The year 2026 marks a double anniversary for the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Bucharest: 35 years since the founding of its innovative, post-communist Political Science Department, and 20 years since the establishment of its Doctoral School of Political Science. This double celebration offers an ideal opportunity to evaluate both the evolution of Romanian political science and the challenges the discipline faces after its first decades of national research. At the same time, the current international political landscape is marked by a resurgence of autocracies, which, contrary to the context in which our faculty was established, now outnumber liberal democracies. This doctoral conference invites contributions that reflect on the challenges these multifaceted transformations pose to political thought.

The conference is designed as a forum and workshop for doctoral students to engage in academic analyses of the transformations that political science must address, ranging from the normalization of populist politics to the rise of nationalist projects and processes of autocratization. The theoretical and methodological approaches, as well as the empirical data mobilized by current doctoral research (conducted by Romanian PhD students and/or focusing on Romanian issues), will greatly benefit from this exchange of methods and analytical tools. We encourage PhD students in political science (including political theory, comparative politics, international relations, European studies, and interdisciplinary approaches) to address the questions outlined below or to propose alternative lines of inquiry.

• How can we understand and theorize the changing international order established on the aftermath of the Second World War?
• How can different theoretical approaches explain the ongoing reconfigurations of political regimes and global realignments?
• Which methodological instruments are best suited for contemporary political analysis?

The workshop will be held at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bucharest. Selected papers, subject to the authors’ consent, will be included in a special issue of Studia Politica. Romanian Political Science review, published by the University of Bucharest Press. Alternatively, papers may be published independently; in this case, an acknowledgment of the conference would be appreciated. Please submit your proposals by filling out the following form by June 22, 2026: https://shorturl.at/yFZvV

Key Deadlines & Details:

• Submission Deadline: June 22, 2026
• Notice of Acceptance: July 6, 2026
• Draft Paper Submission: September 10, 2026 (15–20 minutes presentations)

There is no conference fee. A limited number of travel and accommodation grants are available.