21 · JUNY · 2024

The ETHNICGOODS Project and the QoG organised a Workshop on State Information Capacity

The ERC-funded ETHNICGOODS project joined forces with the Quality of Government Institute (QoG) to organise a workshop titled “The Informational Turn in the Study of the State: Taking Stock and Moving Forward.” The event was held at the QoG Institute at the University of Gothenburg on June 12-14, 2024.

The workshop brought together, for the first time, a rapidly expanding community of scholars focusing on information capacity from various prestigious institutions across Europe, America, and the Middle East. Participating universities included IBEI, University of Gothenburg, Trinity College DublinLund Universitythe Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyUniversity of OxfordUniversidad de BarcelonaInstitute for Advanced Study in ToulouseUniversity of PennsylvaniaBrown UniversityUniversity of DenverTemple University, and NYU Abu Dhabi.

The Gothenburg workshop provided an occasion to showcase the research carried out within the framework of ETHNICGOODS. Matthias vom Hau, principal investigator of the project, and associate professor and academic research coordinator at IBEI, presented the first results discussing the impact of information capacity on ethnic diversity within state borders and social development more broadly.

The event was also a unique opportunity for the international information capacity scholarship to review the current state of research, identify the frontiers of the field, and explore ways to achieve greater synergy in empirical data collection.

Thank you to our colleagues at the Quality of Government Institute for co-organizing and co-sponsoring the workshop, and to all the speakers and participants for three wonderful days full of insightful and stimulating discussions.

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