A Message from the International Studies Association (ISA President), T.V. Paul
I am happy to join the Global IR conference planned to be held in Cyprus in November 2016. The conference comes at a time when the world is pulled apart by fissiparous forces attempting to challenge the global order and the institutions such as the European Union. The Middle East in particular is witnessing brutal violence generated by reckless external military interventions, weak state syndrome, and terrorism propelled by violent religious ideologies. The possibility for the rise of demagogues in the West, including the United States into power has added to the urgency of deliberations among progressively oriented international relations scholars. The rise of China and potentially India are likely to be not so peaceful, despite their insertion into the globalized world economy. The failure of globalization to bridge income inequalities has generated many dangerous challenges. This conference comes at an opportune time when we need to think together as to the best solutions for resolving the collective action challenges such as economic disparities, ecological disasters, transnational terrorism, and weak state syndrome. The purpose of global IR is to generate a platform whereby the voices and intellectual works of scholars from different regions of the world are heard. It also serves a key function of bridge building between East and West and North and South. As a Western-dominated discipline IR has been reticent to offer theoretical answers to many puzzles and issues, especially relating to peaceful change and adaptation globally and regionally, due largely to the focus on stability and persistence. When do regions change for the better or for the worse is a major question to be answered. I am happy to join your major initiative in Global IR taking place at the Eastern Mediterranean University. I encourage scholars of all persuasions from different parts of the world to attend this important event and make their contributions to the ongoing debates and discourses on transforming IR as a global discipline.
T.V. Paul, James McGill Professor of International Relations, McGill University, Canada and President, International Studies Association, 2016-17.
Global IR, Multiplex Worlds, Regionalism: Taking Stock and Exploring the Future, 16-18 November 2016
Global International Relations (IR) not only challenges Western and American dominance in the discipline, but aims to serve as framework of scholarly debate that reconceptualizes agency as part of a Global IR research agenda.
The goal of this conference is to assess the contributions to date while deliberating and aiding in the development of the Global IR in the quest of broadening existing IR knowledge, particularly with respect to the 'second-generation' challenge of bringing the 'non-Western' in. In recent years, scholars have been called upon to work on this new agenda. The International Studies Association (ISA) dedicated its 2015 Convention to the theme, and the challenge was subsequently picked up by participants. Some of these efforts have recently been compiled in the Presidential Issue of the International Studies Quarterly (2016).
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