Dates: 11-13 June 2026

Location: University of Münster

Organizers: Association for Political History (APH), Research School Political History (RSPH/OPG), Utrecht University: Security History Network/History of International Relations (SHN), University of Münster: Centre for Empire Studies (CES) and ZNS Centre for Dutch Studies

We welcome proposals for Panels (3-4 panellists), Papers (in mixed panels), and Posters.
Specific requirements are explained below. Please direct your questions and send your
proposals to: Dr. Lotte van Hasselt (RSPH/OPG), bureau@onderzoekschoolpolitiekegeschiedenis.nl.

Empire Studies has been one of the most productive research areas of recent years and
historians in this field working from security, colonialism, migration, state formation, the history of law and other angles are making valuable contributions to the history of the political. At the conference we aim to showcase and discuss the ongoing “dynamizing and decentring” impulses in current historical research on empires and examine how these developments intersect with and push forward broader efforts to recalibrate the history of the political.

As one of the most prominent definitions of concept has it, “empires” are in
themselves “large political units, expansionist or with a memory of power extended over space, polities that maintain distinction and hierarchy as they [attempt to] incorporate new people” (Burbank & Cooper, 2010, 8). In consequence, historians often tend to focus on individual empires and their internal structures and processes. Yet they also existed in direct relations to each other, exerting mutual influence and steering one another’s policies. Throughout history, their drive towards political and/or economic control across and beyond their vaguely delineated territories tended to deem contact zones between empires sites of predatory contestations, competitions and reluctant alliances.

In this conference we highlight the role of empires in world politics, not just as
conquering entities on their own, but in the way they were embedded within webs of
“transimperial” cooperation. Beatrice de Graaf, Ozan Ozavci and Erik de Lange have for instance established that rivalling empires often cooperated within large scale transimperial security regimes (De Graaf, Ozavci, De Lange 2025). By stressing this, we borrow from Daniel Hedinger and Nadin Heé, in trying to “dynamize and decentre the history of empires both on the level of empirical research and historiographical analyses” (Hedinger & Heé, 2018, 30). Next to that, we are inspired by Christoph Kamissek and Jonas Kreienbaum’s conceptualization of the circulation of knowledge between empires (Kamissek & Kreienbaum, 2016).

lt was especially in the modern era, i.e. from the late eighteenth century, that new
operative categories and hierarchies that structured transimperial encounters emerged. Alliances between empires had been part and parcel of seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury maritime warfare, but they had remained purely functional, fleeting and unreliable, limited to situations of war alone. Then, in 1814-15, during the peace conferences in Paris and Vienna, a design for collective security in peacetime was rolled out, resting on a formal distinction between the Great Powers and the lower-rank polities.

Contact zones between these different imperial powers were then reconfigured in a
manner to foster cooperation. ln-between spaces were no longer deemed as sites of
predatory contestation, competition and war alone. Even though previous eras had also seen military alliances and aid, now, for the first time, among the Great Powers security regimes as well as diplomatic, economic, financial, scientific and legal international institutions were forged – later to be opened to imperial newcomers.

A set of procedures that were to operate as codes of conduct and rules of behaviour
of these regimes and institutions took shape all over the world. Imperial competition became increasingly regulated. Norms were endorsed to maintain peace and order. These included “self-restraint, consultation in times of crisis, willingness to act together and its corollary refusal to act unilaterally, and constant assurances of one another of their pacific intent and commitment to the maintenance of stability” (Richardson, 1999, 51). Furthermore, institutions were created, that served the exchange of knowledge
between empires and in turn constituted contact zones themselves. Examples include the lnstitut Colonial International, the International Maritime Bureau or the Permanent Mandate Commission of the League of Nations.

Regarding the 2026 conference, we are therefore specifically interested in proposals
for panels, papers and posters on instances where empires cooperated, on moments of
conference diplomacy, on multilateral ways in dealing with crises, on circulating knowledge and experiences in formal and informal forums and on any other discourse regarding the assertion or contestation of imperial interests as well as governance, especially but not exclusively in geographical as well as institutional contact zones between imperial powers.

Topics could be, among others: non-intervention, mutual consultation and collective
decision-making, creation of so-called “buffer states”, interventions and multilateral action, mediation and conflict resolution, communication and provision of advance notification, circulation of information and knowledge, cooperation in the regulation of infrastructure and mobility of goods and persons, in fighting disease or crime or in different efforts of standardization. Finally, we welcome not only proposals on institutions, actors and practices shaped by (often European) empires, but also those on non-Western practices of cooperation in (post-)imperial spaces, for example in the field of polities, economy, religion, humanitarianism or
other solidarity movements.

As Ulrike von Hirschhausen and Jörn Leonhard have recently noted “it seems as
though empires have returned to our world” (von Hirschhausen & Leonhard, 13). For
historians this has certainly been one reason to recently heighten their engagement with empires. The result is impressive: research programs, institutions, study programs and, of course, publications abound. The time is here to take stock of these accomplishments and what they imply for the broader field of the history of the political.

Panels, Papers, and Posters:
As stated above, we welcome proposals for panels that discuss the topic of empire in the broadest sense and are embedded in the field of political history. Specific requirements to meet in your proposals:

• Panels: Please send us either proposals for a single panel of two hours (3-4
  panellists), or a pair of interconnected panels (6-8 panellists). Each panel has a chair
  and a discussant. Proposals for panel sessions contain:
  • a position paper describing the topic, main puzzle, and its relevance for the
    study of empires in connection with the history of the political (maximum 500
    words);
  • a list of proposed panellists (preferably a mix of junior – graduate, PhD – and
    more advanced scholars), a short biographical note on each of them (about 50
    words), and a 100-word summary of their papers; and
  • the name of both the chair and the discussant and their affiliation.
• Papers: Send us a brief description (name, affiliation, paper title, main question,
  content, and a short biographical note; no more than 250 words).
• Posters: Early-career historians especially are encouraged to present their work-inprogress in a poster format. Send us a brief description (name, affiliation, title, main
  question, content, and a short biographical note; no more than 250 words).
  
• Please direct your questions and send your proposals to: Dr. Lotte van Hasselt
  (RSPH/OPGH), bureau@onderzoekschoolpolitiekegeschiedenis.nl
  
• Practical information:
  Proceedings will open on Thursday, 11 June, 4 PM, and close on Saturday, 13 June 2026, 1PM CET approximately. As your local host, the University of Münster, will assist attendees in finding accommodation. We aim to subsidise those unable to finance their participation and are currently collecting funds. Expect further information on this and on potential fees after application.
• Organizing Committee:
  Prof. Dr. Beatrice de Graaf, Dr. Lotte van Hasselt, Dr. Erik de Lange, Dr. Kevin Lenk,
  Prof. Dr. Silke Mende, and Prof. Dr. Jacco Pekelder.
• Cited works:
• Burbank, J., & Cooper, F. (2010). Empires in World History. Princeton University Press,
  Princeton etc.
• De Graaf, B.A., Ozavci, 0. & De Lange, E. (2025). Securing Empire: Imperial
  Cooperation and Competition in the Nineteenth Century, Bloomsbury, Londen.
• Hedinger, D., & Heé, N. (2018). ‘Transimperial History – Connectivity, Cooperation and
  Competition’. Journal of Modern European History / Zeitschrift für Moderne
  Europäische Geschichte / Revue d’histoire Européenne Contemporaine, 16(4), 429-
  452.
• Kamissek, C. & Kreienbaum, J. (2016). ‘An Imperial Cloud? Conceptualising
  lnterimperial Connections and Transimperial Knowledge’. Journal of Modern
  European History 14(2), 164-182.
• Richardson, L. (1999). ‘The Concert of Europe and Security Management in the
  Nineteenth Century’, in Haftendorn, H., Keohane, R.O., & Wallander, C.A. (eds.),
  Imperfect Unions: Security lnstitutions over Time and Space, 48-80. Oxford University
  Press, Oxford.
• von Hirschhausen, U. & Leonhard, J. (2023). Empires. Eine globale Geschichte 1780-1920. C.H. Beck, München.

By Margot Luyckfasseel, Burak Sayım and Marnix Beyen. 

From 18 to 20 June 2025, Power in History had the honor to host the 12^th annual conference of the Association for Political History. We took this opportunity to raise some critical questions with regard to our own discipline. Ever since the Annales school, political history has been denounced as being elitist and hence siding with the powers that be. The rejuvenation of the field as it took place since the last decades of the twentieth century has altered this by adopting a much broader concept of ‘the political’ and recognizing wider segments of society as political actors. Yet, the scope of those who identify themselves as political historians often remains limited to the North Atlantic world and the type of political modernity that has emerged in that part of the world, most notably since the 18^th century. Symptomatically, the Association for Political History itself is run by European historians and focuses nearly entirely on the history of the North Atlantic world. In the recent past, an enlargement of its scope to Central and Eastern Europe has taken place, but the Global South remained largely out of sight. It would be hard not to see this as a colonial legacy.  

With the conference “How to Decolonize Political History”, we wanted to change this state of affairs at thee different levels: institutional, thematic and methodological. Although a three-days’ event obviously does not suffice to alter the course of a discipline, we are convinced that we have opened promising avenues at each of these levels. At the same time, we were also confronted with unresolved challenges. 

At the institutional level, we managed to bring together scholars from the Global South and the Global North. We had keynote lectures by scholars from the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, North America and Latin America, and our paper presenters equally came from all the continents – sometimes, but far from always with a position at an institution in the North Atlantic world. In order to do so, we had to surmount several barriers, caused by the persistence of colonial hierarchies. First of all, the blatant wealth inequalities make it extremely difficult for scholars from the Global South – even those among them who are tenured – to make academic journeys to universities in the Global North. Fortunately, generous funding by the FWO, the Association for Political History, the Onderzoeksschool Politieke Geschiedenis, the Global Engagement Committee of the University of Antwerp and our own Department of History, as well as a system of voluntary fees, enabled us to offer travel and accommodation grants to those participants who did not have any institutional funding. 

Even then, getting to Antwerp turned out to be impossible for some of the participants – not for financial reasons, but because of visa restrictions. It is shameful to see to which degree citizens of the Global South are confronted with suspicion and with the bureaucratic arbitrariness and inertia of the Belgian diplomatic services. The most dramatic obstacle to reach the conference, however, was met by our planned keynote speaker Musa Sroor from Birzeit University at the West Bank in Palestine. Due to the genocidal war waged by the Netanyahu government against the Palestinians in Gaza – which is in many ways also a colonial war – he was unable to come to Antwerp. 

In thematic terms, the diversity of the conference was too wide to be fully reflected in this short report (for the full program, see: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/conferences/how-to-decolonize-political-history/programme/). Both the concepts of decolonizing and of the political were expanded in different direction and to different degrees. ‘Decolonizing’ was not only dealt with as a historiographical duty, but also as a challenge to current-day societies and politics. Moreover, it was not limited to removing the traces of European colonialism. The legacies of Russian/Soviet colonialism, and even of Polish colonialism on non-Polish parts of central Europe, were being dealt with. In many of the papers, postcolonial regimes in the Global South themselves appeared as actors of (neo)colonial policies. In that sense, ‘decolonizing’ often came very close to ‘democratizing’, in the sense of removing the illegitimate power exerted by the powerful over the powerless. 

A general tendency among the papers was precisely the recognition of the political agency of non-state actors and practices, and hence the urge to widen the scope of ‘the political’ and of political history. What became clear throughout the conference, is that for many of the contributors, particularly from the Global South, ‘political history’ still was synonymous with a history of state institutions which tends to confirm the status quo. That the ‘new political history’ since the 1990s has tried to include many more political actors, seems to have gone largely unnoticed outside of the North Atlantic world. This is symptomatic of the lack of academic interaction so far, as well as the lack of attention that political historians in the North Atlantic have paid to actors and practices outside the European world. By bringing scholars from the Global North and South together, this conference has introduced a much wider array of non-state actors and practices than before into the realm of political historiography: not only charitable organizations, lobby movements and unorganized individuals, but also pre-colonial traditions and rituals in the fields of justice and governance.

However thrilling the vistas are to which this dialogue can lead, the question was raised whether such an anti-state bias is necessarily connected with decolonial approaches, and whether this can have unwanted implications. Doesn’t it entail the danger, for example, that also the redistributive mechanisms of the welfare state are rejected as being part and parcel of a (neo-)colonial state apparatus? How to integrate a nuanced vision of the state into a decolonial approach to political history remains a challenge for the future. 

Taking into account non-state actors and practices necessarily also entails the methodological question of how political historians can work with sources that do not originate from traditional state archives or elite actors. This question was not only raised during a separate panel but ran through a large part of the papers and discussions. Apart from oral histories, private archives and material objects, also the persistence of and even participation in precolonial practices were highlighted and discussed as potential sources. Since many of these sources imply a high level of personal investment by the researcher, the question of positionality was raised in many contributions and discussions. This question is central to many historiographical debates today, but the decolonial approach made its importance particularly visible, even for scholars working with state-generated archives. The urgency of this matter became most obvious during the keynote speech of Jihane Sfeir about the pressing need not only to preserve, but also to create sources about Gaza during the ongoing war of annihilation it is confronted with. 

The time was often lacking to carry on these discussions in a more profound way. We believe, nonetheless, that this conference has created new ties between scholars of different parts of the world in which this can happen. We were particularly happy with the willingness expressed by the board of the Association of Political History to invite members from the Global South. If this extension truly happens, this conference will have substantially contributed to the decolonization of our discipline.

Piotr Kuligowski is an NCN-funded research fellow at the Tadeusz Manteuffel Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland.

He was a visiting PhD student at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland (2016-2017) and Université Paris-Est-Créteil (2019-2020); as well as a visiting fellow at the École Normale Supérieure, Lyon (2020) and Free University of Berlin (2022).

His research interests revolve around 19th century Polish and European history, history of concepts, parliamentary history, and methodology of humanities.

OrcID: 0000-0002-6251-0482

Recent publications include: ‘Communicating Utopia: Facets of the Concept of Social
Palace in 19th-Century France’ Rediscriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History
and Feminist Theory 27:2 (2024) 143-163, with S. Knapowski; ‘New Poland in the New World Utopian Settlement Project on the Polish Way, 1843–1853’ Canadian-American Slavic Studies 58 (2024) 408-427.

11th International APH Conference, 12-14 June, Södertorn (Sweden):

Political Histories of Conflict: Social Cleavages, Political Ideologies, Clashes of Sovereignty

By Tijn Sinke

Sometimes, when one finds oneself immersed in the life of long-forgotten thinkers or obscure social movements, the study of history can feel like something far removed from contemporary challenges. But at other moments, the weight of history on the present is glaringly obvious. It is the latter feeling that best describes the experience I underwent participating in the conference of the Association Political History, held on the campus of a university in a Stockholm suburb.

In its first years, the conference used to be aimed at PhD-students only, but since 2022 this model alternates with an event at which political historians in general can present their work. So, between Wednesday afternoon and Friday midday, the program was packed with keynote lectures and panel presentations consisting of three or four scholars with affiliated research subjects. I had the opportunity to present my research on 1970s Dutch conspiracy theories on World War II affairs (Menten, Aantjes, Velser affair), which was part of a lively panel on the far right and conspiracy theory. During the days, I have seen scholars from all corners of Europe and beyond, presenting such diverse topics as ‘Britain and Sweden during the Biafra crisis’ and ‘the concept of the ‘Bulwark of Europe’ in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw’ (from my fellow OPG-PhD candidate Adam Dargiewicz). 

Although there was an enormous diversity among the presented topics, one could easily discern a couple of recurring themes, which cannot be separated from contemporary anxieties about the future of liberal democracy. First, the rise of ‘illiberal democracy’, the far right and their competing historical narratives must be named. Istvan Rév,  professor at Central European University – which has seen heavy oppression from the Orbán government in Hungary – centered his keynote lecture around a particular version of ‘historical revisionism’; a conservative discourse centering around the frame of ‘totalitarianism’, obscuring differences between communism and fascism out of a fear for revolution as a means of political change. Rakesh Batabyal, a professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University India, recalled his own experience of being sidelined by the current Hindu-nationalistic government, which very much promotes their own particular version of history.

A second recurring theme was the Russo-Ukrainian War, which continues to cause unrelenting devastation to Ukraine up to this very day. The conference had invited a couple of Ukrainian scholars, whose presentations on topics related to the war were far more emotionally charged than your usual panel discussion. Russia was clearly the ‘significant other’ of the conference: a country whose impact is felt all around the continent, but which has mentally removed itself so far from its neighbours that the chances for any meaningful conversation seem extremely dim. Furthermore, we were lucky that the renowned historian Serhii Plokhii (Harvard University) was in town. He has attempted to write the history of a war which is still going on (his ‘The Russo-Ukrainian War’ is now available in your bookshop), and explained in a fascinating lecture how he has succeeded in such an arduous project.

Serhii also addressed the role of the historian in times of war and crisis, and underlined the historian’s task to offer counternarratives to the misuses of history, and of studying the origins of war, in its geopolitical and intellectual dimensions. The final roundtable of the conference also focused on ‘the role of the historian in the present time of challenged democracy’. The participants, amongst which OPG-board member Henk te Velde, shared their thoughts and dilemmas about this topic. Not unusual for a roundtable discussion, the audience was left with more questions than answers. When is reflecting from a detached position not enough anymore, and must one begin to defend democracy in a more militant manner? How can scholars interact with a new generation of students whose own political experiences have been so different? How do we leave space for pluralism without ending up in a sort of unproductive ‘both-sides-ism?’. 

These are questions every historian of contemporary politics has to reflect upon for themselves, but I am glad I have had the opportunity to learn from a wealth of different perspectives by visiting this conference in Södertorn.

Conference Program

Forthcoming Events
Everyday Life – Memory – Processing at the University of Vienna. Historical Sciences in Austrofascism, National Socialism and in the Post-War Period

Vienna, 10 – 11 November 2022

LAC History Seminar Series: As Assembly of Caudillos? The Rio Grandense Republic’s Constituent Assembly, 1842-1843

Latin America Centre, University of Oxford

1 December 2022

Indirect Diplomacy: Cross-Imperial Contacts beyond Courts

CSIC, Madrid
14 – 16 November 2022

APT 2023 Political Thought Conference

St Catherine’s College, Oxford
5 – 7 January 2023

Call for Papers
Paris as a Site of German Diplomacy (1868 to the Present)

Paris, 13 – 14 April 2023
Deadline: November 15, 2022

Gender and Otherness in the Humanities

Milton Keynes, 18 – 20 May 2023
Deadline: November 30, 2022

The 1952 German-Jewish Settlement and beyond. New Perspectives on Reparations During and After the Cold War

Vienna, 15 – 16 2023
Deadline: November 30, 2022

Nationalism, War and Defeat

Copenhagen, 25 – 26 May 2023
Deadline: December 1, 2022

Beauty and Power: Aesthetics, History, and International Law

Cambridge, October 2023
Deadline: November 25, 2022

3rd International Conference on the Military History of the Mediterranean Sea

Istanbul, 26  – 28 June 2023
Deadline: December 30, 2022

15th St Andrews/USTC Book History Conference on ‘Early Modern Publishers

St Andrews, 29 June – 1 July 2023
Deadline: December 20, 2022

British International Studies Association 2023 Conference

Glasgow, 21 – 23 June 2023
Deadline: November 14, 2022

Rethinking the Past and Present of Liberal Internationalism Workshop

London, 11 – 12 May 2023
Deadline: December 15, 2022

Crossed Gazes: Publishing and the Oltremare Between Colonialism and Post-Colonialism

Pavia, 8 – 9 June 2023
Deadline: December 23, 2022

The Futures of the Ottomans

Paris, 12 – 13 October 2023
Deadline: December 15, 2022

European Energy Shortages during the Short Coal Age (1860-1960)

Stockholm, 1 February 2023
Deadline: November 15, 2022

European Jews Facing the Imminence of the Holocaust

Warsaw, 23 – 25 April 2023
Deadline: November 27, 2022

Call for Chapters
From the Dnipro to the Danube: War, Diplomacy, and Political, Cultural and Social Relations between the Romanian Principalities and the Ukrainian Lands in the Early Modern Era

Deadline: November 21, 2022

Grant
European International Studies Association Postdoctoral Bridge Grants

Deadline: February 28, 2023

Fellowships
Gallia-Stipendium im Rahmen des Forschungsprojekts “Gallia Pontificia”

Deutsches historisches Institut (DHIP/IHA), Paris
Deadline: December 31, 2022

Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellowships in Politics

Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Deadline: November 28, 2022

Research Associate: Changing Global Orders

History Faculty and Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford
Deadline: December 1, 2022

Massachusetts Historical Society Fellowship

Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston
Deadline: January 15, 2023

Lectureship
Lipton Lectureship

Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Oxford
Deadline: November 27, 2022

Out Now
Journal of Contemporary History, Volume 57, Issue 4

The Historical Journal, Volume 65, Issue 4

Modern Intellectual History, Volume 19, Issue 3

Adrian Bingham, United Kingdom (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2022).

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