The Great Adaptation: Eurasian and East European Societies and Global Disorder

Organizers: Fabian Burkhardt (Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies), Félix Krawatzek, Julia Langbein (Centre for East European and International Studies), Michael Rochlitz (University of Oxford)

Please submit your proposal (including a title and a one-page abstract) by 21 September 2025 to pol-soz@dgo-online.org. Full papers have to be submitted before 7 January 2026.

Societies, politics and economies in Eurasia and Eastern Europe have to adapt to increasing global disorder in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since February 2022, we have been witnessing an accelerated democratic backlash in political systems as well as increasing domestic polarisation over how to respond to these developments and challenges. Meanwhile, economic systems have to adjust to disrupted supply chains and transport routes, sanctions and uncertainties about foreign investment. In this process, local, regional and international dynamics come together, informing a circulation of discourses, practices and norms across the region.

In this workshop, we want to disentangle these broad dynamics by focusing in particular on socio-political and economic dynamics. Our goal is to bring together social scientists, particularly economists, political scientists and sociologists, as well as researchers from related disciplines, to examine the poly-crises that characterise our contemporary world and their impact on Eurasia and Central and Eastern Europe. How do societies as well political and economic systems adjust to the profound changes in the international environment? We invite paper submissions that address differences in a) how political systems respond to these changes – from democratic or authoritarian resilience to backsliding, b) how economies respond to these changes through processes of economic (dis-)integration or c) how societies respond to these changes – from increasing to declining polarisation and mobilisation. We are also open to submissions that focus on methods that we can use to understand such developments or broaden the set of questions that need to be addressed in our contemporary world order.

The workshop is open for researchers at all levels who want to present their work in progress. Funding through generous support of the DGO is available for selected advanced graduate students (Master or doctoral level) or scholars who have no means to cover costs for travel and accommodation themselves.