Global IR, Multiplex Worlds, Regionalism: Taking Stock and Exploring the Future will take place on 16-18 November 2016 at Eastern Mediterranean University

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).
This call for proposals incorporates both an assessment of contributions to date, but also welcomes further innovative approaches to broaden the agenda. In taking stock, paper proposals might consider the extent to which Global IR offers theoretical innovation. How do concepts including relationism (versus rationalism), customization, dialogues of civilizations, or regionalism differentiate Global IR project in building a coherent research agenda? Is Global IR complementary to or competing with critical theory and feminism approaches? How does Global IR position itself vis-a-vis ‘mainstream’ theories and the relatively popular constructivist approaches of recent decades? Are there methodological approaches that help us overcome the parochialism of western universalism?
A significant theme for Global IR scholars relates to the form of international change. What will the emerging world order look like? Is it possible to talk about the decline of the American led hegemony and the replacement of this order with a multipolar system? Global IR scholars are increasingly defining the world order as a multiplex world that includes multiple key actors/producers/directors whose relationships are defined by complex forms of interdependence. Hence the key players in international politics today go beyond great powers and also encompass regional powers, international institutions, non-state actors and
multi-national corporations.

The conference will focus specifically on the question of conflicts and social and political transformations in the Middle East within this new context. How will a Middle East in a post-Western ‘Multiplex World’ Order look like? What will this mean for those Arab countries that experienced uprisings since 2010? How will the ongoing conflicts in the region such as the one in Syria and the so-called “cold conflicts” such as the one in Cyprus be affected by this Multiplex World’ Order?