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Bielefeld,27-29 April 2007Organised by the Collaborative Research Centre/SFB 584 &#34;The Political asCommunicative Space in History&#34; (Department of History) and the GraduateSchool &#34;World Concepts and Global Structural Patterns&#34; (Institute forWorld Society Studies)Conveners: Mathias Albert, Gesa Bluhm, Jan Helmig, Andreas Leutzsch, JochenWalterTransnationalism has developed into a key research program in history,sociology and political science during the second half of the 1990s. Due to agrowing globalisation of everyday life, the transnational and/or globalperspective has established itself in the attempt to overcome the nationalparadigm, which was associated with a conceptualisation of nation-states andtheir societies as independent and self-enclosed entities.The conference primarily seeks to examine the construction, transformation andmaybe also dissolution of transnational political spaces as they areconstituted through language, social interaction and symbolic practices. Itfocuses on European and Western states and societies in the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries during which national identifications became increasinglychallenged by other representations transcending the frame of the nation.The aim of this conference is, furthermore, to stimulate and advance theinterdisciplinary analysis of political transnationalism by invitingcontributions particularly from the fields of history, sociology, and politicalscience. While the conference will have a number of invited papers, most papers will bedrawn from the proposals resulting from the present call for papers. Weparticularly encourage proposals aiming at the following five subject areas:1. The Communicative Construction of Transnational Political SpacesThis panel is concerned with the various ways in which political communication,discourses and semantics contribute to the construction of transnationalcommunicative spaces. Different perceptions of the political and oftransnationalism correlate in these linguistic constructions of reality. How dopolitical spaces develop when they are not primarily constituted of territorialunits, but when their changing interior structures and exterior boundaries areestablished by communicative processes? What is the role of the media in thesedevelopments?2. Civil Society and Governments. Who Are the Agents of PoliticalTransnationalism?Transnational political spaces can be established by different groups ofagents, state and non-state actors alike. Through communicative practices, theinvolved agents constantly negotiate which social groups are part of or areexcluded from a political space. How do these &#34;negotiations&#34; proceedon the transnational level where agents of civil society and governmentalagents representing nation states interact? What are their power relations? Isthere something like a politically active transnational civil society, or ispolitical transnationalism still dominated by governmental interactions?3. Methodological Approaches to the Analysis of Transnational Political SpacesDifferent national, linguistic and scientific contexts have generated variousapproaches to transnationalism such as comparatism, (cultural) transfer,histoire croisée, entangled histories, or global and world history, all ofwhich imply contrasting subjects of research and different conceptualisationsof the political and the transnational. Which are their advantages anddisadvantages? The aim of this panel is to assemble some of thesemethodological perspectives in order to relate them to each other and assesshow they might complement one another.4. Transnational Spaces and/or/in World Society? World Society Theory andGlobal History of the PoliticalAs the role of political space is experiencing a profound change in worldpolitics, the concept of world society may be helpful in understanding thisdevelopment. World society studies as inspired by Niklas Luhmann treat thepolitical system as an internal differentiation of a larger system. We wouldlike to ask whether there are ways of writing a history of world societyinstead of writing a history of globalisation as a summary of differentprocesses. Contributions discussing the changing role of space, its relevanttransnational semantics, the concept of world society and possible transfersbetween political transnationalism and world society theory are particularlywelcome.5. Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Political TransnationalismSpatial and temporal categories are interrelated - otherwise we could neithermeasure distance nor orient ourselves in space. Analysing the history ofpolitical spaces thus necessarily includes temporal categories. Likewise,reflecting on the emergence of temporal categories implies thinking about theiruse in spatial contexts. In this panel, we would like to discuss the connectionbetween temporal and spatial views in conceptions of the political. Especiallyproposals concerning the use of temporal categories in the construction ofpolitical spaces in national or universal historiographies would beappreciated.To propose a paper, please send an abstract of no more than 750 words by 31 July 2006to: cfptransnationalism@uni-bielefeld.deThe conference language will be English only.The conference seeks to discuss full papers. Thus, it is expected that papersaccepted for presentation will be delivered by 1 April 2007.Accommodation and second/economy class travel expenses will be reimbursed forpaper presenters.