Towards creating a discipline with a “regional stamp“: Central-East European political science and ethno-cultural diversity

ENIs political science “with a regional stamp” a concept which makes sense? Maybe not in exactly the same way as American Studies or, closer to the topic, European Studies do. Still, the suggested focus on ethno-cultural diversity in Central-East Europe would tackle one of the region’s perennial key issues on which, according to Canadian philosopher Will Kymlicka, there is “a great need for new work”. As subsequently set out in more detail, the proposal was inspired by one of the major findings of Leslie Pal’s and my coedited 2010 book on the discipline’s state of the art in Central-East Europe – that institutional cooperation and research networks are decidedly underdeveloped in and among the region’s countries. A thematic focus might be needed, around which a major part of research efforts in several countries could crystallize. I expounded the idea at a conference held in Vilnius on the “Baltic-Black Sea Intermarum” as a “New Region of Europe”, and the Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review elected to publish my remarks in its No. 25 (2011) issue.