On Monday 29 January 2018, the Natolin European Centre organized an international conference entitled "How deeply does the current crisis affect identity and values of the West?" at the Natolin campus of the College of Europe. It is a part of a wider research project implemented by the foundation.
The conference was devoted to the role of identity, security, values and ethics in comprehension of the condition of the contemporary Western world and examined the question whether it is important to include the humanistic context in the research on crisis. The recent changes taking place in Europe and reactions to current crises (such as migration, democracy, geopolitics, economic and social order) have shown the growing importance of culture, identity and memory in democratic politics, exceeding the bounds of any strategic culture theory. This raises an important question whether the current crisis results in making the identity and values, as well as their cultural and historical context, an independent explanatory variable of political behaviours and decisions in public and in politics.
The programme of the conference is available here.