Open Session
Chairs:
- Eka Akobia, Caucasus School of Governance, Caucasus University, Georgia,E-mail: eakobia@cu.edu.ge
Eka Akobia is Dean of the Caucasus School of Governance and a Director of the Institute of Peace Studies (IPS) at Caucasus University. She is also an Associate Professor at Tbilisi State University (TSU). She teaches theories of international relations (MA and PHD), international organizations, EU external relations and UN Peacekeeping Operations courses. She has published a number of academic articles as well as contributed to three edited volumes in the European Union series. She also regularly contributes news analysis to such media platforms as civil.ge and the Clarion.
Eka Akobia obtained her PHD in International Relations from Tbilisi State University. She acquired her MA degree in International Relations from Baylor University, USA and her BA degree in Political Science from Hartwick College, USA. She has participated in several senior level non-degree programmes, such as the Qualitative Research Methods Course (ICQRM) from Syracuse University, USA (2011); the Summer University on "Federalism, Constitutionalism and Conflict Transformation in Multiethnic Societies” University of Fribourg, Switzerland (2005) and the NATO Senior Executive Master Course, Bucharest, Romania (2004).
Besides academia, Eka Akobia has extensive public service experience. She worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia from 2005 until 2016 and has a broad experience in Georgia’s foreign policy. She holds a diplomatic rank of Counselor. Amongst other positions, she has worked as the Deputy Director of the Department of the Americas (2009-2010), the Deputy Director of the Political Department (2010-2012) and as the Director of the Asia, Africa, Australia and the Pacific Department (2012-2016).
- Maja Klun, Faculty of Public Administration, University of Ljubljana,E-mail: maja.klun@fu.uni-lj.si
Professor Maja Klun started her career at state administration and her academic career in 1994. The Government appointed her as a member of the Government Group for Development of Performance-Oriented Budgeting for the period 2005-2007. In 2007, she has been a contracting partner in the government activities in the field of better regulation, especially in the measurement of administrative costs. From 2009-2013 she was Member of the Government Strategic Group for public sector. Her main research fields are public sector economics and public finance. She took an active part in several national and international research projects from this field.
Call for papers
The NISPAcee Annual Conference Open Session calls for papers that cover topics beyond the conference's main theme and the working groups. The Open Session aims to include a wide array of potential contributors to accommodate the varied interests of Public Administration and Policy scholars, experts and practitioners alike. The goal is to have an in-depth discussion of the papers and a mutually beneficial exchange between the authors.
The criteria for the acceptance of the abstracts are:
• a relevant public administration, public policy or political science topic;
• from the NISPAcee region, about the region or touching a theoretical topic significant for the region, i.e., Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Caucasus;
• the scholarly quality of the abstracts, outlining the objectives and research questions of the paper, its theoretical perspective, and the data and methodology to be used.
Open Sessions rely on the active contribution and synergy of the participants. The authors may be invited to act as discussants for one another’s papers presented in the Sessions during the Conference.
From participants of this working group full paper is required before the conference.
Deadline of full paper submission is 10/05/2023.
You can find manuscript guidelines on THIS LINK.