The Academy is a place for discussion. With its different events – evening lectures, panels, summer academies and fireside chats – it aims to share ideas from its work and from the Fellows’ research with the public. It invites guests from science, politics and other areas of society to join in the dialogue.
Current
events
-
Summer AcademyThe Geopolitics of Disinformation
Social Media and International Relations
During the Arab Spring there was widespread enthusiasm about the central role that social media channels had played in the mobilisation of the democratic protest movements. Ten years later the euphoria over new, democratic opportunities for communication and political opinion-forming online has largely given way to disillusionment. It has now long been the case that the collective political movements being formed through social media are not just grassroots and democratic in kind, and they are using social media for populist, propagandist and at times openly anti-democratic disinformation campaigns. Their intentions and intitiators are becoming ever harder to trace: we can no longer tell bots from humans, while astroturfing mimics spontaneous grassroots movements in order to manipulate masses of people.
Read more -
Workshop
Social Media Impact on International Affairs
This workshop brings together academics from computer science, economics, psychology, sociology, and political science to exchange opinions on contributions each of the disciplines can make to mitigate the risks of (social) media-based disinformation and polarization in international relations and develop options for interdisciplinary cooperation to this end. Participation of politicians is also envisioned.
Read more -
Event
Ukraine – Russia
Identity and History in a Current Conflict
Russia is pursuing a war of aggression against Ukraine with the goal of forcing its disappearance as an independent state and of fundamentally altering the security architecture of Europe. At the same time, it has become clear how much the return of thinking in terms of spheres of influence builds on historical arguments, which were used by Vladimir Putin himself in 2021 in an essay more than 20 pages long. There he insisted that the Ukraine belongs to a Russian and Orthodox cultural sphere. The justification it has given for the invasion of its neighbour is also based on purported historical circumstances.
Read more -
Impulse
Lectures for the Consular Corps
On 15 February 2022, the Consular Corps of North Rhine-Westphalia was invited to the Academy of International Affairs NRW. There, Regine Grienberger, Ambassador for Cyber Foreign Policy at the Federal Foreign Office, spoke about Cyber Diplomacy. Political scientist Volker Kronenberg from the University of Bonn reported on his department.
Read more -
Celebratory Event
Opening Ceremony
At the invitation of the Minister-President of North Rhine–Westphalia, Armin Laschet, the opening ceremony of the Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie für Internationale Politik – Academy of International Affairs NRW was held on 25.08.2021. At the seat of the Academy at Bad Godesberg in Bonn, the Executive Director Mayssoun Zein Al Din welcomed numerous guests from the worlds of politics and research. Among those present were Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana, Jean Asselborn, Foreign Minister of the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, and the former Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, Rangin Dadfar Spanta.
Read more -
Summer Academy
Artificial Intelligence and International Politics
The first event, the Summer Academy ‘Artificial Intelligence and International Politics’, has already taken place. The Academy held a discussion with members of the scientific and diplomatic communities about the role of Artificial Intelligence in international relations. Individual lectures were broadcast online in a livestream and are now freely available as video or audio recordings.
Read more
