Dismembering Organised Crime: Identifying, Analysing and Countering

After the success of the ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime’s first General Conference in Naples in December 2015 and its second General Conference in Bath in July 2017, the Standing Group now welcomes the submission of abstracts for papers and panels to our 3rd General Conference in Sofia, Bulgaria.

The ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime (SGOC), in collaboration with the University of Sofia, The Centre for the Study of Democracy, and The Global initiative against Transnational Organized Crime invites you to its 3rd General Conference “Dismembering Organised Crime: Identifying, Analysing and Countering.”

The Conference will take place at the University of Sofia on July 5th-6th, 2019.

Our two keynote speakers will be:

• Dr Tuesday Reitano (Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime)
• Prof. Francesco Strazzari (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo and Scuola Universitaria Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa) are confirmed keynote speakers.

Conference Theme: Dismembering Organised Crime: Identifying, analysing and countering Organised crime is part of everyday life. It surrounds us in different ways, but it is not uniquely a feature of poverty but also a characteristic of modern 21st-century life. Organised crime connects and infiltrates all aspects of life, often without us even realising it. It devastates lives, neighbourhoods, local economies and distorts political life. The focus of the conference is the different manifestations of organised crime which exist today and the way we analyse, dissect, diagnose and examine it. This conference seeks to be a geographical and intellectual space where international researchers, practitioners, NGOs, think tanks and policy-makers can collectively dismember organised crime together from its different levels, dimensions, aspects, heights, disciplines and countries. It seeks to encourage the presentation of cutting edge empirical research which intersects different disciplines and topics as well as a discussion around the most effective and efficient methodologies that can be used.

This conference welcomes papers from researchers from all stages of their career as well as practitioners and policymakers.

We invite individual panels and papers addressing some of the following topics (other topics are welcome too):

• Gangs, organised crime and mafia
• Modern slavery, forced exploitation and human trafficking
• Criminal Logistics, Organisation, and Modus Operandi.
• Criminal mobility
• Politics, corruption, and symbolic power
• Organised crime, Prisons and technology
• Organised crime and the European Financial Crisis
• Freezing, forfeiture, and social reuse of criminal assets
• Women and Children in criminal and terrorist networks;
• Public Perceptions of Organised Crime – International and European cooperation in the fight against organised crime;
• Organised crime, Social Media and the internet generation
• Cybercrime, sextortion and the internet
• Big Data, Crowdsourcing, Spatial-temporal, and Computational approaches
• Environmental crime
• Money laundering
• Organised crime and artistic representations
• Organised crime in fiction.
• Organised crime and Public health

To participate in the conference, submit abstracts for individual papers or complete panels to the following website: click here

The deadline of submission of paper and panel abstracts is 1 March 2019.

All abstracts must be written in English, contain a clear outline of the argument, and, where applicable, methodology and results.

Individual papers To propose an individual paper, make sure to include the following information:

• paper title (no more than 20 words)
• author/co-author email addresses and institutional affiliation information
• abstract (no more than 400 words)
• 3-8 keywords, selected from a predetermined list, indicating the paper’s subject, theme and scope.

Panels All panel proposals must include 3-4 papers. Papers submitted as part of a Panel do not need to be resubmitted individually. Normally panels will include from a chair and discussant. To propose a panel, make sure to include the following information:

• panel title (no more than 20 words)
• 3-8 keywords for the panel
• abstract (no more than 500 words)
• email address of the panel and institutional affiliation information
• discussant’s email address and institutional affiliation information
• title (no more than 20 words) of each paper
• abstract (no more than 400 words) of each paper
• 3-8 keywords for each paper
• each paper presenter’s email address and institutional affiliation information
• each paper co-author’s email address (if applies)

Deadlines Call for papers opens: 1 October 2018 Deadline of submission of paper and panel abstracts: 1 March 2019 Notification of Acceptance: 1 April 2019 Registration opens: 1 April 2019 Early birds end: 30 April 2019 Registration deadline: 1 June 2019

Registration fees Conference fees include participation, lunches/coffee breaks and social dinner: ECPR Members 140 euros (130 euros early bird) ECPR Student Members* 120 euros (110 euros early bird) Non-ECPR Members 150 euros (140 euros early bird) Non-ECPR Student* 130 euros (120 euros early bird) *Students must send a copy of their student card or a letter from the Head of Department where they are enrolled to the Conference team by 15 April 2019 in order to pay a reduced conference fees.

All participants attending the conference must register and pay the conference fee. The conference fee payment is due immediately after registration.

If you would like to attend the Conference without playing an active role, you are more than welcome to do so. You will need to register and pay online before registration closes on 1 June 2019.

Registration will take place via the ECPR website. 

Cancellation/Refund Policy In line with the Office of Fair Trading and EU Distance Selling regulations, participants are entitled to a 7-day cooling off period, starting on the day that payment of the registration fee is received by the ECPR. During this period, participants have the right to a full refund of the registration fee upon cancellation. After the 7-day cooling off period and before midnight UK time on the registration date, participants wishing to cancel their registration will be eligible for a refund of 50% of the registration fee. Cancellations/withdrawals after the registration deadline will not be eligible for a refund. Refunds will be returned using the same method as the original payment

Organising Committee:

• Stoycho P. Stoychev (Sofia University, Bulgaria)
• Felia Allum (University of Bath, UK)
• Francesca Longo (Catania University, Italy)

Local organizing committee: 

• Dr Georgi Petrunov, Associate Professor, University of National and World Economy
• Tihomir Bezlov, Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Democracy
• Dr Atanas Slavov, Associate Professor, University of Sofia
• Dr Julia Rone, Assistant Professor, University of Sofia
• Dr Nikolay Yanev, Researcher, University of Sofia
• Desislava Nikolova, Student, University of Sofia.

For any questions or queries please contact the organising committee at: ecpr.sgoc@gmail.com