Thursday 14 Jun 2007

18.30 – 20.30, The Romanian Cultural Centre, 8th floor, 54-62 Regent Street, London W1B 5RE; Tel. 020 7439 4052, ext 102; e-mail: mail@ratiufamilyfoundation.com; Entry is free but booking is essential.

The aim of this presentation is to discuss the process of regionalisation in the Black Sea area applying a region building theoretical approach. Most of the literature on regions takes the existence of regions as given without asking how they come into being. I argue in this presentation that the Black Sea region is not a pre-given entity, but a construction of region-builders. For this paper, the role of three types of region builders is discussed, namely policy makers of the Black Sea countries, the European Union as an outside region builder, and transnational epistemic community. The process of region building has both an ideational component, reflecting the attempts to provide for the theoretical armature to imagine the region as a distinct entity having an internal coherence, as well as a material component, expressing the institutionalization of practical arrangements of regional cooperation. – Sorin Denca
Sorin Denca is a PhD candidate at European Research Institute, University of Birmingham.

David Webster, Director of the Anglo-Romanian Economic and Political Forum, will chair the discussions.

Organised by The Ratiu Foundation UK
More details on www.ratiufamilyfoundation.com.