On April 24, 2026, the conference “The Rise of the Civilisation States and its Implications“ was held at the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade
On April 24, 2026, the conference “The Rise of the Civilisation States and its Implications“ was held at the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade
On April 24, The Centre for British Studies of the Faculty of Political Science, the Anglo-Serbian Society and LSE IDEAS organised a conference entitled “The Rise of the Civilisational States and its Implications”.
The conference was opened by the dean of FPS Prof. Maja Kovačević who spoke about the history of educational co-operation of FPS with universities around the world, and also about its links with British universities. She pointed out that FPS had been traditionally focused on “the issues of democratisation, the rule of law, European standards, and academic freedoms”. She also mentioned an increasing number of FPS’s programmes in English and expressed hopes that broadening of academic co-operation with European and British universities would follow. She said she was glad that the co-operation with LSE IDEAS continued since the LSE IDEAS is ranked ad a leading European and global academic think-tank.
Prof. Christopher Alden, director of LSE IDEAS said he was glad that the co-operation with FPS continued, and mentioned late Prof. Christopher Coker, former director of LSE IDEAS, who was very much dedicated to that cooperation. He also spoke about the global topics covered by LSE and LSE IDEAS.
Prof. Slobodan Markovich, head of the Centre for British Studies gave an overview of co-operation between FPS and British universities since 1998, when Prof. Vukašin Pavlović launched the British-Yugoslav Summer School for Democracy. The special focus was on those activities that were initiated by Prof. Christopher Coker between 2004 and his death in 2023.
The first panel was entitled “The Rise of the Civilisational State and the Rise of the Illiberal World Order”. The panellists were Prof. Chris Alden, Prof. Valur ingimundarson of the University of Iceland, Prof. S. G. Markovich, and Peter Watkins of LSE IDEAS. The panel discussed the concept of civilisational states. While the first three panellists analysed the scope and contents of the concept, the fourth was focussed on how to connect the concept with practical issues. In the discussion that followed it was clarified that the civilisational states use the concept as self-definition, and that it was not something externally defined but the way how their elites see themselves.
The second panel was focussed on case studies of civilisational states. Prof. Vlad Mykhnenko of the University of Oxford spoke about the case study of Russia and analysed the most prominent theoreticians and activists who see Russia as a civilisational state, and what implications this may have for the self-definition of Russia for Russian elites. Dr Rohan Mukherjee, Deputy Director of LSE IDEAS, discussed the case of India, and Dr Lukas Fiala of LSE IDEAS spoke about China. All the three cases it was shown are specific and unique, and India is additionally different due to the fact that its democratic capacity exists while nothing similar may be found in Russia and China. Finally, Dr Müjge Küçükkeleş of SOAS, spoke about her ethnographical work in Turkey and how much concepts of this kind may or may not influence the way local people see their state. Her point was that the most influential Islamicist discourse in Turkey has serious limits because it was able to define what Tukey should not be, but not what it should be.
The third and fourth panels were connected and panellists discussed how liberal actors react to the concept of civilisation, and what impact it could have on nation-states and democracy. Prof. Wolfgang Schmale spoke about the history of self-definitions of the European Economic Community/European Union and challenges that they posed. He also discussed connections of these definitions with culture and with the concept of civilisation. Prof. Alexander Evans of LSE spoke about the challenges to the liberal international order and what the concept of the civilisational state could mean in that sense. Finally, Prof. Spyros Economides of LSE spoke about the problems that the concept of the civilisational states makes in relations to older and better defined concepts in IR such as the concept of great powers. The last panel was added to the third one, and in it Dr Giulia Grillo of LSE IDEAS also analysed implications the concept of civilisational states, while Dr Eric Beckett Weaver of the University of Debrecen spoke about the case study of Hungary in which Fidesz tried to import new narratives from Russian civilisational state that run contrary to widely held self-definitions of Hungary which, in his opinion, contributed the recent crushing defeat of this party.
Plans for an edited volume from this conference were announced at the end of the conference by Prof. Christopher Alden. Prof. S. G. Markovich thanked the sponsors of the conference LSE IDEAS and the Open Society Foundations – Western Balkans.
On Saturday, April 25, a special programme was organised for the panellists who enjoyed a study tour of the Museum of African Art followed by a sightseeing tour of historical sights of Belgrade organised by S. G. Markovich.
