Rethinking the Standard(s) of Civilisation(s) in International Relations

19-20 October 2013
London School of Economics and Political Science

Abstract proposals due: 7 June, 2013

The annual conference for volume 42 of Millennium: Journal of International Studies will take place on 19-20 October, 2013, at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

The theme of this year’s conference will focus on the standard(s) of civilisation(s) in International Relations. In recent years, there has been a renewed scholarly interest in the concept of ‘the standard of civilisation’ in examining international norms, practices and policies entrenched in world politics, including international law, human rights, the status of women, good governance and globalisation, global markets, the EU policy of ‘membership conditionality’, and state-building.

These are only some of the key aspects of international relations that illustrate the crucial relationship between civilisation and standards of conduct in global politics.

In addition to these topics, the conference will ask crucial questions about western modernity and Eurocentrisism in international relations, democracy promotion, civilisational discourses and identities, the rise of Asia, postcoloniality and globalisation, the eurozone crisis and market civilisation, war and genocide, and empire and civilisation.
In contrast to mainstream International Relations theories, the conference seeks to highlight the normative asymmetries of power and hierarchies embedded in “civilisational” practices, norms and discourses of global politics. In doing so, the conference aims at critically engaging with the concept of the standard of civilisation and investigating further the ways in which it remains relevant to the study of international relations today.

Confirmed speakers:

Keynote Speaker: John Hobson (University of Sheffield)

Opening and Closing Panels:

Brett Bowden (University of Western Sydney)

Edward Keene (University of Oxford)

Shogo Suzuki (University of Copenhagen)

Individuals interested in presenting a paper are requested to submit a 300 word abstract to: millennium@lse.ac.uk by 7 June, 2013. Submissions for panels are also welcome.

A selection of the conference papers will be published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, volume 42, no. 3.

Photo credit: “The Signing and Sealing of the Treaty of Nanking in the State Cabin of H. M. S. Cornwallis, 29th August, 1842” (detail). Painted by Capt. John Platt

For two inter-linked, consecutive workshops under the theme of Subjects and Practices of Resistance to be held 9-11 September 2013 at University of Sussex.

The first workshop (9-10 Sept) is on Discipline(s), Dissent and Dispossession and the second on Counter-Conduct in Global Politics (10-11 Sept).  The workshop convenors encourage attendance at both workshops.  However, paper proposals should specify the intended workshop and which days participants would be able to attend.

The workshops are generously sponsored and supported by the BISA Poststructuralist Politics Working Group (PPWG) and the Centre for Advanced International Theory (CAIT) at the University of Sussex

Workshop 1: Discipline(s), Dissent and Dispossession

9-10 September 2013

Contemporary struggles against dispossession – from the 2011 Occupy movement to ongoing land rights conflicts in the Ecuadorian rainforest – not only remind us of existing forces of domination and exploitation, but also challenge the ready-made concepts and frameworks through which such struggles are often interpreted.   Building on a previous project – “Disciplining Dissent”* – this workshop aims to open up discussion on the intersections between the politics of resistance and the politics of knowledge. How might we conceptualise dissent or resistance in ways that are sensitive to the social and epistemic relations within which anti-systemic struggles are embedded? How might we frame the complementarity and tensions between political dissent and intellectual critique? How might available concepts and frameworks occlude the complex interplay between resistance and repression, discipline and dissent, obscuring what is at stake politically in existing practices of struggle?

We welcome contributions that consider these themes from diverse theoretical perspectives and academic disciplines, including international relations, international political economy, sociology, philosophy, geography and anthropology.

Questions that might be addressed include (but are not limited to): how is dissent rendered intelligible in ways that serve to contain, nullify or depoliticize struggles; the politics of knowledge in political dissent; the place of normative political critique in the absence of universal categories or emancipatory blueprints; the ways in which dissenting communities are building their own theories of dissent or are theorising out of their own dissenting practices; the forms of subjectivisation incited, subverted or arrested through practices of dissent and/or their relation to the types of dissenting subjects assumed by intellectuals and experts; the ways in which academic disciplines interpret, appropriate and discipline both dissent and critique; the nature and purpose of academic critique at a moment of austerity and economic “crisis”.

It is hoped that the workshop will serve as a basis for a journal special issue, as well as for further collobarations around these themes.

Abstracts of approx. 300 words should be sent to L.Coleman@sussex.ac.uk and cait@sussex.ac.uk by 31 May 2013 (please indicate whether or not you plan to attend both workshops).  

Convenors:

Lara Montesinos Coleman, University of Sussex

Doerthe Rosenow, Oxford Brookes University

Karen Tucker, University of Bristol

*published as Lara Montesinos Coleman and Karen Tucker (eds.), Situating Global Resistance: Between Discipline and Dissent (Abingdon: Routledge, 2012) and as a special issue of Globalizations 8:3 (2011).

Workshop 2: Counter-Conduct in Global Politics: Theories and Practices

10-11 September 2013

Resistance, and its study, is on the rise. Protesting, agitating, dissenting, and occupying inter alia have received increased attention and theorisation in the past tumultuous decade since 11 September 2001. However, such academic and public attention has tended to focus on the visible and politically discernible practices of dissent against sovereignty, economic exploitation, dispossession and other forms of oppression. Little systematic attention has been paid to potentially less visible practices of resistance or those who do not participate in an expressly political register but that attempt to resist ‘power that conducts’ (Foucault 2007). To this end, the workshop has four main aims. First, to theoretically develop, refine and critically interrogate the concept and theorisation of ‘counter-conduct(s)’, a term that, until recently, has received scant attention within the social sciences. We encourage the further critique, development and modification of Foucault’s initial attempts to understand subjects’ ‘possible inventions’ as counter-conduct (1982, 2007). Second, to provide a space in which empirical, multi-disciplinary investigations of counter-conduct in a variety of thematic areas and spaces of global politics can be presented. Third, to facilitate reflection on the variable and contingent forms of counter-conduct, examining its close relationship with conducting power and revealing the processes of invigilation of resistance and adjustment of conducting strategies. Finally, to reflect on the methodological implications and issues, which affect the study of the variegated practices of counter-conduct.

We welcome contributions that consider these themes not only from a Foucaultian perspective but also that bring diverse theoretical perspectives  — and views from a variety of academic disciplines, including politics, international relations, international political economy, sociology, political theory and philosophy, geography and anthropology – to bear on the study of counter-conduct.

Format: consisting of longer paper presentations, followed by substantial constructive feedback from discussants and audience, the format of the Counter-Conduct in Global Politics workshop aims to facilitate intensive and extensive engagement among participants with a view to producing article length contributions to a significantly placed journal special issue. Given the lack of systematic focus on practices and subjects of counter-conduct, it is hoped that such a special issue will engender further debate and consideration of the study of counter-conduct in global politics and potentially act as a reference for postgraduate and doctoral research as well. Abstracts of approx. 250 words should be sent to L.Odysseos@sussex.ac.uk and cait@sussex.ac.uk by 31 May 2013 (please indicate whether or not you plan to attend both workshops).

Convenors:

Carl Death, University of Manchester (as of August 2013)

Helle Malmvig, Danish Institute of International Studies

Louiza Odysseos, University of Sussex

Centre for Advanced International Theory

Department of International Relations

University of Sussex

Falmer

East Sussex

BN1 9SJ

E cait@sussex.ac.uk

T 01273 876615

Critical War Studies: emerging field, developing agendas

One day workshop, 11 September 2013, University of Sussex

What is left out when critical reflection on armed conflict is conducted under the sign of ‘security’? What are the forms of contemporary militarism? How can the discourses and practices of fighting, transition to ‘peace’, war preparation and military and strategic thought be engaged reflexively? How might militaries be understood as sites of subaltern labour, resistance and critique? How can attentiveness to experiences of war generate critical resources within international relations, sociology, geography, anthropology, history and other disciplines?

Multi-disciplinary proposals are invited for a one-day workshop convened by the University of Sussex Centre for Conflict and Security Research. The organisers welcome contributions engaging the idea of Critical War Studies, the themes outlined above and below, or suggesting other appropriate topics. It is envisaged that this will be the first of several events leading to opportunities for peer-reviewed publication.

Draft workshop structure:

Panel 1: What is ‘Critical War Studies’?

 What’s in a name? ‘War’, ‘security’ and the analytical status of fighting

 Critical approaches within strategic theory: who is strategy ‘for’?

 Theory and the experience of war

 War in/and society

Panel 2: Political Sociologies of fighting

 Technologies, transformations of war, transformations of self

 Subaltern military labour and military history in Europe and beyond

 Battle narrative and identity

 Gendering war

 ‘Normality’ and ‘extremity’ in fighting and dying

Panel 3: Contemporary militarisms, contemporary militaries

 Ideology contra experience: reflections on the policy/ practice disconnect in the war on terror

 Beyond the strategic studies/ peace studies divide: continuity and change in militarism after the Cold War

 The social construction of weapons

 Military orientalisms and the representation of violence

Deadline for proposals: June 7th

Queries should be directed to: Joanna Wood

E scsr@sussex.ac.uk

T 01273 876615

More details can be found here: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/scsr/news?id=18934    

Sussex Centre for Conflict and Security Research

Department of International Relations

University of Sussex

Falmer, Brighton

BN1 9SJ

Professor F.S. Northedge

The deadline for the 2013 Northedge Essay Prize has been extended to Monday, 18.02.2013 due to popular demand. Submit your essay now to be in with a chance of winning and being published in Millennium!

The Northedge Essay Competition is open to any student who is currently pursuing or has recently completed a degree in International Relations or a related field. The essay may be part of a doctoral research project, an essay or dissertation submitted as part of an undergraduate or Masters’ degree course, a seminar paper or similar work.

The essay may be on any topic within International Relations or related areas of study. The essay must be doubled-spaced and of approximately 7,000 to 10,000 words in length. Essays must not have been previously published, or imultaneously submitted for consideration elsewhere. For undergraduate or Masters’ degree candidates whose essays form part of the requirements for a degree awarded by examination, essays must be submitted to the competition after the examination process has been concluded. Selected essays will be peer-reviewed and judged by the Editors on the basis of the essay’s contribution to the advancement of the field, originality of the argument, and scholarly presentation.

Sussex International Theory Prize

www.sussex.ac.uk/cait/prize

The Centre for Advanced International Theory invites nominations for the 2013 Sussex International Theory Prize for the best piece of research in International Relations published in book or article form in 2012.  The recipient will be invited to present their research in a Public Lecture at the University of Sussex and will also receive £150 worth of books from Cambridge University Press and a two-year print and online subscription to International Theory.

In 2011, the Centre for Advanced International Theory (CAIT) was established by the Department of International Relations within the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex.  The core mission of the Centre is to support and disseminate innovative fundamental research in international theory. 

To this end, the Sussex International Theory Prize is awarded annually for the best piece of innovative theoretical research in International Relations.  Last year’s Prize was awarded to Helen M. Kinsella (University of Madison-Wisconsin) for her book, The Image Before the Weapon: a Critical History of the Distinction between Combatant and Civilian (Cornell University Press, 2011).

In the autumn of 2013, the prize will be awarded for the best piece of research published in book or article form in 2012. 

Prize Details

Eligibility:

• The work should be in International Relations, broadly conceived – including sub-fields
• The work must have been published in 2012: judged by copyright date

Submission/Nomination

• The award is made annually on the basis of nominations by individuals, publishers and peers.
• Nominations should take the form of a statement of less than 200 words on why the work could be considered the best piece of innovative theoretical research in International Relations, from the previous year. 
• Nominators (including publishers) are limited to one submission. 
• If the nomination is for an article, the published version should be attached as a PDF document to the email nomination
• If the nomination is for a book, it is the nominator’s responsibility to contact the publisher and request that five copies of the title be sent by the nomination deadline to Centre for Advanced International Theory, Department of International Relations, University of Sussex, Falmer, East Sussex, BN1 9SJ, UK.
• Nominations can be made by email submission through to 2^nd April 2013 to the CAIT Administrator, Joanna Wood cait@sussex.ac.uk.  Nominated books must also arrive by this date.
• The recipient will be notified in June 2013.

Prize

• The recipient will be invited to present his/her research in the public Prize Lecture at the University of Sussex.
• The winner receives £150 worth of books from Cambridge University Press and a two-year print and online subscription to International Theory.

Centre for Advanced International Theory

Department of International Relations

University of Sussex

Falmer

East Sussex

BN1 9SJ

E cait@sussex.ac.uk

T 01273 876615

Articles 

• Luca Mavelli, ‘Between Normalisation and Exception: The Securitisation of Islam and the Construction of the Secular Subject’
• Anne McNevin, ‘Ambivalence and Citizenship: Theorising the Political Claims of Irregular Migrants’
• Jon Harald Sande Lie, ‘Challenging Anthropology: Anthropological Reflections on the Ethnographic Turn in International Relations’
• Daniel Kenealy and Konstantinos Kostagiannis, ‘Realist Visions of European Union: E.H. Carr and Integration’

Forum 

     Editor’s Introduction

• Hidemi Suganami, ‘Meta-Jackson: Rethinking Patrick Thaddeus Jackson’s Conduct of Inquiry‘
• Torsten Michel, ‘When One World Is Not Enough: Patrick Jackson’s The Conduct of Inquiry as a Narrative of IR Meta-Theory’
• Adam R.C. Humphreys, ‘Applying Jackson’s Methodological Ideal Types: Problems of Differentiation and Classification’
• Christine Sylvester, ‘The Elusive Arts of Reflexivity in the “Sciences” of International Relations’
• Colin Wight, ‘The Dualistic Grounding of Monism: Science, Pluralism and Typological Truncation’
• Fred Chernoff, ‘Science, Progress and Pluralism in the study of International Relations’
• Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, ‘Preparing the Grounds for a More Hospitable International Relations’

Review Article

• Aaron Ettinger, ‘Neoliberalism, the State and War’

The aim of this conference is to serve as a forum for developing and discussing papers that IFjP hopes to publish.  These can be on the conference theme or on any other feminist IR-related questions.

Feminists taught us that the personal is political.  International Relations feminists taught us that the personal is international.  And contemporary Queer Scholars are teaching us that the international is queer.  While sometimes considered in isolation, these insights are connected in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. This conference seeks to bring together scholars and practitioners to critically consider the limits and possibilities of thinking, doing, and being in relation to various assemblages composed of queer(s), international(s), and feminism(s).

Questions we hope to consider include:  Who or what is/are (im)possibly queer, (im)possibly international, (im)possibly feminist, separately and in combination?  What makes assemblages of queer(s), international(s) and feminism(s) possible or impossible?  Are such assemblages desirable – for whom and for what reasons?  What might these assemblages make possible or impossible, especially for the theory and practice of global politics?

We are interested in papers and panels that explore these questions through theoretical and/or practical perspectives, be they interdisciplinary or located within the discipline of International Relations.

Sub-themes include (Im)Possibly Queer/International/Feminist:

• Heteronormativities/Homonormativities/Homonationalisms
• Embodiments/Occupations/Economies/Circulations
• Temporalities/‘Successes’/‘Failures’
• Emotions/Desires/Psycho-socialities
• Technologies/Methodologies/Knowledges/Epistemologies
• Spaces/Places/Borders/(Trans)positionings
• States/Sovereignties/Subjectivities
• Crossings/Migrations/Trans(gressions)
• (In)Securities

We invite submissions for individual papers or pre-constituted panels on any topic pertaining to the conference theme and sub-themes. We also welcome papers and panels that consider any other feminist IR-related questions.

Any inquiries should be addressed to the conference coordinator, Joanna Wood, at cait@sussex.ac.uk

Abstracts should be no more than 250 words.

Deadline for submissions: January 31, 2013

We will, however, confirm acceptance of submissions before the deadline if we receive abstracts early.  Early submission is therefore recommended.

Please submit your abstract here.

The conference website is http://ifjp2013.wordpress.com 

There is a pre-conference workshop organised by The Sussex Centre for Cultural Studies – Queer, Feminist and social media praxis - on 17 May 2013. The keynote speaker is Professor Alex Juhasz (Pitzer College US, Fembot) and the Conference Directors are Dr Aristea Fotopoulou and Professor Sally R Munt (University of Sussex). 

You can find the call for papers here: Queer, Feminist and social media praxis Workshop. Please note this event requires separate registration and payment from IFjP 2013. Please contact the workshop organisers at r.tavernor@sussex.ac.ukwith any queries. 

Convened by: 

Heidi Hudson, Laura Sjoberg, Cynthia Weber, Co-Editors IFjP 

Bringing Nature Back In: Geopolitical Theory from the Greeks to the Global Era

Global Village Sovereignty: Intergenerational Sovereign Publics, Federal-Republican Earth Constitutions, and Planetary Identities

Geopolitics and Change

Geopolitics as Theory: Historical Security Materialism

Professor F.S. Northedge

The 28th Northedge Essay Competition is now open. The deadline for submissions is Friday, 1 February 2013. Submissions and other enquiries should be sent via email to millennium@lse.ac.uk.

Established in 1986 to commemorate the invaluable contribution of the late Professor F.S. Northedge to the creation of Millennium, the annual Northedge Essay Competition furthers a Millennium tradition of publishing well-argued student work in a journal open to new issues and innovative approaches to International Relations. The winning essay is generally published in the first issue of each volume.

The Northedge Essay Competition is open to any student who is currently pursuing or has recently completed a degree in International Relations or a related field. The essay may be part of a doctoral research project, an essay or dissertation submitted as part of an undergraduate or Masters’ degree course, a seminar paper or similar work.

The essay may be on any topic within International Relations or related areas of study. The essay must be doubled-spaced and of approximately 7,000 to 10,000 words in length. Essays must not have been previously published, or simultaneously submitted for consideration elsewhere. For undergraduate or Masters’ degree candidates whose essays form part of the requirements for a degree awarded by examination, essays must be submitted to the competition after the examination process has been concluded. Selected essays will be peer-reviewed and judged by the
Editors on the basis of the essay’s contribution to the advancement of the field, originality of the argument, and scholarly presentation.

International Relations Theory is profoundly entangled with the thought of classical theorists such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Their concepts and ideas serve as the universal foundations upon which the edifices of our discipline are built. Yet rarely are the core concepts we borrow from them problematized as cultural constructs that in and by themselves served to legitimate violence and domination. Beate Jahn has dedicated herself to unearthing some of contemporary IR’s classical underpinnings, linking contemporary intervention to classical constructions of self and other through philosophy. In this Talk, Jahn—among others—elaborates on the cultural construction of the state of nature; relates it to the identity processes at work in liberalism; and explains the importance of classical theory in International Relations.