What is the primary focus of this congress?

The congress is focused on political science and international relations, providing a platform for academic discourse in these fields.

IX. Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Kongresi

Name: IX. Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Kongresi
Start: 2026-10-21T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-10-23T00:00:00Z
Location: Trabzon

Oct 21–23, 2026Trabzon, TurkeyIn-person

Registration open

The IX. Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Kongresi is an academic gathering focused on political science and international relations. Hosted in Trabzon, TUR, the conference serves as a platform for scholars and practitioners to present research, exchange ideas, and foster collaboration within these critical fields. The event aims to contribute to the ongoing discourse surrounding global political dynamics and international affairs.

Committees & topics

Topics
International Politics Studies · International Law Studies · Political History Studies · Regional Studies · The Climate Crisis · The Energy Crisis · Migration Debates · Cybersecurity

Why it matters

This congress holds significance as it convenes experts to delve into the complexities of political science and international relations, particularly from a regional perspective. Such academic forums are crucial for advancing theoretical understanding and practical applications in diplomacy and governance. By bringing together diverse viewpoints, the conference facilitates a deeper analysis of contemporary global challenges and their potential resolutions.

The discussions and research presented at the congress can influence policy considerations and academic curricula. The exchange of knowledge among participants from various backgrounds enriches the collective understanding of international phenomena, ranging from geopolitical shifts to the intricacies of statecraft. This collaborative environment is vital for developing informed perspectives on issues that shape the global landscape.

How to prepare

For those preparing to engage with the themes of this congress, a thorough understanding of current geopolitical trends and regional political dynamics is essential. Participants should consider how various actors, both state and non-state, influence international relations, drawing insights from lessons such as "hidden-stakeholders" and "what-is-stakeholder-mapping." Analyzing the motivations and strategies of these actors can provide a robust framework for contributing to the discussions.

Furthermore, developing strong "engagement-strategies" will be beneficial for networking and maximizing the learning opportunities presented at the conference. Attendees should be prepared to articulate their research and perspectives clearly, while also being open to diverse viewpoints. Applying "dynamic-analysis" to understand the evolving nature of international relations will also be key to engaging meaningfully with the presented topics.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Türkiye

As the host nation, TUR provides a significant regional context for the congress, offering insights into its foreign policy, regional security concerns, and its role in international organizations.

Role in topic

TUR's geopolitical position and its active engagement in regional and global affairs make it a focal point for discussions on international relations and political science. The country's experiences and perspectives are likely to inform many of the presentations and debates at the congress, particularly those concerning European and Middle Eastern dynamics.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

International Politics Studies

The study of international politics took shape as a distinct field after the First World War, when the catastrophic failure of the European balance-of-power system prompted scholars to ask why states go to war and how peace might be institutionalized. The founding of the first chair in International Politics at Aberystwyth in 1919, the interwar idealist–realist debate, and the post-1945 emergence of structural realism, liberal institutionalism, and later constructivist and critical approaches have shaped the discipline's core questions: the causes of conflict and cooperation, the distribution of power, the role of international institutions, and the place of norms and identity in shaping state behavior. Since the end of the Cold War, the field has had to absorb shocks that earlier paradigms struggled to anticipate: unipolarity and its erosion, the rise of China, the return of great-power competition with Russia, transnational terrorism, and the diffusion of power to non-state actors. Today's research agenda is dominated by debates over the durability of the liberal international order, the implications of US–China strategic rivalry, the weaponization of economic interdependence, and the integration of new domains — cyber, space, artificial intelligence — into the traditional study of statecraft and security.

Key players

International Law Studies

Modern international law traces its lineage to the Peace of Westphalia (1648) and the writings of Grotius, but its institutional architecture is largely a twentieth-century creation. The Hague Conventions, the League of Nations, the 1945 UN Charter, the 1948 Genocide Convention and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties built a layered body of rules governing the use of force, treaty-making, human rights, and the laws of armed conflict. The creation of the International Court of Justice and later the International Criminal Court in 2002 sought to give that body of rules enforceable judicial expression. Contemporary debates focus on the stress placed on these institutions by recent crises: the legality of interventions in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Syria; Russia's invasion of Ukraine and resulting ICC arrest warrants; ICJ proceedings concerning Gaza and the Genocide Convention; the application of the law of the sea to disputes in the South China Sea; and the regulation of emerging issues such as autonomous weapons, cyber operations, and climate-related state responsibility. The central question is whether international law remains a meaningful constraint on state behavior or is being progressively hollowed out by great-power exceptionalism.

Key players

Political History Studies

Political history as a field examines the evolution of states, regimes, ideologies, and political institutions over time. Its modern form was shaped by nineteenth-century European historiography — Ranke's emphasis on archival rigor, the rise of national histories tied to state-building, and later the Annales school's expansion into social and structural history. The twentieth century added the histories of revolution (1917, 1949, 1979), decolonization, the Cold War, and democratization, producing a vast comparative literature on how political orders rise, consolidate, and collapse. For scholars working in Turkey and the wider region, political history is inseparable from the late Ottoman reform period, the foundation of the Republic in 1923, the multi-party transition after 1946, successive military interventions, and the post-2000 transformation of the political system. Current research increasingly engages with global comparisons: the contemporary wave of democratic backsliding, the historical roots of populism, the long arc of imperial collapse and post-imperial state-building, and the use of historical memory as a political instrument.

Key players

Regional Studies

Regional studies emerged in the early Cold War, when US and European universities established area studies programs to generate expert knowledge on the Soviet bloc, the Middle East, East Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The field has since matured into a comparative enterprise that blends political science, history, economics, and linguistics to explain how geography, culture, and institutions interact within distinct regional systems. The end of the Cold War broadened its agenda from security-driven analysis to questions of regional integration, identity, and political economy. Today regional studies grapple with the rebordering of world politics: the EU's enlargement and internal crises, the redrawing of the post-Soviet space after 2022, the Indo-Pacific as an emerging strategic theater, the realignments of the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean, and the assertiveness of regional powers such as Türkiye, Iran, Brazil, and India. Climate change, migration, and energy corridors increasingly cut across traditional regional boundaries, forcing scholars to rethink the very units of regional analysis.

Key players

The Climate Crisis

Concern about anthropogenic climate change moved from scientific circles to high politics with the establishment of the IPCC in 1988 and the adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The Kyoto Protocol (1997) imposed binding targets only on developed economies, exposing the North–South cleavage that has structured climate diplomacy ever since. The 2015 Paris Agreement reset the framework, asking all parties to submit nationally determined contributions aimed at holding warming well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. A decade after Paris, the gap between pledges and emissions trajectories remains wide. The IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report (2021–2023) warned that 1.5°C is likely to be breached in the near term, while COP27 (Sharm el-Sheikh) and COP28 (Dubai) produced an agreement on a loss-and-damage fund and a first explicit call to transition away from fossil fuels. Disputes now center on climate finance for developing states, the credibility of net-zero pledges by major emitters, carbon border adjustment mechanisms, and the responsibilities of historical versus current emitters — disputes sharpened by the energy shock following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Key players

The Energy Crisis

Global energy politics have been shaped by successive shocks: the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, the 1979 Iranian revolution, the 1990s liberalization of gas markets, and the rise of unconventional hydrocarbons in the 2000s. Russia's role as Europe's principal gas supplier — formalized through pipelines such as Nord Stream — created deep interdependence that became a strategic vulnerability after the 2014 annexation of Crimea and especially the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. European gas prices spiked to historic highs in 2022, prompting emergency measures, demand reduction, accelerated LNG imports, and a structural reorientation away from Russian supply. The crisis exposed tensions between three objectives often labeled the energy trilemma: security, affordability, and decarbonization. Governments have responded with a mix of fossil-fuel subsidies, strategic reserves, and accelerated investment in renewables, nuclear, and grid infrastructure. OPEC+ production decisions, sanctions on Russian and Iranian exports, Red Sea shipping disruptions, and competition over critical minerals for the energy transition keep energy markets tightly coupled to geopolitics, while developing economies face the sharpest trade-offs between growth and emissions.

Key players

Migration Debates

International migration is governed by an uneven patchwork of instruments: the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, regional frameworks such as the EU's Common European Asylum System, and the non-binding 2018 Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees. Forced displacement has reached record levels — UNHCR reported over 117 million forcibly displaced people in 2023 — driven by the wars in Syria, Ukraine, Sudan, and Gaza, by state collapse in Afghanistan and Venezuela, and increasingly by climate-related stresses. Politically, migration has become one of the most polarizing issues in Western democracies, fueling the rise of restrictionist parties and externalization policies such as the EU–Türkiye Statement of 2016, the UK–Rwanda scheme, and the 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. Türkiye hosts the world's largest refugee population, primarily Syrians under temporary protection, and is central to debates over burden-sharing, voluntary return, and the integration of long-term displaced communities. The core dispute pits state sovereignty and border control against international protection obligations and the humanitarian and demographic realities driving movement.

Key players

Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity became a recognized state concern in the 1990s with the spread of networked computing, but its strategic salience grew sharply after incidents such as the 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia, the 2010 Stuxnet operation against Iranian nuclear facilities, and the 2017 NotPetya and WannaCry campaigns. Since then, ransomware against critical infrastructure (Colonial Pipeline, 2021), cyber operations accompanying the war in Ukraine, and large-scale supply-chain compromises (SolarWinds, 2020) have demonstrated that cyberspace is now an operational domain of inter-state competition. The UN Group of Governmental Experts and the Open-Ended Working Group have sought to clarify how international law applies in cyberspace and to promote norms of responsible state behavior, but progress is slowed by deep disagreement between states that favor a free, multistakeholder internet and those that advocate stronger state sovereignty over information. Current debates focus on attribution and accountability for state-sponsored attacks, regulation of commercial spyware, protection of critical infrastructure, the security implications of artificial intelligence, and the governance of submarine cables and cloud infrastructure.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for IX. Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Kongresi.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

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Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

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By committee

Frequently asked questions

IX. Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler Kongresi

Oct 21–23, 2026Trabzon, TurkeyIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
International Politics Studies · International Law Studies · Political History Studies · Regional Studies · The Climate Crisis · The Energy Crisis · Migration Debates · Cybersecurity

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Türkiye

As the host nation, TUR provides a significant regional context for the congress, offering insights into its foreign policy, regional security concerns, and its role in international organizations.

Role in topic