CBEES Annual Conference · 2026
The Baltic Sea Region & Eastern Europe in the Emerging Global (Dis)Order
Transitions, ruptures, and watersheds — the region as prism for understanding a world reordering itself.
Conference theme 2026
The Emerging Global (Dis)Order
As we find ourselves in the midst of an emerging new world order, the aim of this conference is to enable scholarly discussions regarding how the Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe contribute to our understanding of the latest global reconfiguration of international relations, epistemic frameworks and technological possibilities: its transitions, ruptures, and watersheds.
— Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks
The Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe are seen here as a prism through which the current changes in world reordering may be observed. While previously, Eastern Europe could be portrayed as the exceptional space of turmoil, the past few years have made it clear that the stability of the Western liberal order has always been an illusion.
We find ourselves between worlds — the old order dying, the new one not yet born. We ask: what is the emerging “time of monsters,” how does it take shape, with what consequences, and how do we resist?
The conference addresses the region both as an object of study and a laboratory of knowledge. It is here that we find “Orbán’s playbook” and “Putin’s playbook,” together with the different scales of counter-movements and practices of resistance to these developments.
We invite scholars to explore the co-occurrence of anti-liberal mobilisations, aesthetics of illiberalism, the role of Big Tech, populist communication strategies, and the hollowing out of democratic institutions — through ethnographic, cultural, and historical approaches.
Keynote speaker
Anton Shekhovtsov
Visiting Senior Fellow at the Open Society Hub for the Politics of the Anthropocene, Central European University, Austria
Abstract
Europe and the Competing Visions of Global Order
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, the wars in the Middle East, US claims on countries and territories in the Western hemisphere, the prospect of China’s take-over of Taiwan – these are symptoms of the terminal decline of the global order rooted in the post-WW2 international arrangements.
They are also moves in a struggle among global and regional stakeholders to define and shape the order that will follow, contending not only for dominance but also for the rules through which that dominance is exercised – great-power spheres of influence, a hierarchical multipolarity, a techno-oligarchic settlement. Largely united as a single market but fragmented on foreign policy and held back by nationalisms, Europe has mainly taken a backseat in this international competition facilitated and driven by frontier technologies and raw power.
Yet both Russia and the US seek to appropriate Europe’s civilisational heritage to underwrite their own legitimacy, while reducing the continent itself to a protectorate. What does this violent “interim time” demand of Europe, and how can it (re)claim its relevance in a new global order?
Dr. Anton Shekhovtsov is Visiting Senior Fellow at the Open Society Hub for the Politics of the Anthropocene at the Central European University (Austria), and director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity (Austria). He holds a PhD from University College London (UK). He is the author of the books New Radical Right-Wing Parties in European Democracies (2011), Russia and the Western Far Right: Tango Noir (2017), and Russian Political Warfare (2023). Shekhovtsov also published academic articles in the International Journal of Communication, Journal of Democracy, Russian Politics and Law, Europe-Asia Studies, Nationalities Papers, Patterns of Prejudice, and Osteuropa, among others. He is a columnist at EUobserver and writes the Substack “Towers of Europa”.
We invite papers on
Key Research Questions
Papers and panels are welcome in all disciplines. The following questions are illustrative, not exhaustive.
If the West and Global North thrived in the old order, who will prosper in the new one — and what does this mean for the Baltic Sea region?
How are various Eastern European “playbooks” adapted to new environments, by whom, and with what effects?
How are particular aesthetics — and counter-aesthetics — mobilised in service of the new world order? What cultural forms enable or resist it?
How does technology enable these transitions and ruptures? How has communication technology been weaponised — and deployed in resistance?
How are transformations of global capitalism — deglobalisation, financialisation, rising inequalities — implicated in regional and global upheavals?
What happens to democratic institutions caught up in this reordering, and what role does disillusionment with “the West” play?
How does militarisation and mobilisation in the face of threats from Russia, China, and others influence societies, institutions, and public discourse?
How do agents of illiberal reordering appropriate the language of rights and freedoms — and how can this be meaningfully countered?
Submissions
Call for Papers
Call for papers closed
Submissions were accepted until 15 August 2026.
+ View submission guidelines and registration fee
About the conference
The CBEES Annual Conference is the flagship event of the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies at Södertörn University, bringing together scholars across all disciplines to discuss research on the Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe in comparative and transnational perspective.
Individual paper proposal
- Title of your paper
- Abstract — 250 to 400 words
- Name, affiliation and email of any co-presenter(s) attending the conference
Panel or roundtable proposal
- Title of the panel or roundtable
- Abstract — 250 to 400 words
- Names and affiliations of all participants, including preliminary paper titles (panels: max. 4 presentations)
- Biographical note of the organiser(s)
Registration fee
We are committed to providing an opportunity to researchers with financial constraints to attend this conference. A registration fee applied to this edition: 120 EUR for researchers and 70 EUR for students, with waivers for scholars from Ukraine and Södertörn University.
For questions, contact confcbees@sh.se
Schedule
Conference Programme
The conference runs over two full days. Session rooms and speaker line-ups for each stream will follow as abstracts are confirmed.
- Registration and welcome coffee
- Opening remarks
- Keynote
- Lunch
- Panel Session 1
- Transfer to the museum in Stockholm
- Museum visit
- Panel Session 2
- Lunch
- Panel Session 3
- Coffee break
- Panel Session 4
- Coffee break
- Closing session
- Conference dinner
Getting here
Venue & Travel
Södertörn University
Alfred Nobels allé 7, Flemingsberg141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
The campus is located in Flemingsberg, 19 minutes from central Stockholm by commuter train (pendeltåg).
Conference history
Past Editions
The CBEES Annual Conference is now in its 12th edition.