On 6 April 2017, Paulo Casaca moderated a panel discussion entitled “Writing the textbooks in crisis situations: the Iraqi case”, in the framework of the BSIS Annual International Conference 2017, organised by the University of Kent in Brussels. This year’s conference theme was “The Disappearing State? Contested Governance in the 21st Century” and more than 130 participants attended the event.
This conference focused on the responsibility and legitimacy implicated in governing claims over a population; at the core of the question of who provides what and to whom? Understanding how states compete or engage with non-state actors involved in providing public goods traditionally of state responsibility (such as security, healthcare, justice, or education) is extremely relevant today. This conference’s theme participates in a broader debate aiming to understand what we could and should expect from a modern-day state, and aims to help in the development of more appropriate, coherent and efficient policy-making in the treatment of particularly pressing global issues.
