General Information

Training Program
„Regional Economic Integration, Local Decentralization, and Conflict Prevention: Perspectives for Democratic Progress and Stability in the Caucasus Region”
from May 30 to June 05, 2010
Supported by DAAD, Bonn

The Caucasus region is, like the Balkans and the regions of Central Asia, characterized by the conflicts which have ethnic-nationalistic and partially also religious backgrounds. The centralist policy behavior, linked with an often not functioning control by the democratic institutions, has resulted in a policy failure that states have thrown back again in the necessary transformation process. Only if the continuing ethnic-nationalistic discussions be overcome and a common supra regional economic area can be created again to transform the regional division of labour in a innovative way, the region of the Caucasus will be able to follow development successes that have appeared in the transformation process of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

The main purpose of the training program is to provide basic knowledge about the connections between cooperative strategies of international politics and the national democratic development as well as promoting dialog and collaboration among the young scientists from Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. This group can play important role as multipliers and future decision makers in policy and society in their home countries. In order to support these processes the training program provides a unique opportunity for English-speaking undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students from the Caucasus region to widen their knowledge of economic integration, institutional economics, democratic development, conflict prevention, financial markets and the modern political economy. The aims are not limited to presentation and discussion of the program content but also include the improvement of methodical and presentation skills. Altogether, the following four subject areas will be covered:

• Basics of the theory of economic integration
• Theory and practice of fiscal federalism
• Financial markets and regional development
• Modern political economy, stable institution and democratic development

Organisation

The Training Program is jointly organised by the University of Potsdam / Chair of Public Economics the Caucasian Institute for Economic and Social Research (CIESR) and the Iv. Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. It is supported by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The DAAD is the central agency of the German institutions of higher education and organizes and promotes international academic exchange programs.

We hope that you will find the training program interesting and relevant to your professional or academic needs. We will, of course, be glad to provide any assistance or guidance that you may require. For organizational help, please contact the training program-office preferably by email:
trainingprogram@ciesr.org