First Call for Panel chairs: Deadline 24th February 2006

Proposed ECPR section:
Comparing Organised crime between new and old threats

The ECPR will be organising its 4th General Conference in Pisa, Italy in September 2007. The ECPR Standing group would like to be present and organise a section dedicated to organised crime. The standing group has developed extensively since its last conference in Marburg, Germany, in 2003 and this would be the ideal opportunity to have an in-depth discussion about organised crime and for the group to meet. Therefore, the standing group would like to organise a section on the general topic of ‘Comparing Organised crime between new and old threats’. The idea behind this section is to encourage discussions about how organised crime seeks to imitate civil society, the economy and political systems in which it develops in order to better infiltrate, penetrate and coerce them. Thus, while terrorism is the 'new evil' and main policy priority for governments, organised crime carries on undeterred in a forever changing environment and this is what we would like to analyse. In particular, we would like panels which seek to investigate organised crime in a comparative mode and address its new characteristics. But we welcome all proposals.

Each section is made up of 10 separate panels each with their own theme. Each panel is made up of a chair, 3 paper givers and a discussant (who makes comments on the papers in order to forge a discussion). At this stage, we would like to ask people who are interested in organising a panel to come forward with an abstract of the topic they would like to propose and possible speakers who could be approached. If they have no potential speakers, we could then circulate a general call for papers after February and see who responds.

Please email your suggestions to Felia Allum (mlsfsa@bath.ac.uk) or Fabio Armao (fabio.armao@unito.it) before the 24th of February 2006. We will then organise a call for papers. The Standing group’s proposal needs to be ready for September 2006.