisms for mainstreaming good governance practices and human rights standards into local development programs;
(3) effective policies to realize the potential of good governance for people-oriented economic development; and
(4) best practices of research-led teaching on good governance in higher education institutions.

The Working Group is open, and indeed welcomes, interdisciplinary and multi-method papers covering a wide range of different approaches from single-sector and cross-sectoral policy analyses to single and comparative case studies. Papers may focus on, among others, public policies and strategies through which human rights strengthen efforts to achieve economic development goals; good governance practices in CEE and the CIS countries, establishing the promotion of justice, accountability and transparency, generating public participation and responding to key challenges for human rights and economic development, such as corruption and violent conflict; or national approaches in different spheres of developments and/or aspects of good governance in terms of the guidance they take from public policy and the role human rights play in policy formulation and implementation.

Professor Stefan Wolff
Department of Political Science and International Studies
University of Birmingham, Birmingham

Stefan Wolff is Professor of International Security at the University of Birmingham. He specialises in the management of contemporary security challenges and has written extensively on ethnic conflict, international conflict management and state-building. Among his 12 books to date are Ethnic Conflict: A Global Perspective (Oxford University Press 2006, 2nd ed. 2007), Institutions for the Management of Ethnopolitical Conflict in Central and Eastern Europe (Council of Europe 2008, with Marc Weller), and Ethnic Conflict: Causes-Consequences-Responses (Polity 2009, with Karl Cordell).
Wolff is the founding editor of the journal Ethnopolitics and an associate editor of Civil Wars. He is frequently consulting to governments and international organisations on conflict resolution issues, especially on questions of negotiation strategy and constitutional design. He is currently working in an advisory capacity on the Transnistria conflict in Moldova.
Wolff is a graduate of the University of Leipzig, the University of Cambridge, and the London School of Economics and Political Science.


Professor Tetyana Malyarenko
Donetsk State University of Management, Donetsk Ukraine

Tetyana Malyarenko is professor at the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences, Donetsk State University of Management, Ukraine and also Erasmus Mundus visiting professor at the Human Rights Practice Consortium. Dr. Malyarenko is an expert for the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union and public policy expert at the Council of National Security and Defence of Ukraine. She holds a Candidate of Science Degree in Economics (Ph.D.) from National University of Economics and Trade and a Doctor of Science Degree in Public Governance from Donetsk State University of Management (Topic: "Preventing Social Conflict: The Mechanisms of Public Governance and Security of the State”). Her principle research interests include societal and economic aspects of security in transition states, human security and good governance, social conflicts and civil wars. Current research projects are about regional dynamics, inequality and public policy, human rights and good governance in the security sector, and economic security and the European security order.