BISA 2022 Conference (face-to-face)
from
Tuesday, June 14, 2022 (7:00 AM)
to
Friday, June 17, 2022 (10:00 PM)
Monday, June 13, 2022
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
9:00 AM
Virtual Conference stream - Please find the programme at https://indico.bisa.ac.uk/event/153/timetable/?view=standard
Virtual Conference stream - Please find the programme at https://indico.bisa.ac.uk/event/153/timetable/?view=standard
9:00 AM - 6:15 PM
6:00 PM
The Politics of Austerity: Global and Local
The Politics of Austerity: Global and Local
(BISA)
6:00 PM - 7:15 PM
Room: Curtis Auditorium, Herschel Building, Newcastle University
The Politics of Austerity: Global and Local
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
8:45 AM
The Limits of Safety – A Sound Installation: Find out more on our highlights page https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/highlights’
-
Michael Mulvihill
(Newcastle)
The Limits of Safety – A Sound Installation: Find out more on our highlights page https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/highlights’
Michael Mulvihill
(Newcastle)
8:45 AM - 6:15 PM
Room: Outside Student Union
9:00 AM
3. UK Defence Policy and Doctrine.
3. UK Defence Policy and Doctrine.
(War Studies Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
This panel brings together scholars who have a common interest in UK defence policy and British military doctrine. The challenges of foreign defence engagement and UK doctrine are analysed alongside the professionalism and internal dynamics of the British military.
BISA's Publications and Diversity
BISA's Publications and Diversity
(BISA)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
BISA's Publications and Diversity
Border, Bodies and Migration
Border, Bodies and Migration
(International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
This panel assesses the way bodies and death in the Mediterranean and at the EU's southern border have become a common occurrence in migration governance.
Future Challenges
Future Challenges
(International Law and Politics Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
Future Challenges
International Political Economy and the Middle East
International Political Economy and the Middle East
(International Political Economy Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
Given the role of oil as the quintessential strategic commodity and the wars in Syria, Yemen, and Libya, IR tends to analyse the Middle East from a security perspective. An unfortunate consequence is the relative dearth of literature approaching the region from an International Political Economy (IPE) angle. Rentier state theory remains the main conceptual contribution Middle East politics scholars have made to IPE, although this is beginning to change. Insofar as it suggests that oil wealth reduces economic, political and social pressures for democracy, the rentier state concept has contributed to the image of the Middle East as an ‘exceptional’ region. This roundtable encourages discussion among IPE scholars working on the Middle East. It is organised around a special issue in “Globalizations”, which approaches the Middle Eastern state from international political economy perspective. Rather than focusing on the states’ ‘homemade’ deficiencies, contributors seek to remove the exceptionalist mantle that often veils analyses of Middle Eastern states. The panellists will reflect on how their teaching and research on the Middle East contributes to key themes in broader IPE: racialised and gendered logics of global capitalism (Tilley & Shilliam 2018), understanding capitalist development beyond the dominant model characterised by ‘Eurocentric diffusionism’ (Anievas & Nişancıoğlu 2015; Tansel 2017), and the role of the periphery in global knowledge production (Helleiner & Rosales 2017). Finally, this roundtable also provides the opportunity of reassessing and possibly contesting conceptual binaries that have often shaped IPE analysis, including between rent and profit, between security and accumulation, between formal and informal, between legal and illegal, and ultimately the foundational one between inside and outside of a state.
Narratives, Discourses and Developments in Contemporary Russian Security
Narratives, Discourses and Developments in Contemporary Russian Security
(Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
This panel examines contemporary Russian discourse and narratives on security, ranging from an analysis of Russia and China as global security actors, to Russian narratives on security in and around Afghanistan and Russian approaches to conflict management using the example of Nagorno-Karabakh. Further papers discuss the centrality of democratization and human rights discourses in the US-Russia security relationship and the militarization of Russian society.
New Directions in Researching South East Europe
New Directions in Researching South East Europe
(South East Europe Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
With the efforts to globalise, provincialise, and decolonise International Relations (IR), scholars working on South East Europe (SEE) have both problematised the existing uses of SEE within IR (Mälksoo 2021), and pointed to SEE experiences as capable of illuminating diverse global developments (Hozić, Subotić, Vučetić 2020). As the world turns to emergency politics and questions of survival, it becomes crucial to further stay with this project of thinking from SEE as a space that has been, and still is, often understood through discourses of crisis. In this roundtable, we thus survey the new directions in researching South East Europe within IR. These new directions reflect on the hierarchies of knowledge production involved in identifying ‘area studies,’ critically engage with international political economies of post-socialist transitions, connect arts and arts-based methods within IR to shed light on the creation and transformation of political communities, and inquire into lived experiences of militarism. The roundtable thus imagines a global study of SEE — instead of isolationism, we use SEE as an epistemic space that allows researchers to remain attuned to the pressing questions of global politics. In opening space for the discussion of innovative conceptual and methodological approaches, we think through the politics of how international politics are made in and remake South East Europe.
Questioning Key Concepts in AI and Cyber Security Studies
Questioning Key Concepts in AI and Cyber Security Studies
(International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
This panel offers the opportunity to rethink some deep-rooted understandings within the fields of AI and Cyber Security studies.
Roundtable: Popular Culture matters in World Politics!
Roundtable: Popular Culture matters in World Politics!
(International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
Popular culture and world politics continues to grow as a subfield in international relations. While initial concerns focused on pedagogy, representation and inter-textuality for the purposes of determining how popular culture might help us to understand power and the sites through which it circulates, more recent work has begun to explore the materiality of popular culture and how its embodiment may also contribute to global political dynamics. Yet inspite of the growth of research into this field, there still remain a number of scholars who challenge the validity of research on popular culture and world politics, caricaturing it as ‘frivolous’ and ‘not the stuff of real politics.’ This roundtable explicitly offers a rejoinder to such thinking to explicitly unpack how popular culture might matter, when it might matter, where it might matter, to whom it might matter, and how its myriad influences might be assessed and/or perceived. Considering the broader aesthetic turn within international relations, contributors will also examine how aesthetic approaches provide additional insights into popular culture and world politics. Also questions of method and methodologies, as well as engagement with core concepts shaping how we might understand the popular culture-world politics nexus, will be areas of debate.
Strengthening Global Governance: How to Implement the Responsibility to Protect
Strengthening Global Governance: How to Implement the Responsibility to Protect
(Intervention and Responsibility to Protect Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: History Room, Student Union
This panel engages with various approaches (international, regional and local) designed to address the commission of atrocity crimes.
The Political Economy of the Pandemic: National and Global Responses
The Political Economy of the Pandemic: National and Global Responses
(Global Health Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
The COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in China’s Wuhan city at the end of 2019 plunged the world into a global crisis comparable to that of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Scientific breakthroughs in the area of vaccines and anti-viral cures starting in 2021 have reduced the death toll significantly, especially in high-income countries. However, the dissemination of vaccines to the global south has been slow. New variants may overwhelm the ability of existing vaccines to contain the disease. Given the substantial variation in state responses, it is imperative for students of international relations and public policy to investigate and comparatively analyze the strategies and policies of states, corporations, and national and transnational scientific communities. To this aim, the participants *in this panel will address the following questions: 1. What are the key factors that account for the variety of national responses to the pandemic? 2. What has been the relationship between scientific communities and power? To what extent has scientific knowledge been subordinated to the logic of power in general and economic power in particular? 3. In what ways do national and international responses to the pandemic reflect the neoliberal order in general, and the neo-liberal organization of public health in particular? 4. Is the return of the state here to stay, and is this a good or a bad thing? Will the political management of the crisis lead to more authoritarian forms of neo-liberalism, or will state intervention in the public sphere serve to revitalize social democratic ideas and policies? 5. Is the tension between fighting the pandemic and democracy substantive and real, or are appeals to democracy and liberty largely excuses designed to justify limits on state intervention? Where does privacy fit in this context, if at all?
The War on Drugs in Theory and Practice
The War on Drugs in Theory and Practice
(Political Violence, Conflict and Transnational Activism)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
**Panel Description:** The so-called ‘War on Drugs’ (WoD) remains an under researched agenda in International Relations. This is despite the issue intersecting across policy areas as diverse as public health through to national security, as well as the global to local dynamics involved. Increasingly, the death tolls within WoD are so high (100,000s of people in the last decade) that legal scholars, political activists, and some political parties have challenged the policies associated with the WoD, with some even arguing that the violence involved should be viewed as crimes against humanity. Against this backdrop, this panel aims to reassess the WoD in 2022, by analysing three key themes. The first of these themes is to examine the difficulties in unmaking the WoD, despite clear issues with its implementation and its apparent failure. Secondly, the panel will assess the critical role of the United States in drug diplomacy and violence as part of the WoD. Finally, the panel will look at notions of justice within the drug war, and how certain actors have sought to challenge its legitimacy. In looking at these three themes, the panel brings together five papers which focus on Bolivia, Columbia, Mexico, the Philippines, the United States, and the Western Indian Ocean. From a career development perspective, the panel brings together one Senior Lecturer, a lecturer, an independent researcher, a postdoctoral researcher, a PhD student, and is chaired by a Professor.
‘Un-Siloing’ Nuclear Weapons in an Age of Pandemic, Climate Crisis and Global Injustice: On the Need to Connect Existential Threats
‘Un-Siloing’ Nuclear Weapons in an Age of Pandemic, Climate Crisis and Global Injustice: On the Need to Connect Existential Threats
(Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
This roundtable will bring together participants working on the connections between the challenges of 'surviving' a nuclear armed world and other challenges of survival, including climate and global health. How can we research, teach and practice ways of addressing the complex intersections of challenges to our survival? In what ways does this survivalist thinking enable and/or limit political possibilities? This roundtable will bring discussions on gendered militarism, inequality, covid, climate and geoenginineering to bear on the potential for reimagining our (nuclear) future.
10:30 AM
Break with tea and coffee
Break with tea and coffee
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
10:45 AM
Can IR Survive? Should it?
Can IR Survive? Should it?
(Orphan Papers track)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Can IR Survive? Should it?
Can the 'Arctic' Survive?
Can the 'Arctic' Survive?
(War Studies Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
Since the end of the Cold War, the Arctic has been defined largely in ‘circumpolar’ terms: as an imagined region constructed around the territorial claims and common interests of the eight so-called Arctic states (A8) and their indigenous inhabitants. The circumpolarisation of the Arctic and pan-A8 cooperation was subsequently institutionalised in a variety of international bodies, most famously the Arctic Council in 1996. These events became the wellspring of ‘Arctic exceptionalism’ : the idea that circumpolar cooperation has brought an exceptional degree of peace to the region, insulating it from geopolitical turbulence in other parts of the world. This roundtable asks whether the status quo can hold in the face of rampant environmental and geopolitical change regionally and globally? Are terms like ‘Arctic’ and ‘Arctic exceptionalism’ still useful in a multipolar and contested world or are they relics of the heady days of post-Cold war liberal triumphalism? To what extent is it even still useful to think of the Arctic in circumpolar terms, given the many sub-regional differences – over indigenous rights, environmental issues, commercial opportunities, diplomatic relationships and military activities – that exist? Is it time to develop new terminology to disentangle these differences and plot a path for more nuanced decision-making? If so, how can that be done in an inclusive way, that respects first and foremost the people that call the Arctic ‘home’. To address these questions, this roundtable brings together a diverse group of scholars from International Relations and Political Geography to consider whether the ‘Arctic’ that emerged at the end of the Cold War can survive.
China and data security challenges: domestic surveillance and transnational governance
China and data security challenges: domestic surveillance and transnational governance
(International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Model Room 2, Civic Centre
This panel features how China has dealt with the rising data security challenges in global governance. The panel, on one hand, looks at how China's authority and social media platforms engage with data security domestically; on the other hand, it looks further into how China exerts its normative influence on global data security governance via the digital Belt and Road Initiative and the UN arenas.
Democracy, Decline and Decent Work
Democracy, Decline and Decent Work
(International Political Economy Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: History Room, Student Union
Democracy, Decline and Decent Work
Diasporas Around the World
Diasporas Around the World
(International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
In the growing literature on the governance of diaspora populations, most studies conceptualize it as something new, driven by recent globalization processes or emerging forms of governmental power.
Diplomatic Networking: New Approaches and Methodologies
Diplomatic Networking: New Approaches and Methodologies
(British International History Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
This roundtable features participants in an emerging collaborative research project which aims to facilitate new understanding of the development of the British Diplomatic Service c.1867-1967. The project draws on innovative methodologies, including digital humanities and prosopography, and is based on collaborations between academics from a number of different universities, as well as external partners, including the UK National Archives and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The starting point for the project is the digitisation of the Foreign Office published personnel records – the Foreign Office List and its successors. Based on analysis of this data, the project seeks to shed new light on: i) the changing social composition of the British diplomatic service; ii) changing attitudes towards developing staff ‘expertise’, whether regional (e.g. Eastern Europe, Latin America) or thematic (e.g. commercial, security, cultural); iii) examining how peripatetic career patterns could still allow a high degree of organisational integration based on iterated interactions between diplomatic staff both in London and in post abroad. The ultimate objective of the project is to produce a publicly-available a dataset that will present the career trajectories of British foreign service personnel in innovative ways (including interactive maps, links to primary sources etc.) This will constitute a valuable public source of engagement for those interested in British foreign policy, diplomacy, social history and network analysis.
IPE of Financialisation 1
IPE of Financialisation 1
(International Political Economy Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Civic Centre
Cecilia Rikap (City, University of London and CONICET): BlackRock: a (financial) data-driven intellectual monopoly Karsten Kohler, Univ of Leeds: Capital Flows and the North-South Divide in the Eurozone: Scrutinising the Finance-centric View" Engelbert Stockhammer: Considering financial cycles in financialisation and currency hierarchies Ingrid Kvangraven, Kai Koddenbrock and Ndongo Samba Sylla "Beyond Financialisation: The Need for a Longue Durée Understanding of Finance in Imperialism". BlackRock: a (financial) data-driven intellectual monopoly Cecilia Rikap (City, University of London and CONICET) The concentration of intangible assets within the digital economy has been mostly studied by focusing on platforms, in particular, tech giants. These companies harvest big data and process them with secretly kept algorithms. The resulting digital intelligence informs their ongoing businesses and opens new avenues of innovation. Given the potentially never-ending innovations that this process triggers, big tech companies have been conceptualized as data-driven intellectual monopolies. In this presentation, I will argue that BlackRock is also concentrating data and algorithms, therefore digital intelligence, thus eventually becoming a data-driven intellectual monopoly. BlackRock’s Aladdin platform has become indispensable for asset management. It bases its recommendations and analysis on processing data compiled over the last 50 years ranging from financial data to any type of event that may affect capital markets anywhere in the world. From the millions and millions of correlations, it detects possible future scenarios and suggests investments to avoid adverse scenarios. To provide evidence of the relevance of Aladdin and more broadly of intangible assets for BlackRock’s business, I perform a text mining analysis of the company’s annual reports for the last 10 years, analysing the context of appearance and the increasing relevance of terms like ‘Aladdin’, ‘innovation’ and data (‘data analytics’, ‘data processing’, etc.). This is complemented with an overview of BlackRock’s intangible assets over time as well as by looking at BlackRock’s “Technology services” business results in relation to its overall business. Capital Flows and the North-South Divide in the Eurozone: Scrutinising the Finance-centric View Karsten Kohler Leeds University Business School k.kohler@leeds.ac.uk Abstract Since the 2010-12 crisis, Comparative Political Economists attribute an important role to capital flows for the north-south divide in the Eurozone. The present paper offers a critical analysis of this `finance-centric' narrative. It argues that while the narrative rightly emphasises destabilising financial factors, it provides a partly flawed account of capital flows due to its reliance on neoclassical loanable funds theory and an overemphasis of interbank flows. The paper draws on post-Keynesian monetary theory combined with an analysis of accounting relationships and empirical data to make the following points. First, the focus on the financial account as a driver of current accounts should be abandoned in favour of an analysis of gross capital flows. Second, different types of gross flows have different effects: speculative portfolio and FDI flows into asset markets are causally more relevant than interbank flows. Third, the notion of a recycling of northern surpluses in the southern periphery conceals the geography of multilateral gross financial flows. Fourth, rising spreads in the periphery during the Eurozone crisis and the outbreak of the pandemic were not triggered by balance-of-payments problems but by a reversal of gross flows into government bond markets. Taken together, speculative asset flows do contribute to the north-south divide, but a broader framework is needed that considers factors such as domestic financial cycles, austerity, and the separation of monetary and fiscal policy. Considering financial cycles in financialisation and currency hierarchies Engelbert Stockhammer, King’s College London, engelbert.stockhammer@kcl.ac.uk The paper adopts a Minskyan perspectives, which highlights endogenous financial boom-bust cycles, and explores their implication for financialisation and financial globalisation and the role of the state therein. First one can distinguish, with respect to macroeconomic performance three phases of financialisation. A first phase (late 1970s/1980s) with high interest rates and relative low growth; a second phase (mid 1990 up to 2008) with mostly low growth and high asset price growth and relatively low interest rates. Then a third phase (since the GFC) with low interest and depressed house prices. Second, while in most formal economic models of the financial cycle there is a symmetry of mechanisms between upswing and downswing; in practice one would expect an asymmetry due to political economy factors: in a crisis pressures on the state will rise. This has two implications for the theory of currency hierarchies. First, a key difference arises between countries with core and peripheral currencies. While the former experiences capital inflows, which enable gov’t deficit spending, the latter experience outflows, which makes gov’t spending more difficult. Thus the position in the currency hierarchy impacts state capacity. Second, the management of a crisis by the central bank (and the respective government) matters. Letting the crisis spin out of undermines the hegemonic position of the currency. This enters the traditional field of the IPE of international currencies. The Minskyan perspective favours an emphasis on financial factors, but also highlights the importance of state policies in determining the position in the currency hierarchy. Title: Beyond Financialisation: The Need for a Longue Durée Understanding of Finance in Imperialism Authors: Kai Koddenbrock, Ingrid Harvold Kvangraven and Ndongo Sambra Sylla Abstract: One of the central premises of the literature on financialisation is that we have been living in a new era of capitalism, characterised by a historical shift in the finance-production nexus. Finance has begun to behave ‘abnormally’ towards production. It has expanded to a disproportionate economic size and, more importantly, has divorced from ‘legitimate’ economic pursuits. In this paper we explore these claims of ‘expansion’ and ‘divorce’. We argue that although there has been expansion of financial motives and practices the ‘divorce’ between the financial and the productive economy cannot be considered a new empirical phenomenon having occurred during the last decades and even less an epochal shift of the capitalist system. The neglect of the needs of a self-centered economy has been the ‘normal’ and structural operation of finance in most of the former European colonies in the Global South during the last 150 years. We provide evidence to that effect with a longue durée study of the finance-production nexus in Senegal and Ghana. A main result of our empirical exploration is that an understanding of the historical developments of finance under colonialism is key for understanding how capitalist finance works globally. Such a de-centered perspective requires however a serious engagement with the concept and logics of imperialism.
IR as a Discipline
IR as a Discipline
(Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
Various papers on the past and future of IR as a discipline
Interrogating the (Neo)Liberal State: Violence, Migration and Resistance
Interrogating the (Neo)Liberal State: Violence, Migration and Resistance
(International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
Violence is a regular feature of European migration controls at, within, and beyond state borders. Despite ostensible commitments to human rights and the rule of law, states in Europe (and elsewhere) regularly inflict violence on mobile populations through the direct use of force, practices of abandonment and neglect, as well as externalised modes of enforcement. Systems of protection, such as the global asylum regime, are increasingly hollowed out, leading to what scholars have called the ‘death of asylum’ (Mountz 2020). This panel investigates the violence inherent in liberal migration regimes – its manifold expressions, its in/visibility, and resistance to it. Attention is paid to the legacies of imperialism and colonialism: how they reverberate into the contemporary moment through the violent governing of racialized bodies and the exposure of people precariously ‘on the move’ to premature death - the very definition of racism proposed by Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2007: 247). The panel also explores the challenges and possibilities of acts of resistance by migrants, activists, scholars, and others.
Managing Conflicts in the Age of Global Governance: Insights from Twentieth-Century History
Managing Conflicts in the Age of Global Governance: Insights from Twentieth-Century History
(Intervention and Responsibility to Protect Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
The five papers in the suggested panel examine and compare past cases of multilateral conflict management. Using a wide range of historical records, many of which were classified at the time, they provide a fine-grained analysis of the individual cases that is not available for more recent conflicts. The five papers place these historical case studies in a comparative framework and engage with existing approaches in studies of international politics and international law. The papers thus aim to develop a historical, context-sensitive approach to global governance. They seek to identify more general patterns and challenges involved in foreign intervention and global governance: the lack of funds and context-specific knowledge by the intervening powers; the tendency of all interveners, including NGOs and UN actors, to exploit legal grey zones and covert means of interference to expand their influence on the affected regions; and the discrepancies between local needs, on the one hand, and the interests of the external interveners and states, on the other.
Meaning Making and Decision Making in UN Peacekeeping
Meaning Making and Decision Making in UN Peacekeeping
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
From Lebanon to Mali, UN peacekeepers continue to serve in volatile and conflict-affected areas. UN peacekeeping troops are the second-largest military deployment in the world (after the US), while UN civilian peacekeeping bureaucracy is the third-largest international civil service (after the European Commission and the World Bank Group). Despite that, we know relatively little about how peacekeepers make sense of their mandate, social and operational environment, and dilemmas inherent in their work. The papers investigate these questions with regard to military peacekeepers, leaders of peacekeeping operations, peacekeeping officials at New York headquarters, and civilian mission staff working on human rights, elections, and broader peacebuilding matters. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the papers highlight the processes of dynamic meaning-making, risk analysis, and resolution of ethical and political trade-offs. Since such decisions ultimately shape how peacekeepers engage with the parties to the conflict and the local population, a systematic understanding of their drivers is a significant contribution to peace and conflict studies. Furthermore, theoretically, the papers build on and contribute to such academic subfields as military sociology, new institutionalism, and organisational psychology.
Narratives of Violence and Trauma: Modes of Storytelling and the Politics of Victim and Perpetrator Representation
Narratives of Violence and Trauma: Modes of Storytelling and the Politics of Victim and Perpetrator Representation
(International Law and Politics Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
Who controls narratives of trauma and victimhood and for whom in international politics and justice? To what extent can different sites and modes of story-telling open up representation and create new possibilities for engagement? Or do they risk falling into the same tropes, where victims are expected to be Elstain’s sanitised ‘beautiful souls’ and perpetrators are uniformly ‘ugly’? What constraints does international law and politics place on the types of narratives, and the types of stories that are allowed to be told? What happens when we move from mechanisms of transitional justice – whether courts or truth commissions – to other sites and modes of storytelling? What is the picture of trauma that is being constructed? This panel brings together a set of five papers that engage with these questions of whose story is being told, by whom, under what rules and constrained or enabled by what type of legal and political context, drawing on examples from South Africa, the United States, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia.
Perspectives on Peacebuilding
Perspectives on Peacebuilding
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
Papers offer innovative approaches to peacebuilding
Security and Sexuality
Security and Sexuality
(Gendering International Relations Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
Challenging notions of heteronormativity, this panel builds on the burgeoning conversations between feminist and queer theory in international relations in terms of knowledge production, foreign policy analysis, military and non-military violence(s). Engaging with intersectional concerns, the papers analyse the way gender and sexuality are cross-cut with issues of race, indigeneity, and religion.
12:15 PM
British Truth Telling Commission on Colonialism pre-roundtable meetup
British Truth Telling Commission on Colonialism pre-roundtable meetup
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group AGM
Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group AGM
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
International Law and Politics Working Group Meeting
International Law and Politics Working Group Meeting
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
Lunch
Lunch
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Banqueting Hall, Civic Centre
Research Directors' coffee
Research Directors' coffee
12:15 PM - 12:45 PM
Room: The Northern Stage, Barras Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RH
Research Directors
South East Europe Working Group AGM
South East Europe Working Group AGM
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
12:30 PM
BISA and PSA Workshop: Gender, Race and the Intersections of Precarity - An Interactive Workshop - Although this is open to all conference delegates you need to register in advance to attend at https://www.bisa.ac.uk/events/bisa-and-psa-workshop-gender-race-and-intersections-precarity-interactive-workshop-best
BISA and PSA Workshop: Gender, Race and the Intersections of Precarity - An Interactive Workshop - Although this is open to all conference delegates you need to register in advance to attend at https://www.bisa.ac.uk/events/bisa-and-psa-workshop-gender-race-and-intersections-precarity-interactive-workshop-best
12:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Room: Henry Daysh Building - Lecture Hall 1.02
12:45 PM
Extraordinary General Meeting (Full BISA members only)
Extraordinary General Meeting (Full BISA members only)
12:45 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
1:15 PM
Beyond Wilful Ignorance: A British Truth-Telling Commission on Colonialism?
Beyond Wilful Ignorance: A British Truth-Telling Commission on Colonialism?
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: History Room, Student Union
Post-, anti- and decolonial scholarship and activism have long highlighted the Western imperial origins, inequalities, and violence of today’s global political, economic, and cultural structures. Yet, in Britain, more than half of all people surveyed in 2014 were either proud (44%) or apathetic (23%) about colonialism and its harms, while 21% of Brits surveyed regret colonialism (Dahlgreen, 2014). The English history curriculum does not prioritise colonialism: the teaching of colonialism is a suggestion rather than a statutory requirement (Department for Education, 2013; Izzidien, 2018). The pre- and post-Brexit impetus to ‘take back our borders’, and return to Global Britain and a strengthened relationship with the Commonwealth is articulated by British politicians with little sense of irony or self-reflection on the past and ongoing impacts of British imperialism. The need to acknowledge and redress colonial harms is not a constitutive part of government or opposition policy. This roundtable asks what can be done in Britain to counter the wilful ignorance of British politicians and much of the British public and to facilitate a reckoning with Britain’s imperial past? To orient discussions, the roundtable will begin with an initial proposition taken from the scholarship and practice of transitional justice: a British Truth-Telling Commission on Colonialism as a means of decentring the Eurocentric narrative of imperialism. From there, we will consider the following questions *et al.*: is a truth-telling commission the right option, or are there better alternatives? What should the objectives be? What should the process be? What are the potential limitations and harms? What are the potential benefits?
Contemporary Approaches to Biopolitics & Governmentality
Contemporary Approaches to Biopolitics & Governmentality
(Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
Contemporary Approaches to Biopolitics & Governmentality
Environmental Activism and Youth Engagement: Imagining a Sustainable Future in Algeria and its Neighbourhood
Environmental Activism and Youth Engagement: Imagining a Sustainable Future in Algeria and its Neighbourhood
(International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
The panel will explore recent movements, new social actors, and how youth in particular have been responding to the climate, biodiversity and environmental crises, as well as to territorial and structural inequalities in Algeria and the wider region of the Mediterranean. It will include papers that engage with different forms of mobilisation, social spaces and activism for the environment and sustainable livelihoods at a time of increasing awareness about the importance of transformational change in the way we fuel, farm, consume and live. How have democratic politics and citizens in the region responded to the crises in light of the COP26 in 2021? What kinds of strategies, as well as practical action on the ground, have been able to challenge hegemonic and populist trends that might prevent people’s adaptation, migration and the necessary transformation of local economies? While exploring different understandings of these global challenges, and the perceptions of young people, the panellists will seek to draw on critical perspectives such as post-colonialism, political economy, the arts, feminist and constructivist theories.
Epidemiological Imperialism: The Medicalization of In/Security in International Relations
Epidemiological Imperialism: The Medicalization of In/Security in International Relations
(Global Health Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has drawn renewed attention to the politics of global health and medicine in the management of international emergencies. IR scholars have already demonstrated that the securitization of global health has important consequences for the priorities with which diseases are framed and treated around the world (e.g. Elbe 2010; Howell 2015; Wenham 2020). However, until now, there has been little research on the ways in which medical knowledge serves as a legitimizing force in the maintenance of global hegemonies. This panel adds to this conversation by highlighting the role that the medicalization of in/security plays in shaping the boundaries of public and political discourse. In doing so it focuses on three intersections: 1.) the relationship between medicalization and the neoliberal politics of austerity, 2.) the racialized and racist dimension underpinning the medicalization of security; and 3.) the specific subjectivities and knowledges such medicalized interventions construct. Through an exploration of the productive nature of medicalization, it becomes possible to redirect the gaze of international relations to an exploration of the sociology of (medical) knowledge in the constitution of modernity and the racial, gendered, and sexed hierarchies it helps to stabilize.
Finance, State and Capitalism
Finance, State and Capitalism
(International Political Economy Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
Finance, State and Capitalism
Gendering the Politics of Public Memory
Gendering the Politics of Public Memory
(Gendering International Relations Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
The construction of public memory about violence and conflict is an inescapably political project. The shape that public memory takes matters; it is part of the process through which collectives construct hegemonic narratives about who ‘we’ are, and what ‘we’ value. In most cases, scholars have suggested, the dominant stories that have been told about conflict – most clearly through the construction of the memorials that populate public spaces – have contributed to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the (gendered and racialised) status quo. There have, of course, always been cracks in dominant memory formulations; counter-memories struggling for space, perhaps most notably through artistic expression. In the contemporary moment, moreover, such struggles have gained increased global public attention, as disparate groups in multiple places make claims to public representation that question conservative stories of national unity and strength. On the one hand, we see progressive movements seeking to pull down monuments that reflect values they wish to see banished from contemporary society; on the other, we see efforts to conduct memory work, in multiple formats, that offers support to alternative and/or progressive values. This panel intervenes into important contemporary public debates by unpacking the complex role that gender plays in shaping examples of memory work in different spaces. The papers draw on empirical case studies focused on the construction of memory around sexual violence, around conscientious objection, and around terrorist attacks.
Historical International Relations and Latin America
Historical International Relations and Latin America
(Historical Sociology and International Relations Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
Latin America remains an underexplored area in historical international relations research. Until recently, the international relations of these states has been almost exclusively studied by historians. This is the surprising given that Latin American comprises the oldest subsystem of sovereign states outside Europe, whose members have remained largely the same since they achieved independence in the early nineteenth century. In this panel, contributions how recent studies Latin American international relations have changed our understanding of key research agendas in IR, such as state formation and violence, the emergence of a so-called liberal international order and its respective norms and institutions, among other things, in comparative historical perspective.
International Affairs 100th Anniversary Panel 1 – Race & State Securitisation: Counterterrorism, Counter-insurgency and Borders
International Affairs 100th Anniversary Panel 1 – Race & State Securitisation: Counterterrorism, Counter-insurgency and Borders
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
This roundtable explores some of the key themes addressed in the International Affairs journal 100th Anniversary Special Issue. In particular, it interrogates the way IR theory, academic knowledge production, and policy uphold the naturalisation of the State in IR, while racialising and delegitimising political agency and actors outside of it. Counterterrorism strategies in the UK and Canada, Counterinsurgency supported by EU definitions and strategies, and the insidious role of borders and corridors in Israel, all disenfranchise and outlaw racialised communities. Moreover, scholarship and practice that protests this racial securitisation also is marginalised in theory and practice. What should academics and practitioners do to challenge these structures, and what would a more just and constructive nexus between academia and policy look like?
Perceptions of Nuclear Weapons - Risk, Predictability and Trust in Nuclear Politics
Perceptions of Nuclear Weapons - Risk, Predictability and Trust in Nuclear Politics
(Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
This panel addresses issues of culture, trust and risk in nuclear politics. Papers examine the role of perception, popular culture and strategic culture, with examples from the JCPOA, the NPT and popular culture.
Producing Knowledge: Migration, Activism & History
Producing Knowledge: Migration, Activism & History
(International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
Precarious migration, border enforcement, and violence have become inextricably linked in our contemporary world. People on the move and those displaced are increasingly subjected to diverse forms of violence that are the consequence of ever more draconian “non-entrée policies” (Chimni, 2009: 12), especially in countries of the 'Global North'. What role does knowledge production play in current forms of migration governance? In this panel, we reflect on critical knowledge production on migration and borders. Where and how is knowledge about migration produced and how does this knowledge circulate and have 'impact'? How can researchers do migration research ethically and in ways that cause no harm? We will explore the methodological and ethical challenges around researching migration, a highly politicized issue that often involves the reproduction of a white, Western, and patriarchal state. Contributors will speak from different perspectives, for example highlighting the benefits and challenges of being an activist scholar, taking a postcolonial perspective, and employing ethnographic methods.
Stories in US Foreign Policy
Stories in US Foreign Policy
(US Foreign Policy Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
What stories does the United States tell itself, and others, about foreign policy? This panel interrogates narratives and storytelling in American political and popular culture.
Teaching and Learning European Integration” in “the Periphery”
Teaching and Learning European Integration” in “the Periphery”
(South East Europe Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
There is already a pressing challenge faced by the higher education globally posed by the need to answer to the needs of a knowledge society. As an emerging field, however, the European Studies face peculiar problems. The structural differences and divergent trends within the European integration, frequently described as a fracture along North-South, East-West or centre-periphery lines, creates a challenge to teaching and learning the European integration in diverse settings which are at different points of the integration process. The picture gets more complicated when it comes to teaching European Studies at ‘the periphery’ where the European integration is predominantly an ongoing process and a moving target and the European Studies faces the danger of being perceived as a derivation of how the country in question is doing with regard to the EU accession rather than an autonomous scientific discipline. Departing from the claim that teaching and learning ‘Europe’ in its ‘periphery’ needs a critical and multi-faceted perspective which would unpack the notion of ‘Europe’ and the process of European integration as well as the educational and pedagogical dimensions of the European Studies, this panel intends to explore this puzzle of ‘periphery’ through two dimensions: First, it is necessary to take stock of the geographical and conceptual limits of ‘Europe’ and European Studies through contextualising ‘Europe’ as a region and European Studies as an academic discipline. How can we make sense of ‘Europe’ as a region and in terms of centre-periphery axis? How does European Studies resonate beyond the ‘centre’? Secondly, we also need to take a look at the practical and empirical hurdles of teaching and learning Europe beyond the immediate geography of the EU. Could we possibly uncouple practical hurdles of the EU integration process from academic research on ‘Europe’, especially in the ‘periphery’ where the above-mentioned hurdles are most intensely experienced?
2:45 PM
Break with tea and coffee
Break with tea and coffee
2:45 PM - 3:00 PM
3:00 PM
Bottom up perspectives of peace and conflict
Bottom up perspectives of peace and conflict
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
A series of papers offering perspectives of peace and conflict from local actors, civil society, and practitioners.
Challenges in South East European Politics: From Local to Global
Challenges in South East European Politics: From Local to Global
(South East Europe Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
The panel brings together diverse perspectives on the entwinement of local and global politics in South East Europe. With papers interrogating the local echoes of Russian foreign policy in Serbia and Republika Srpska, the impact of COVID on Turkey's policies in the Western Balkans, the role of religion in the political ideology of Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the securitisation of low fertility in North Macedonia and Serbia, the panel probes the similarities and differences in South East European states and the diversity of external influences within them.
Confronting the militarised academy
Confronting the militarised academy
(War Studies Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
International studies scholars have warned before about the academy’s complicity in forms of militarism, from weapons enhancement research (Bourke 2014), to supporting the arms industry (Stavrianakis 2009), to more diffuse support for the gendered and militarised logics central to government and public life (Enloe 2010). Yet, the work and careers of ‘mainstream’ and ‘critical’ international studies scholars alike remain entangled in militarised relations of power. Such relations include the funders to whom we are beholden, demands for access to military, ex-military, and pseudo-military spaces to carry out research, and the pervasive and generative logic of ‘research impact’. This roundtable brings together scholars familiar with the coercive tendencies of the militarised academy to jointly consider strategies of resistance and confrontation. We consider a spectrum of challenges and perspectives related to the militarisation of academia; from the tensions of negotiating critical research in militarised spaces, to scholar-activism and more direct modes of opposition to military power in universities. As the world’s survival hangs in the balance, the academy must present a stronger challenge to the gendered, racialised, and genocidal relationships underpinning global militarisms. We discuss research ethics, accountability, governance, funding, partnerships, the University, and academic citizenship in light of the world’s urgent challenges.
Global Politics of Health Knowledge – The intersection between Expertise and Security
Global Politics of Health Knowledge – The intersection between Expertise and Security
(Global Health Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
It’s not that long ago that the world had seemingly had enough of experts – but instead of disappearing, expert opinion is currently more sought after than ever. The pandemic is only the latest instalment in an ongoing struggle over the role of expertise, which is part of every crisis and important to the calibration of each response. Every decision in the field of health sits at the intersection of various forms of expertise, ranging from the very specialised medical/technical realm to that of the specialised politico-diplomatic field. A deeper understanding of tensions and contestations between these very different hierarchies of evidence can show not only the magnitude of challenge faced by global health institutions such as the World Health Organisation and by national governments in a time of crisis, but also the different modalities of normalisation and exclusion at work in each field of health governance.
International Affairs at 100: what of the future of war debate?
International Affairs at 100: what of the future of war debate?
(War Studies Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
Think tanks like the Council of Foreign Relations and Chatham House were created in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. For these and other think-tanks the study of war, whether it be in terms of disarmament and arms control, wars prevention, its conduct and the effects that it has on individuals, groups and the wider world, has been a consistent area of study. Reflecting on a century of debate in the journal *International Affairs* this roundtable proposes to discuss the 'Future of War' debate from a variety of different perspectives to debate whether what can be learned from past debates and discussions about wat the future will bring.
Internationalising Protection: actors, themes, and practices of protection
Internationalising Protection: actors, themes, and practices of protection
(Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Model Room 2, Civic Centre
The panel aims at exploring concepts and practices of protection in the international arena. The last decades are characterized by the discursive explosion of protection, both in scholarly and political debates. The notion of protection expanded steadily and is meanwhile used to denote the need to address human suffering in manifold forms, as protection from physical violence and abuse, precarity, discrimination, exploitation, injustice, environmental shocks and disasters. The concept also expanded from human to non-human referents, such as the protection of animals, the built and ‘natural’ environment, traditions, (indigenous) knowledge, and data. The panel aims at addressing the rise of protection in the international arena and the effects it has from both a theoretical and empirical perspective. This includes, among others, • Theories of and theoretical approaches towards studying protection • Protection practices (including actors, approaches, policies, programmes) • Effects of internationalized protection (on for example sovereignty, statehood, citizenship etc.) • Spaces, infrastructures, and technologies of protection • Protection as part of the judicialization of the social
Making and Unmaking International Law and Politics
Making and Unmaking International Law and Politics
(International Law and Politics Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: History Room, Student Union
Theoretical debates at the nexus international politics and international law
Making sense of global politics
Making sense of global politics
(Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
Papers on this panel focus on different levels of analysis in global politics, discussing methodological issues.
New approaches to strategy
New approaches to strategy
(European Security Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
This panel will present new methodological and conceptual approaches to the study of strategy and strategies. These include methods of textual analysis that capitalise on the proliferation of strategy documents in the past 20 years. The panel is concerned with practices of strategy making, including institutional and sociological process at work behind the scenes in government. The panel will also consider the appearance of new concepts and methods within strategies themselves, such as risk assessment and the expansion of ‘strategy’ to apparently non-security related areas of policy.
Non-Western involvement in peace- and statebuilding – a shift in norms and practices? Part 1
Non-Western involvement in peace- and statebuilding – a shift in norms and practices? Part 1
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
With the end of statebuilding missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere, large-scale interventions of countries from the Global North in post-conflict environments and their approaches of ‘building liberal democracies’ or ‘stabilize fragile states’ are increasingly questioned. Calls for a decolonisation of peacebuilding efforts and a greater involvement of the Global South, and local communities, are growing louder. But major contributions of countries from the Global South are nothing new. Countries such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, or Turkey have been increasingly involved in security and peace missions, and have contributed to peace- and statebuilding frameworks at the UN level that provide alternatives to the mainstream liberal peace paradigm. In this series of two panels, we explore what this greater involvement means for both norms and practices around interventions from both a current and historical perspective. We are discussing how the involvement of countries from the Global South in UN commissions and dialogues has reshaped policies and architecture of UN peacebuilding, and how everyday practices of peace- and statebuilding in missions have had an impact on the reframing of norms at the mission as well as international level. The first panel revolves around changes in security norms resulting out of non-Western involvement in peace- and statebuilding.
Norms and Emerging Technologies
Norms and Emerging Technologies
(International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
This panel investigates aspects of norms development and dissemination with regard to cyber technologies and space technologies.
Post-Structural Politics: Twenty Years of Reflections
Post-Structural Politics: Twenty Years of Reflections
(Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
A Roundtable discussion with past PPWG convenors on the past, present, and future of post-structural politics.
The (gendered, racialized) politics of collective memory in security imaginaries
The (gendered, racialized) politics of collective memory in security imaginaries
(Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
Lee Jarvis, Andrew Whiting: Monsters, Masterminds, Mummy's Boys: Gender and Memory in Terrorist Obituaries Tom Pettinger: ‘Countering Violent Extremism’ in Europe: An Assemblage of Racialized Forgetting Michael Loadenthal: False Memories of an Imagined Past: the accelerationist love affair with the 1950s Anna Meier: White Supremacist Violence, Collective Memory, and the "Hitlerian Connotation"
4:30 PM
Break with tea and coffee
Break with tea and coffee
4:30 PM - 4:45 PM
4:45 PM
Keynote Address from Kim Stanley Robinson - Dodging the Mass Extinction Event: SPONSORED BY BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Keynote Address from Kim Stanley Robinson - Dodging the Mass Extinction Event: SPONSORED BY BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
The Newcastle Blitz: A History of Newcastle During WW2 - Open to Conference attendees and the public
The Newcastle Blitz: A History of Newcastle During WW2 - Open to Conference attendees and the public
(Orphan Papers track)
4:45 PM - 6:00 PM
Room: Northern Stage, Barras Bridge, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RH
The Newcastle Blitz: A History of Newcastle During WW2’
6:30 PM
Conference Reception
Conference Reception
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Room: Wylam Brewery, Palace of Arts Exhibition Park, Claremont Rd, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4PZ
The BISA reception will take place in Wylam Brewery.
Thursday, June 16, 2022
7:15 AM
Toon Run around Newcastle - Find out more in section 2 at https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/highlights
Toon Run around Newcastle - Find out more in section 2 at https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/highlights
7:15 AM - 8:15 AM
Room: Civic Centre Steps
8:45 AM
The Limits of Safety – A Sound Installation - Find out more on our highlights page https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/highlights’
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Michael Mulvihill
(Newcastle)
The Limits of Safety – A Sound Installation - Find out more on our highlights page https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/highlights’
Michael Mulvihill
(Newcastle)
8:45 AM - 6:15 PM
Room: Outside the Student Union
9:00 AM
(De)Bordering the Middle East: Space, Mobility and Thought
(De)Bordering the Middle East: Space, Mobility and Thought
(Orphan Papers track)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
(De)Bordering the Middle East: Space, Mobility and Thought
European Security Inside Out
European Security Inside Out
(European Security Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
This panel reflects on European security issues ranging from European external relations with China and Africa to border and migration as key security concerns in the 21st century.
IPT Key Thinkers
IPT Key Thinkers
(Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
Various perspectives on the work of some key 20th century political thinkers
Images, Voices and Silences: New Empirical Vision in Transitional Justice
Images, Voices and Silences: New Empirical Vision in Transitional Justice
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
The founding vision of transitional justice as a field of scholarship and practice is normative. Addressing the legacy of human rights violations and war crimes is supposed to reconcile war-torn communities and advance peace. As transitional justice as a field of study has developed and matured, so these ‘faith-based’ convictions have been substantiated with ‘fact-based’ knowledge of effects of transitional justice initiatives – positive and negative. This panel contributes to the accumulation of empirical evidence and evaluation of the impact and outcomes of transitional justice processes from multiple disciplinary perspectives, including international relations, political science, and media studies, using innovative methods that capture local, everyday interactions in post-conflict societies. The papers draws on diverse empirical evidence to show how images, voices and silences can be meaningful and create opportunities for difficult conversations and interactions about past wrongs. The panel advances our understanding of how a range of different sites, such as artistic practice, social media, face-to-face interactions, and parliament, can either further or undermine the goals of transitional justice.
Managing Risk and Conflict Escalation in the Digital Age
Managing Risk and Conflict Escalation in the Digital Age
(International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
This panel investigates the impact of developments in cyber and AI technologies on digital risk and conflict escalation management.
Operational experiences, military role conceptions and their influence on civil-military relations
Operational experiences, military role conceptions and their influence on civil-military relations
(European Journal of International Security)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
A considerable amount of research within security studies has explored the military’s increasingly diverse and multifaceted tasks. However, this debate has been disconnected from the literature on civil-military relations to the effect that we still lack knowledge about how and why these operational tasks have consequences for the relations between the armed forces, civilian authorities, and society at large. In order to provide for a better understanding of these effects, the articles of this Special Issue of the European Journal of International Security focus on operational experiences in order to capture how the military’s routine activities affect the equilibria, logics and mechanisms of civil-military relations. The Special Issue’s contributions provide diverse and global perspectives and shed light on different aspects of the relationship between military missions and the military’s roles in society and politics. Among other factors, they highlight role conceptions – the military’s shared views on the purpose of the institution – as crucial in shaping the dynamic relation between what the military does and what place it occupies within the state and society.
Pandemics, Power and Foreign Policy
Pandemics, Power and Foreign Policy
(Foreign Policy Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
This panel explores the conceptual liks between pandemics, power and foreign policy dynamics. The contributions in this panel examine the case of the COVID-19 pandemic from different theoretical perspectives.
Popular Culture and Social Media – Moving Beyond Hierarchy in the 21st Century University
Popular Culture and Social Media – Moving Beyond Hierarchy in the 21st Century University
(Learning and Teaching Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
Whilst many of our students engage with social media and popular culture in their everyday lives, and many IR tutors actively embrace such moves by using examples and readings within their practice, such moves are often done without the reflection they deserve. Students are often shown examples from popular culture, for example, to make complex concepts ‘more accessible’ yet this effaces a need to systematically reflect on the value of popular culture and social media as learning systems that can be actively embraced to rupture hierarchies within higher educational settings. Yet to do this successfully requires students and staff alike to embrace the messy ambiguities within both popular culture and social media and to acknowledge that engaging with such artefacts requires critical literacy which is attuned to the analysis of visuals, sound, narratives, processes etc. The papers in this panel embrace these challenges and present a number of findings from real-world experience but also open up spaces for dialogue about how popular culture and social media can be used by students and tutors to destabilise hierarchies in the classroom. Our aim is to provoke and invoke thinking in the spirit of mutual learning.
Popular Culture and World Politics – Activism, Agency, Resistance and Subjugation
Popular Culture and World Politics – Activism, Agency, Resistance and Subjugation
(Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Popular culture is often used in dismissed as trivial and not worthy of serious engagement by scholars of IR. This panel challenges such thinking demonstrating that popular culture offers a set of insights to challenge what we often come to see as common sense, to problematise our methods and understandings, to legitimate the importance of producers as legitimate political operators, to widen our appreciation of aesthetic sensibilities, to enable us to think anew about activism and empowerment, and to demonstrate their centrality of social media and popular culture to affect change. These papers offer insight to methods and methodology, open up important insights in relation to empirical findings, and collectively provide a powerful rejoinder to those who suggest that pop culture is not important – in fact, as this panel goes to show, we can say little about world politics if we are not attuned to the centrality of popular culture.
Sexual and gendered violence in times of insecurity
Sexual and gendered violence in times of insecurity
(Gendering International Relations Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Pandon, Civic Centre
This panel addresses the gendered issue of sexual and gender-based violence in times of insecurity and crisis by bringing together papers that address such violent acts in times of conflict, war and everyday lives. All papers are firmly located in feminist analysis of gender-based and sexual violence addressing violence against men, women and children.
The responsibility to protect: norm contestation and diffusion
The responsibility to protect: norm contestation and diffusion
(Intervention and Responsibility to Protect Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
This panel examines contestations that R2P continues to face and attempts to diffuse the doctrine beyond its current remit.
10:30 AM
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (BJPIR)
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (BJPIR)
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
10:45 AM
Aspects of coloniality and race in the Women, Peace and Security agenda
Aspects of coloniality and race in the Women, Peace and Security agenda
(Gendering International Relations Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, commonly related to the sequence of ten resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council since 2000 under the title of “women and peace and security”, involves numerous actors, activities and artefacts. Recent scholarship has convincingly demonstrated that conventional accounts of the agenda neither engage with race nor coloniality in their engagements. Here, panellists present ongoing research that explicitly centres race, coloniality, and Indigeneity in relation to WPS practices; the various papers challenge and complicate conventional narratives, revealing not only the plurality of the agenda in implementation, but its role in wider constitutions of self and other, and the ways in which gender can both accentuate and obscure violent pasts. By drawing on Black, Indigenous, decolonial, intersectional, and postcolonial feminist insights the panel considers the potential and limitations of the agenda and the possibilities of, and for, transformative feminist peace.
BISA PGN Meet the Editors Roundtable
BISA PGN Meet the Editors Roundtable
(BISA)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Pandon, Civic Centre
BISA PGN Meet the Editors Roundtable
British Politics and Foreign Policy
British Politics and Foreign Policy
(British International History Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
This panel brings together three papers dealing with Brexit, devolution, nationalism and secessionism, and foreign policy.
European Strategic Autonomy I
European Strategic Autonomy I
(European Security Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
This is the first of two panels critically examining the concept of European strategic autonomy.
Grand Strategy: New Approaches and Perspectives
Grand Strategy: New Approaches and Perspectives
(Foreign Policy Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: History Room, Student Union
This panel will seek to challenge the West-centric, realist-dominated approaches that permeate scholarly understandings of grand strategy. Grand strategy has traditionally been defined as how states employ their resources to achieve victory in war. Recently, studies have transitioned away from this narrow definition, to instead examine how states employ various tools of statecraft in peace and war alike to advance their long-term goals. Yet, the literature is often still critiqued for its rationalist bias and great power fixation. Correspondingly, this panel will seek to further broaden the boundaries of grand strategy scholarship, by highlighting the research of emerging scholars. It will bring together a multinational array of mid-and-early career academics: from post-docs and research associates to lecturers, based in the EU, the UK and Israel. The presentations will: challenge the realist-dominated literature focusing on systemic explanations to instead identify how domestic politics, ideas and beliefs shape grand strategy (Yorke, Lofflman); propose and illuminate case studies and a framework for analysing grand strategy beyond great powers (Briffa) and; critically assess the research programme’s cumulative scholarly outputs and disciplinary deficiencies (Geist Pinfold). In sum, this panel will both critique existing trends and suggest new research foci, thereby diversifying the voices and case studies included within the purview of grand strategy. The proposed participants and papers are: Convenor and Chair: Dr. Cornelia Baciu – The University of Copenhagen (Convenor, Discussant) Dr. Rob Geist Pinfold – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Chair, Presenter) Presenters: Dr. Rob-Geist Pinfold – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem: ‘Grand Strategy: A Research Programme for the West and Not the Rest?’ Dr. Claire Yorke – The Center for War Studies: ‘The Grand Strategic Value of Empathy’ Dr. Hillary Briffa – King’s College London: ‘Small States and Grand Strategy: A Comparative Study of Neutrality’ Dr. Georg Löfflmann – The University of Warwick: ‘A House Divided: Populism and Grand Strategy’
Groundings - The Practice of Global Thought from Below
Groundings - The Practice of Global Thought from Below
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Model Room 2, Civic Centre
s
Interpreting Russian Security
Interpreting Russian Security
(Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
This panel uses a range of methodological and conceptual approaches to interpret Russian security, considering Russia's relations with NATO and the EU, developments in Russia's official security concepts and the insights that feminism and gender can bring to our understanding of Russian security.
Pacifism, Nonviolence, Security, and Rebellion
Pacifism, Nonviolence, Security, and Rebellion
(Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
Nonviolence and pacifism are gaining increasing scholarly attention in our smaller and more interconnected world. Nonviolent methods of both resistance and governance have been increasingly adopted and have proved effective (Howes 2013). Even brutal regimes have collapsed in the face of nonviolent resistance (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011). Having a stronger army no longer guarantees military success (Biddle 2004). Whether in managing protests (Anisin 2016), criminality (Lanier et al 2018) or prisons (Liebling 2004), in counter-terrorism (Jackson 2017), or in peacebuilding (Julian 2020), violent and repressive approaches tend to be counter-productive and less effective than well-designed nonviolent alternatives. Violence also entrenches patriarchy and other hierarchies of domination (Confortini 2006). In short, the mounting interdisciplinary evidence against violence is increasingly compelling. Yet much violence continues to erupt in the contemporary world arena, both in explicit conflicts and in the structures of the existing order. How is pacifist analysis adapting to the evolving international order? How are violent regimes responding to nonviolent dissent? Are institutions set up to protect citizens from violence succeeding, or making things worse? This panel is one of two panels that will consider such questions and thus reflect on the potential for nonviolence and pacifism in an already violent world.
Power and Wealth in Pandemic Times
Power and Wealth in Pandemic Times
(International Political Economy Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Power and Wealth in Pandemic Times
Reconsidering stability - the risks of deterrence and disarmament.
Reconsidering stability - the risks of deterrence and disarmament.
(Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
This panel bring together papers on topics including the TPNW, the impact of AI and NATO's nuclear doctrine to examine the consequences of key political and technological developments in nuclear politics on stability and, ultimately, the risk of nuclear war.
Refugees and Insecurity
Refugees and Insecurity
(International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
This panel assess the way refugees have been constructed as security threats over the last years.
Surviving the Human Epoch: Popular Culture and the (Geo)Politics of the Anthropocene
Surviving the Human Epoch: Popular Culture and the (Geo)Politics of the Anthropocene
(Environment Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
Politics is supposedly the art of the possible. However, with the panoply of anthropogenic crises afflicting the planet – from rising sea levels and wilder storms to mass extinctions and zoonotic pandemics to desertification and ocean acidification – the limits of what is possible are steadily shrinking as humanity’s power as a geological agent grows. Taking dell’Agnese’s recently-published Ecocritical Geopolitics: Popular Culture and Environmental Discourse (2021) as a point of departure, our panel employs popular culture as a medium for understanding and preparing for a future politics of a world in the throes of the Anthropocene, while also critiquing the limitations of popular culture to properly address the ‘Earth-worldly politics’ (Burke et al., 2016) of the already-present Human Epoch. Drawing on novels, film, television series, songs, stand-up comedy and other sources of geopolitical imagination, we interrogate the survivability of existing forms of planetary governance and international relations in a dark future where the foundations of politics will be challenged to their core. Our papers – all of which treat popular-culture imaginings as political projects in and of themselves – address the entanglements of humans and more-than-human (animals, plants, viruses, AI, nonlife) in shaping global power structures, remapping of ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ in the age of radical climate change, technological ‘fixes’ that amplify vulnerabilities produced by climate change and/or discourage ecological activism, and how fears about the looming threat posed to human existence are processed through popular culture’s unique ‘ways of seeing’ what is actually right in front of us.
Theorising International Orders
Theorising International Orders
(International Law and Politics Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
Theorising international orders
12:15 PM
Lunch and networking: SPONSORED BY BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (BJPIR)
Lunch and networking: SPONSORED BY BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (BJPIR)
12:15 PM - 1:45 PM
Room: Banqueting Hall, Civic Centre
12:30 PM
Plenary Roundtable: Global Governance and Scientific Challenges: SPONSORED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Plenary Roundtable: Global Governance and Scientific Challenges: SPONSORED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
(BISA)
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM
Room: Council Chamber
SPONSORED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1:30 PM
Photography Exhibition: Visualizing Global Challenges
Photography Exhibition: Visualizing Global Challenges
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Room: Grand Staircase
2:00 PM
Ethics & World Politics Working Group AGM
Ethics & World Politics Working Group AGM
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
European Security Working Group AGM
European Security Working Group AGM
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
Intervention and Responsibility to Protect Working Group AGM
Intervention and Responsibility to Protect Working Group AGM
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group AGM
Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group AGM
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
2:15 PM
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (BJPIR)
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (BJPIR)
2:15 PM - 2:30 PM
3:00 PM
Anxiety, emotion, and ontological security
Anxiety, emotion, and ontological security
(Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
Anxiety, emotion, and ontological security
Constructing Islam and the War on Terror
Constructing Islam and the War on Terror
(Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
Constructing Islam and the war on terror
Energy Colonialism: Roots, Racialization, Recurrent patterns
Energy Colonialism: Roots, Racialization, Recurrent patterns
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Model Room 2, Civic Centre
Energy colonialism is an essential, yet scarcely theorized concept for understanding how past, present and future energy systems are shaped by imperial and neocolonial imaginaries and practices. These perspectives are important in contemporary debates on energy transitions in face of the climate crisis, namely with regard to green finance flows, new green geopolitics, and energy governance. Current energy endeavours seem largely driven by vested interests, and mostly fail to pay attention to questions of justice or to critical developmental, anti-racist and anti-discriminatory viewpoints. We thus can identify colonial continuities pervading contemporary debates, i.e. in the ‘run-up’ for (green) hydrogen produced the Global South to sustain economic growth in the Global North, in colonial imaginaries of terra nullius conceptions reproduced in energy partnerships, and not least in financial dependencies that stabilize the political economy of clean energy. This panel aims to initiate conversations that suggest new ways to understand and research energy transitions, by focusing on resource distribution along (gendered and) racialised lines, on the ways in which developmental imaginaries and colonial ideas shape energy partnerships, on green finance flows and neocolonial patterns of green finance tools. We invite papers which focus on roots and recurrent themes of energy colonialism and highlight intersections between energy transitions and neo/post/de-colonialism. We also welcome pieces, which zoom in on energy justice and connect this to postcolonial critique, for instance with regard to the politics of energy partnerships (and technologies), energy governance, or energy finance. **Abstracts:** **Glocal Justice? Colonial Narratives in Germany's and the European Green Hydrogen Strategy Dr. Anne Kantel** Green hydrogen and its synthesis products are regarded as important elements of the energy and climate transition in both Germany’s and the European hydrogen strategy. Importing these products is considered an important strategy component as particularly Germany's own potential for renewable energy production is limited. Policy makers are increasingly looking at countries outside the European Union with favorable geographic and climate conditions to meet import demands for green hydrogen in the future. This paper explores if and how Germany's and the European hydrogen strategy take the needs and desires of potential partner countries into consideration. By using the theoretical approach of coloniality as a lens, it seeks to make visible (post-)colonial path dependences and narratives within current hydrogen policies and outlines potential counter-narratives and different knowledges when it comes to the production and import of hydrogen. The paper concludes by recommending points for research and policy that can contribute to the development of partnerships that take sustainability and energy justice for all actors involved into account. **Exploring colonial continuities in Mozambique’s energy system: electricity networks and extractive relations Dr. Joshua Kirshner (joshua.kirshner@york.ac.uk), Dr. Daniela Salite (daniela.salite@york.ac.uk), Prof. Matthew Cotton (m.cotton@tees.ac.uk)** There are multiple ways of defining and understanding energy transitions, but many scholars now argue that systemic changes in energy systems require deep transformations in social and ecological dimensions that support social life, especially in urban areas. These systems and associated infrastructures have been shaped by distinct historical and political-economic processes, which in African contexts involve colonial histories of settlement, planning, and market formation. Accordingly, understanding energy transitions requires accounting for historical path dependencies that are embedded in energy systems, yet these have received little attention to date. In this paper, drawing on a collaborative project about electricity grid access in urban Mozambique, we examine the ways that colonial legacies shape the contours of the country’s current energy system, and efforts by planners and policymakers to promote more just and sustainable energy futures. First, we focus on electricity provision to examine the effects of locations of power generation sources in relation to distribution and consumption centres, and the lack of redundancy in the network, meaning that no system of electricity dispatch exists in cases of excess or deficit of electricity. We explore the government’s plans to construct new power generation sources to supply external markets while building grid interconnections with southern African neighbours, and its parallels with colonial-era hydroelectric planning, in which whole regions were sacrificed to support national development objectives. We then turn to resource extraction, and the prospects for lucrative energy investments in natural gas or large hydropower, which have led to the deprioritizing of distributed renewables, to the detriment of local energy needs. **Hydropower as a Target of Resource Extractivism. Recurrent Patterns of Dam Construction and Energy Production in East and Sub-Saharan Africa, 1950-1970 Dr. Birte Förster, University of Bielefeld** Already during the First World War, the British War Cabinet adopted plans for more efficient resource extraction from the colonies. To this end, the “Water-Power Committee of the Conjoint of Scientific Societies” was set up in 1918 in order to research the possibilities of generating water energy. However, the implementation of such plans only gained momentum in the British and French colonial empires after the Second World War, when both launched major programmes to promote ‘development’ in their colonies. Their aim according to contemporary development discourses – was industrialisation which in turn should lead to prosperity. Therefore, not only metropolitan development programmes, but also funding by the World Bank, concentrated on the expansion of infrastructures that would provide energy for metal smelting and roads, ports and airports for the transport of goods. A closer look at infrastructure projects in Uganda, French Cameroon and Ghana, however, shows that these ideas rarely worked out. Instead of mineral resources, water energy itself became a resource that was exploited but did not serve the expansion of local industries. This will probably also apply to the initially failed dam project on the Konkouré River in Guinea, which is currently being completed with funds from the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, but even more so to planned projects for green energy such as Grand Inga. The lecture will discuss the historical continuity of water energy as a resource and the role of infrastructures as (colonial) power retainers both in terms of their materiality and the continuity of their inherent development ideas, as well as the long-term financial dependencies they produce and the conceptualisation of their users. **The Paradox of Technocratic Governance: The Extractive/Emancipatory Potential of Indigenous Utilities? Dr. Liam Midzain-Gobin (Brock University) and Joshua McEvoy (Queen’s University)** Settler states are the site of competing claims to sovereignty, with Indigenous nations asserting their authority in the face of settler colonial claims to jurisdiction. In this paper we explore the tension between these claims through the realm of energy governance and utility infrastructure, and specifically the British Columbia Utilities Commission’s (BCUC) Indigenous Utilities Regulation Inquiry. Through an analysis of the Inquiry and its final report, we argue that such ‘technical’ bodies represent a sort of security professional, effectively depoliticizing the ongoing reproduction of settler sovereignty. In the BCUC’s Inquiry, this takes the form of prioritizing “economic reconciliation” and the creation of legal “certainty” which enables the continuation of a colonial form of the security/development nexus in and through energy. However, as observed in the final recommendations of the Inquiry, engaging with these technical bodies on issues such as energy governance also offers Indigenous nations meaningful opportunities to build their own infrastructure and institutions, thereby enacting their own decision-making authority. Understood in the context of the contemporary reconciliation discourse, processes of energy governance, and specifically the Inquiry and its recommendations, thus represent at once both a novel approach to reifying settler sovereignty and an opening for greater Indigenous self-determination. **Energy colonialism: debates, phenomena, and steps towards a research agenda** Prof. Franziska Müller, University of Hamburg Energy colonialism is an essential, yet scarcely theorized concept for understanding how past, present and future energy systems are shaped by imperial and neocolonial imaginaries and practices. Energy coloniality becomes manifest as power over energy transition processes, as an epistemic force with regard to knowledge orders and knowledge transfer, and as a coloniality of being with regard to livelihood and energy poverty. Facing climate crisis and the rise of green capitalism, energy colonialism may serve as a concept that offers new analytical perspectives to understand, criticize and connect apparently unrelated phenomena such as green financialisation, land conflicts over solar and wind park sites, hydrogen geopolitics or energy extractivism. However, debates on energy colonialism are still scattered and a systemic overview is lacking. This paper hence seeks to recapture current debates on energy colonialism, with the aim of carving out typical claims, blind spots and challenge, and creating a research agenda.
Gendering Economies
Gendering Economies
(International Political Economy Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
Gendering Economies
Human Rights and Security in African International Relations
Human Rights and Security in African International Relations
(Africa and International Studies Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
This papers on this panel present detailed empirical research into human rights (international women's rights in Ethiopia), security (global counter-terrorism and the reintegration of repentant terrorists in Nigeria) and areas where the two collide (the African Union and mass atrocity in the Anglophone-Cameroun Crisis; Citizens’ Perceptions of Chadian Military Intervention in Mali; precarious citizenship in the unrecognised states of Puntland and Somaliland).
IPE of Financialisation 2
IPE of Financialisation 2
(International Political Economy Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
Joseph Baines and Sandy Hager: Asset Managers, Carbon Majors and the Deceptions of 'Sustainable Finance' Bruno Bonizzi, Annina Kaltenbrunner and Jeff Powell: Subordinate financialised capitalism in Emerging Capitalist Economies Ewa Karwowski and Jimena Castillo: Patterns of financialization across emerging regions and economies: A comparison of international, national and city level indicators Alen Toplišek (King's College London) and Marko Lovec (University of Ljubljana): Successful and unsuccessful politicisation of central banking in emerging market economies during the COVID-19 crisis: Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic
Identity, Security, Climate and the Nation
Identity, Security, Climate and the Nation
(International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
This panel discusses challenges of governance, decentralisation, identity and exclusion and how this also might impact on climate strategies in countries of the Middle East and Asia. It explores gendered security narratives, the rise of far right groups and geopolitical developments including on economic and energy relations in the region.
Public diplomacy, Influence and Knowledge Production
Public diplomacy, Influence and Knowledge Production
(International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
This panel explores public diplomacy, influence and knowledge production in countries across the Middle East, Mediterranean and Asia and how this influences sustainable development and national identity. It explores gendered practices of knowledge production and the role of the media and state actors in international diplomacy and representations of the state. It investigates how diplomatic norms are constructed and the impact of these on regional relations, exploring domestic consensus building as well as international interactions between countries of the region.
Reimagining / complicating everyday security discourse and praxis
Reimagining / complicating everyday security discourse and praxis
(Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Amna Kaleem: The international is personal – situating the individual in the transversality of P/CVE Alice Finden: Tracing the persistence and fragmentation of coloniality within contemporary pre-criminal tools Fabrizio Cuccu: ‘Everyday security’ and religion in post-authoritarian spaces: understanding the security discourse through mundane practices in Tunisia Yrsa Landström: Re-imagining Counterterrorism: The Politics of Emotions in Deradicalisation Julian Schmid: I saw it with my Drone Eyes: Fantasies of Targeted Killing and Dangerous Spaces
Screening Violence: a transnational approach to the local imaginaries of post-conflict transition
Screening Violence: a transnational approach to the local imaginaries of post-conflict transition
(BISA)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
“Screening Violence: A Transnational Study of Post-Conflict Imaginaries”, an AHRC-sponsored research project currently in progress, aims to map the local imaginaries of conflict and post-conflict transition in five locations across the globe (Algeria, Argentina, Colombia, Indonesia and Northern Ireland). Our decision to focus on the social imaginaries of conflict is based on the premise that it is within the imaginary that the meanings of these struggles is fixed. A key feature of the project is its interdisciplinary and participatory approach to knowledge production, which draws on popular culture and its reception as a way into the rich textures, ambiguities and inconsistencies of symbolic worlds. We work with the medium of film in a multi-faceted way: as a methodological tool designed to set up debates that allow us to chart social imaginaries; as an imaginary space itself, both reflective and constitutive of the popular imaginaries in question; and as creative expression, as we work with local filmmakers to co-create a cinematic cartography of the imaginaries that emerge in each site throughout the project. Focus groups and audience ethnography serve as a people-centred, participatory approach to the production of knowledge that goes beyond the screenings in our attempt to understand local imaginaries. Reflecting on this complex work in progress, this panel seeks to engage conference participants in key areas of discussion: • How do questions of scale affect the study of local social imaginaries? In other words, how do local understandings of conflict show the influence of the local, the national and the international? • The value of using film as both a conceptual frame (film as a popular imaginary space in itself) and methodological tool (film spectatorship and reception as a window into the imaginary) for carrying out field research that aims to map the local imaginaries of post-conflict transition; • The architecture of the project and the challenges of carrying out this study comparatively across five sites. The roundtable will be structured and present findings as follows: 1. Brief film screening (Sowan, 18 minutes) and commentary followed by discussion of following themes: 2. The role of the imaginary in understanding post-conflict societies. 3. Film reception and audience ethnography: Researching using film in a transnational context. The roundtable proposes to share preliminary findings from the research project and to seek audience input, comment, criticism and suggestions for further development of the conceptual and fieldwork approaches. Equal amounts of time will be divided between the presentation and audience participation to ensure a fully interactive session.
Selective Reconstruction: Conceptualising (Re-)Engagement in the Post-Brexit UK-EU Security Relationship (Panel 1 of 2)
Selective Reconstruction: Conceptualising (Re-)Engagement in the Post-Brexit UK-EU Security Relationship (Panel 1 of 2)
(European Security Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
With the entry into force of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in January 2021, scholarly attention has turned to the dynamics that will govern the EU-UK relationship going forwards. Far from being a uniform process, the re-construction of the UK-EU relationship post-Brexit is characterised by a significant degree of variation across policy fields, in which both sides seek to engage in greater cooperation in some areas more than others, through more or less formalised mechanisms. This panel examines how distinct dynamics of engagement - focusing on disengagement, continued engagement and re-engagement - have developed in the context of the EU-UK security relationship, incorporating both internal security matters as well as the area of external relations and defence. It asks a number of questions, including: (1) How, and in what ways, will the UK continue to engage with the EU in the security domain post-Brexit? (2) How will the dynamics of engagement differ from those of accession, membership and/or withdrawal? (3) How can we understand theoretically and conceptually these examples of engagement? (4) What factors impinge on the ability and willingness of both sides to pursue engagement? (5) What is the contribution of the security policy field(s) to the study of UK-EU relations?
The performance of identity in the production of (in)security
The performance of identity in the production of (in)security
(Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
Louise Tiessen: Constructions of Citizenship and its Consequences for the Reintegration of Islamic State Returnees Nick Brooke: Fundamental British Values & The Prevent Duty in Scotland Giulia Grillo: Social categorisation and rise of violence: how deprivation of human dignity becomes the linking tile between moralistic categories and the rise of violence in society Xander Kirke, Russell Foster: ‘You have been betrayed’: Radical Right attempts to appeal to LGBTQ+ communities
Transnational politics, nationalisation, geopolitics and the state
Transnational politics, nationalisation, geopolitics and the state
(International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
Looking at Islamic institutions and politics, this panel also explores how the hegemonic order and geopolitics of the region have developed in times of conflict and state reconfigurations. Form the Kurdish case, to Syria and Egypt and across North Africa, papers also explore how rivalries between countries in the region impact on post-Arab Spring.politics. The panel discusses how transnational groups do politics, and investigates new conceptions of Islam, democracy and political rights.
4:30 PM
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (BJPIR)
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS (BJPIR)
4:30 PM - 4:45 PM
4:45 PM
6. Emerging Trends and Issues in Drone Warfare
6. Emerging Trends and Issues in Drone Warfare
(War Studies Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
This BISA War Studies panel analyses the global implications of Western drone technologies and drone strategies. As military drones spread to over 100 state actors and at least 50 non-state actors, the researchers on this panel help us to understand the broader implications of strategic, ethical, and operational norms established by Western drone deployments over the last two decades.
Abolitionist Thinking as an unanswered question
Abolitionist Thinking as an unanswered question
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
In light of increasingly sinister attacks on anti-racist praxis in academic spaces and scholarship across the globe, the roundtable is part of a year of activities through which we, as a community of colonial, postcolonial and decolonial scholars, carve out space for collective responses. We are inviting our colleagues to submit work that speaks to a range of colonial, postcolonial, and settler colonial contexts, past and present, in order to carry on the conversation started last September at the BISA workshop. The themes are: From the physical sites of prisons/military complexes; to the legal and bureaucratic infrastructures that produce carceral life; through to the deeply colonial and capitalist structures that organise our everyday intimacies; our suggestion is that all struggles, all violence, all structures can be framed through the lens of abolition. Although academic training can lead us too quickly to the assertion of certainties, abolitionist thinking, we hope, opens the possibility of creativity through uncertainty, experimentation in the service of justice, with the idea that as we reveal, we also refuse, challenge, produce and create new things. Abolitionism, while it has a specific history in anti-slave and anti-colonial movements, remains unfixed and open. We invite colleagues to reflect on the lessons of newly resurgent abolitionist movements, in both their refusal of institutional structures built on and through carcerality and in the insistence that the work of liberation demands that we imagine new worlds every day. The roundtable offers a space to participate in that opening - stretching and extending our thinking of what abolition is, might look like, might be, from multiple different lenses, practices, spaces and experiences. Participants and their emails: Chair/Discussant: Dr Gargi Bhattacharyya (email: g.bhattacharyya@uel.ac.uk) Dr Menna Agha (email:menna.agha@gmail.com) Dr Jasmine K. Gani (email: jkng@st-andrews.ac.uk) Jessica Oddy (email: J.Oddy@uel.ac.uk) Taylor Borowetz (email: 676614@soas.ac.uk) Dr Sabrina Villenave (email: sabrina.villenave@manchester.ac.uk). Key words: Abolitionist Thinking, Colonial and Capitalist Structures.
Approaching Climate Crisis
Approaching Climate Crisis
(Environment Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: History Room, Student Union
Approaching Climate Crisis
BISA Working Group Convener Meeting: closed session by invitation only with BISA Chair and Director
BISA Working Group Convener Meeting: closed session by invitation only with BISA Chair and Director
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Council Chamber
This meeting will bring conveners from across the 31 working groups together to discuss progress, expectations and any items they would like to raise with the BISA Chair.
Implementing Peace Agreements in a Complex World
Implementing Peace Agreements in a Complex World
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
Societies’ survival depends on their ability to make peace. In a world characterised by heightened complexity, where international, national and local conflict arenas are intertwined, however, making peace poses a formidable challenge. Peace agreements are a vital means to contain destructive violent conflicts and, in the best case, enable sustainable political settlements to consolidate peaceful societal relations. Implementing peace agreements in a context of heightened complexity bears enormous political and technical difficulties, which peacemakers seek to navigate by using comparative knowledge and technical innovations in the design of agreements and transitional mechanisms. The objective of this panel is to highlight novel insights on both challenges and innovative approaches to implement peace agreements in today’s context of heightened complexity. Recognising the need to accompany fragile peace processes beyond signing ceremonies, international sponsors support agreement implementation through mediation, guarantees, arbitration, peacekeeping, technical assistance and funding. To enable their implementation, agreements stipulate implementation modalities and mechanisms to manage transitional institutions and reforms. Implementation monitoring mechanisms use sophisticated methods to track progress and recognise risks to fragile peace processes. Implementing peace agreements is a complex endeavour. The proliferation of international peace-makers, including regional organisations and emerging powers, complicates international coordination. Since peace processes are non-linear, iterative and abortive, interdependent agreements are implemented in parallel. Complex reforms to address conflict drivers involve unforeseeable problems and take years in which political dynamics evolve. The norm to include societal stakeholders besides power-sharing parties can complicate transitional governance processes. The panel showcases novel research on both challenges and innovative approaches to the implementation of agreements.
Manchester University Press Sponsored Roundtable: Counter-terrorism: International proscription and proliferation
Manchester University Press Sponsored Roundtable: Counter-terrorism: International proscription and proliferation
(BISA)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
This roundtable will bring together academics and practitioners who have authored three books on the subject of counter-terrorism respectively, all recently published by Manchester University Press. The participants will endeavour to explore recent developments in counter-terrorism including: the impact of 9/11 on the proliferation of terrorism and efforts to combat international terrorist groups, organizations, and networks; the effect of proscribing armed groups as ‘terrorists’ on the parties to the conflict, third party actors and the broader ecosystem of peace; the result of the UK proscribing specific terrorist organizations since 9/11 and how it contributes to the construction of Britain as a liberal, democratic, moderate space. Comparing the different approaches taken to counter-terrorism in Colombia, the UK and the USA, the discussion will centre on the symbolic and material effects of the framing of terrorism and armed conflict. From the security practices that have become a common trend and have assisted in the establishment of 'best practices' among non-liberal democratic or authoritarian states, to the timing and sequencing of peace processes in the context of proscription. Together, they will debate the treatment of counter-terrorism powers and security measures used by legislatures across the globe, the actions both of armed groups and those of the state and the possibility of peace.
PGN: Meet The Editors (one-to-one): closed session by invitation only
PGN: Meet The Editors (one-to-one): closed session by invitation only
4:45 PM - 6:10 PM
Room: Pandon, Civic Centre
Meet the Editors . 1.2.1 feedback provided to students from a range of editors
Pathways in and out of violence
Pathways in and out of violence
(Political Violence, Conflict and Transnational Activism)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
This panel examines, from different angles, the pathways that lead people to engage with and disengage from political violence. Papers will address key questions such as the threat posed by extremism, what leads people in particular contexts to participate in violent as well as nonviolent protest, and how do states and organisations respond to extremism. They will examine the trajectories of conflict and the complex processes that are involved in violent activism. And they will explore post-conflict solutions and the ways in which political violence is brought to an end.
Policing’s contested relationalities
Policing’s contested relationalities
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
Policing’s geographic location and borders have long been taken for granted rather than being subjects of explicit analysis and theorization. Policing is most frequently associated with a small scale and ‘domestic’ realm, assuming a mythic status as a quintessentially local state institution (Seigel 2018). Yet as policing’s colonial and imperial origins (Brogden 1987; Khalili 2012) have been excavated and recuperated in recent years, this mythic status is emerging as a vigorous and productive site of reevaluation across a range of social science fields (Schrader 2019; Seigel 2018) including IR (Honke and Muller 2016; Howell 2018; Neolcleous 2014). This transnational and relational shift in focus, however, is not merely descriptive of police in its actually existing forms. It has shown how the routine transgressions of the political and geographic boundaries of police have been predicated on comparisons between different sites that have in turn enabled these circulations to take place and which have made possible the exchange of ideas, logics and tactics between different state authorities. Building on these conversations, this roundtable grapples with two key dimensions of the contested relationalities of policing. First, is how conceptual and material connections across time inform state violence against racialized communities and structure new logics of pacification. Second, is how attending to contested relationalities might inform anti-colonial, anti-racist and abolitionist organizing in specific locations but also transnationally. Bringing together case studies from Palestine, the US, India and the UK, this roundtable reflects on the common logics, patterns and techniques of pacification and order-making, but also on the disjunctures between multiple ontologies of violence and the possible frictions at play in the border crossings of police work.
Presenting, Narrating and Translating Security
Presenting, Narrating and Translating Security
(European Journal of International Security)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
This is the first of the EJIS ECR-PGR panels concentrating on the process of presenting, narrating and translating security problems.
Reflections on collaborations between creative arts practice and social science in military, conflict and peacebuilding research
Reflections on collaborations between creative arts practice and social science in military, conflict and peacebuilding research
(BISA)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
This roundtable brings together researchers from Newcastle University whose military, security and peacebuilding research sits at the intersections of creative art practice and the social sciences. Some are from a creative arts background, others are social scientists. The aim of the roundtable is for the participants to critically reflect on their experiences, share what has worked (and not) and to discuss where research interactions between social sciences and creative arts practice can add value to researching military, security and peacebuilding topics.
The War in Ukraine: Implications for the World
The War in Ukraine: Implications for the World
(War Studies Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Collingwood
The War in Ukraine: Implications for the World
The politics of truth in the digital age
The politics of truth in the digital age
(Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
In this panel, scholars will discuss the impact of digitisation on the politics of truth. How some actors have been taking advantage of it to articulate conspiracy theories as truth? Has it given shape to new realities? To what extent do the digital politics of truth pose challenges to the future of democracy? How modes of alternative truth can offer new opportunities for resistance? How Asia has experienced the post-truth phenomenon? These are some of the questions that will be explored in this panel. **Beatriz Buarque The dangerous impact of the digitisation of international politics: The Alt-Right Conspiratorial Regimes of Truth** The conspiratory nature of the alternative right was noticed by a number of scholars. Nevertheless, the way conspiracy theories such as the great replacement and the white genocide have been produced, consumed, and circulated as truth remains largely overlooked in the literature. By examining this digital political phenomenon as a multitude, this paper exposes how and why the alternative right has managed to trigger its own regimes of truth. It argues that digital media has facilitated the appearance of novel ays of claiming authority, which have contributed to make the leap from “stigmatized” to “legitimate” knowledge. The multimodal critical affect-discourse analysis of nine YouTube videos containing authoritative articulations of the great replacement, white genocide, deep state and cultural Marxism (narratives found in alt-right circles) illuminates how authority is discursively constructed, recognized through comments and likes, and further reinforced through shares across different platforms. This paper makes two important theoretical contributions. To political studies, it presents a new way of examining digital political phenomena by focusing on what is shared as commonality in digital spaces. To international relations, it demonstrates how amorphous political bodies have found on the internet a space to produce and disseminate their own truths. **Seb Bierema Imagining Reality into existence: Castoriadis, Qanon, and the War on Terror** Conspiracy theories and post-truth politics have figured prominently in the popular consciousness since the Brexit referendum and the American elections in 2016. These conspiracies have been broadly dismissed in both academic and media circles as being paranoid and divorced from reality. I attempt a slightly more generous reading of conspiracy theories by drawing on Cornelius Castoriadis’s work on the role of the imagination in bringing the world into being. Castoriadis’s social imaginary bears some resemblance to Foucault’s Regime of Truth, which has recently been gaining prominence in critical readings of conspiracy theories. Rather than conceiving of conspiracies as attempting to provide a narrative which explains an underlying reality, however, Castoriadis highlights a double hermeneutic whereby the imagination is central to creating reality. From this perspective, conspiracy theories can be understood as radical instituting imaginaries which attempt to undermine the givenness of reality as instituted imaginary. This approach does not go as far to exonerate conspiracy theories tout court—some conspiracies, such as the Qanon movement, undoubtedly follow Benjamin’s logic of fascism as the aestheticisation of politics. Instead, it takes the proliferation of conspiracy theories as an impetus to recognise the contradictions and absurdities within our instituted reality. In particular, this paper will explore this process of reality being imagined into being with reference to the Qanon movement and the War on Terror. **Peter Stuart Robinson Contemporary Epistemic Resistance: Modes of Alternative Truth-construction after Occupy London** The crisis-ridden early 21st Century arguably represents a critical historical juncture, relatively susceptible to active interrogation of dominant ideas and institutions, as well as the social movements forming its vehicle and catalyst. Their long-term prospects for mobilising social resistance hinge on their capacity for critical reflection that at least appears to offer a deeper truth and fuller ground to human aspiration. A case-study of the residual social network generated by Occupy London explores the conditions of – and obstacles to – such capacity. A deep-rooted radical-egalitarian, anarchist-influenced sensibility energises and democratises its ‘co-creative learning’ project. At the same time, an increasingly digitalised, networked and algorithmically tailored ‘knowledge environment’ is especially conducive to eclectic modes of interpretation, and susceptible to the intellectually satisfying reconstruction of imperfectly hidden elite conspiracies. Such a conspiracist tendency is a product of (i) the available materials and tools of oppositional speech-acts, and the forms of cognitive processing they favour, (ii) the regressive amplification of algorithmic filtering, (iii) a penchant for the eclectic per se borne of anarchist sensibilities, and (iv) the unconscious reproduction of hegemonic codes of interpretation presupposing extraordinary individual autonomy and instrumental rationality. **Linda Monsees Information disorder, fake news and the future of democracy** The terms ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ have lost their shock value in today’s public discourse and seem to have become part of our normal political vocabulary. Fake news, mis- and disinformation are not a problem of a particular country but are found in politics around the world. In this paper, I look at how disinformation appears as a problem for democracy. Empirically, this paper explores dominant patterns of argumentation with a focus on the US, Germany and Czechia. I discuss the themes of media literacy, hybrid warfare and the emergence of fringe media. This paper argues that more attention needs to be paid to the affectual dimension of why people share fake news. Even though there is no easy solution for dealing with fake news, a first step is to stop denouncing people for believing in fake news and putting all our hope in media literacy. **Anam S. Kuraishia Insights from South Asia – ‘Post-truth’ Discourse and Truthfulness** Despite the numerous conceptualisations of post-truth, a gap in literature remains with regards to empirically illustrating it. I introduce the ‘post-truth’ as a discourse, drawing from the psychoanalytic elements of lack and fantasy along with the fantasmatic logic of explanation, to identify and measure it. In this framework, emotionality is necessary to structure lack and fantasy, and a ‘post-truth’ discourse embodies lack, fantasy, and emotionality, co-occurring to present a fantasmatic logic. I test the ‘post-truth’ discourse to Pakistan in a two-step design. First, I employ a qualitative text analysis to national newspaper articles to detect ‘post-truth’ accounts. Based on this categorization, I design a vignette survey experiment to test the causal relationship between ‘post-truth’ narratives and truthfulness. I surveyed a random sample of 800 respondents from five urban districts in Pakistan. I find that the persuasiveness of post-truth narratives varies across issues but the impact of trust in the source is constant. I also report that trust is mostly associated to politicians than political columnists. Despite an overall null results are present, I highlight how the correlation between emotions and truthfulness for a ‘post-truth’ discourse paves the way to further study the interplay between emotions and political support.
Transnational perspectives on memory, trauma, and conflict
Transnational perspectives on memory, trauma, and conflict
(Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
Transnational perspectives on memory, trauma, and conflict
Working Towards a Just Transition
Working Towards a Just Transition
(Environment Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Model Room 2, Civic Centre
Working Towards a Just Transition
6:30 PM
Gendering International Relations Working Group Meeting
Gendering International Relations Working Group Meeting
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
Inaugural War Studies Keynote: Command in the Falklands War - Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman - Open to conference attendees and the public
Inaugural War Studies Keynote: Command in the Falklands War - Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman - Open to conference attendees and the public
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Room: Council Chamber
Friday, June 17, 2022
8:45 AM
The Limits of Safety – A Sound Installation - Find out more on our highlights page https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/highlights’
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Michael Mulvihill
(Newcastle)
The Limits of Safety – A Sound Installation - Find out more on our highlights page https://conference.bisa.ac.uk/highlights’
Michael Mulvihill
(Newcastle)
8:45 AM - 6:15 PM
Room: Outside of the Student Union
9:00 AM
Can the international peace architecture and liberal interventionism survive?
Can the international peace architecture and liberal interventionism survive?
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
This roundtable, comprised of most of the editorial team of the journal Peacebuilding, considers the extent to which peacebuilding and the infrastructure that supports it, can survive given a dynamic and often unsupportive context. On the one hand we have a clear shift to unilateralism and a retreat from rules-based international order. This context also involves a risen China, and growing emphasis on stabilisation and securitised interventions such as authoritarian conflict management or and the maintenance of hard borders. On the other hand, an ever more elaborate peacebuilding infrastructure has been developed, with its own vernacular and logics (for example, it own technocratic imperative). There is also, of course, continuing conflict, tension and dislocation and thus a need for conflict de-escalation and peace support. The roundtable will take the form of the panel being asked to consider a series of questions/responding to provocations. The roundtabel organisers are aware that a roundtable is different than a panel and want to hold dynamic session with a lot of audience participation.
Constructing roles and narratives in interstate relations
Constructing roles and narratives in interstate relations
(International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Studying foreign policies often requires to define oneself compared and in relation to the other. This social construction of relations led to the analysis of IR through the lenses of identity definition, status recognition, role attribution and self positioning in status hierarchies. This panel offers to look at such interactions by looking at recent developments in interstate relations.
Digital Sovereignty and European Security Integration
Digital Sovereignty and European Security Integration
(European Security Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
Digital data and technologies have become key to the process of European security integration. The adoption of a comprehensive data protection regulation (GDPR) in 2016, and the more recent proposal for a Digital Services Act highlight how the European Union (EU) is taking a much more assertive stance in the digital field (Carrapico and Farrand, 2020). At the heart of these initiatives lies the concept of digital sovereignty. This panel aims at exploring how this concept redefines European security integration. Notably, it raises questions about what kind of security actor the EU wants to become, what security politics underpin European initiatives in the digital realm, and how power relations are redefined across Europe. Indeed, when we place digital sovereignty against a background of increased geopolitical competition, such developments raise important questions regarding how digital technologies shape our societies and challenge fundamental rights, who produces and controls digital infrastructures and how data processing practices are regulated. These questions have become particularly salient in the domain of European security integration (Bigo, 2014; de Goede, 2012), given its extreme sensitivity in terms of “conflicts of sovereignty” (Brack et al., 2021, Duez, 2019) impact of security policies on individuals and social groups (Brouwer, 2020), and an increasing reliance on digital data and technologies (Bellanova and Glouftsios, 2020).
Domestic Politics and US Foreign Policy
Domestic Politics and US Foreign Policy
(US Foreign Policy Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
This panel considers how domestic politics shapes US foreign policy.
European Strategic Autonomy II
European Strategic Autonomy II
(European Security Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Pandon, Civic Centre
This is the second of two panels critically assessing the concept of European strategic autonomy.
Forced Migration and Diplomacy: new forms of diplomacy?
Forced Migration and Diplomacy: new forms of diplomacy?
(International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
Organised population transfers, expulsions, and exchanges have been a surprisingly common feature of international politics, but little is known about the state-level diplomacy that has accompanied such processes.
From the pull of the people to geopolitical pressures: contemporary challenges in Russia and Eurasian polities
From the pull of the people to geopolitical pressures: contemporary challenges in Russia and Eurasian polities
(Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
This panel discusses the domestic-international nexus in the post-Soviet space, including the comparison responses by post-Soviet regimes to street protests.
Global struggles, anti-carceral solidarities and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign
Global struggles, anti-carceral solidarities and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
Since 2005 Palestinian civil society has led an international campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS). Inspired by the South African anti-apartheid movement, the BDS call urges action to pressure Israel to comply with international law. Since its launch BDS has been extensively discussed across multiple academic and non-academic fora, with scholarly engagements touching on core debates in IR, including human rights and international law, ethical responsibility and knowledge production, academic freedom and unfreedom, transnational solidarity and decolonial praxis. Several academic associations and student unions have adopted BDS resolutions as a form of material and symbolic action, while detractors continue to claim it is ineffective and counterproductive. Building from traditions of anti-colonial, internationalist, antiracist, and abolitionist forms of scholarship, pedagogy, and praxis, this roundtable explores the impact of the BDS campaign. It asks how academic associations have responded and what key debates have emerged regarding academic freedom and unfreedom? And how does the BDS movement conceive of solidarity with other contemporary, and avidly decolonial movements, including those advocating for reparations, and social and economic justice? Specifically, in what ways does putting BDS in conversation with Indigenous, anti-racist, and feminist movements benefit the global and interconnected struggle against colonial carcerality?
International Gendered Politics of the Family
International Gendered Politics of the Family
(Gendering International Relations Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: History Room, Student Union
The family is an important conceptual and lived construction with relevance to a wide range of international political concerns. This panel brings together papers interrogating the 'family' and family members in issues as diverse as the colonial legacy of IR, the Covid pandemic, wartime violence and rape, and the military.
Nuclear weapons in a changing world
Nuclear weapons in a changing world
(Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
This panel addresses issue of a changing nuclear order. Technological developments, changing alliances and international commitment and the diffusion of nuclear technology has impacted the regimes and institutions of nuclear governance. Papers on this panel examine the strategic, normative and power dimensions of these changes.
Race, Discourse and the Colonial Media
Race, Discourse and the Colonial Media
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
Whether reporting on protest movements or on police violence; on COVID responses in the Global South or on ‘foreign wars’; on footballers, or on Shamima Begum or Meghan Markle, the media has continued to produce, perpetuate, and reify colonial and racial discourses. In the heyday of the colonial era, newspapers and periodicals allowed the colonial state to shape public understandings of the state’s actions and tempered political engagement and mobilisation by (at best) misrepresenting and (at worst) propagandising the colonial actions of the state. Today, media institutions continue to underplay or outright dismiss claims of racism, while state interventions, whether implicit or explicit, in the running of media institutions allows the media to continue to further racist narratives. The legacies of colonialism continue to fester within media institutions, where racism has become ‘ordinary, not exceptional’ (Delgado & Stefancic, 2007). The media continues to ‘define the rules of the game’ (Hall, 1982), possessing the power to influence and shape the public’s ideas of who belongs and who doesn’t. This panel seeks to explore in more depth the historical and contemporary role of the media in the production and dissemination of colonial and racist discourse and ideology, its impact on the current state of local and international politics, and its complicity with state institutions in upholding coloniality.
Regional Development Banks and Governance of Global Crises
Regional Development Banks and Governance of Global Crises
(International Political Economy Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
Regional development banks have long been fundamental if ignored actors in the setting of global development agendas. Their narratives shape not only development governance priorities, but also the strategies and mechanisms of attaining them. In tandem with changing global dynamics and an evolving global economy, regional development banks have shifted their agendas and reframed dominant development paradigms. In recent years, this has included increased emphasis on private sector participation and greater reliance on for-profit actors as key partners and stakeholders in development operations. Through project advice and funding regional development banks have shaped policymaking and influenced governance at multiple scales, not just the state, impacting everyday lived experiences across the global political economy. This panel explores the changing patterns of regional development bank financing, activities and their impacts on global development governance. It aims to problematize the dominant narratives and analyze the underlying power relations involved by investigating these actors’ prominent role in addressing various global challenges and crises including, but not limited to at multiple scales, the Great Financial Crisis, the Syrian refugee crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Security, Identity and Foreign Policy
Security, Identity and Foreign Policy
(Foreign Policy Working Group)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
This panel provides a critical discussion of the conceptual underpinnings that link security, identity and foreign policy.
Up to Our Necks: International Relations and Existentialism
Up to Our Necks: International Relations and Existentialism
(Review of International Studies)
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
This Roundtable showcases a forthcoming Review of International Studies Special Issue. There has been almost no systematic treatment of Existentialism in IR theorising, and leading existentialist lights remain on the margins of IR discourse. Yet concepts derived from Existentialism permeate and even structure how we typically think and talk about international relations. From freedom and subjectivity to the “existential” in “existential threats,” ideas derived from the existentialist lexicon have long pervaded and shaped IR discourse—even if IR scholars have not always acknowledged their provenance. Existentialism also speaks directly to some of the most pressing concerns in world politics today. It wrestles with the relation between violence, coloniality, resistance, and gender; offers a guide to surviving pandemics and environmental catastrophes; and provides a resource for thinking through questions about what it means to live under threat of nuclear apocalypse in a post-truth society. This roundtable, therefore, explores the relation between IR and Existentialism. *More authors to be added
10:30 AM
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
10:30 AM - 10:45 AM
10:45 AM
2. Technology and Future War
2. Technology and Future War
(War Studies Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
From killer robots, supercomputers, and human-machine teaming, through to the need for change in 21st Century understandings of Operational Art and Networked Warfare, this panel brings together War Studies scholars who seek to help us understand technology and the future of warfare.
Ethics and World Politics: cutting-edge research
Ethics and World Politics: cutting-edge research
(Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
This panel surveys cutting-edge research in Ethics and World Politics, covering a range of central themes from across this field.
Extractive enclaves and the legacies of spatial inequalities
Extractive enclaves and the legacies of spatial inequalities
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
Papers will discuss extractive enclaves and the legacies of spatial inequalities
Non-Western involvement in peace- and statebuilding – a shift in norms and practices? Part 2
Non-Western involvement in peace- and statebuilding – a shift in norms and practices? Part 2
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
With the end of statebuilding missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere, large-scale interventions of countries from the Global North in post-conflict environments and their approaches of ‘building liberal democracies’ or ‘stabilize fragile states’ are increasingly questioned. Calls for a decolonisation of peacebuilding efforts and a greater involvement of the Global South, and local communities, are growing louder. But major contributions of countries from the Global South are nothing new. Countries such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, South Africa, or Turkey have been increasingly involved in security and peace missions, and have contributed to peace- and statebuilding frameworks at the UN level that provide alternatives to the mainstream liberal peace paradigm. In this series of two panels, we explore what this greater involvement means for both norms and practices around interventions from both a current and historical perspective. We are discussing how the involvement of countries from the Global South in UN commissions and dialogues has reshaped policies and architecture of UN peacebuilding, and how everyday practices of peace- and statebuilding in missions have had an impact on the reframing of norms at the mission as well as international level. The second panel discusses what the shift towards non-Western involvement means for interference in peace- and statebuilding missions.
Pacifism and Survival: Exploring the Readiness to Adopt Violence
Pacifism and Survival: Exploring the Readiness to Adopt Violence
(Political Violence, Conflict and Transnational Activism)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Nonviolence and pacifism are gaining increasing scholarly attention in our smaller and more interconnected world. Nonviolent methods of both resistance and governance have been increasingly adopted and have proved effective (Howes 2013). Even brutal regimes have collapsed in the face of nonviolent resistance (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011). Having a stronger army no longer guarantees military success (Biddle 2004). Whether in managing protests (Anisin 2016), criminality (Lanier et al 2018) or prisons (Liebling 2004), in counter-terrorism (Jackson 2017), or in peacebuilding (Julian 2020), violent and repressive approaches tend to be counter-productive and less effective than well-designed nonviolent alternatives. Violence also entrenches patriarchy and other hierarchies of domination (Confortini 2006). In short, the mounting interdisciplinary evidence against violence is increasingly compelling. Yet much violence continues to erupt in the contemporary world arena, both in explicit conflicts and in the structures of the existing order. How is pacifist analysis adapting to the evolving international order? How are violent regimes responding to nonviolent dissent? Are institutions set up to protect citizens from violence succeeding, or making things worse? This panel is one of two panels that will consider such questions and thus reflect on the potential for nonviolence and pacifism in an already violent world.
Past is Present - Tracing Intellectual Histories
Past is Present - Tracing Intellectual Histories
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Model Room 2, Civic Centre
Papers will discuss themes and debates around tracing Intellectual Histories
Practices of violence
Practices of violence
(Political Violence, Conflict and Transnational Activism)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
Resistance comes in many different forms, both violent and nonviolent, and is employed by many different actors, ranging from isolated individuals through to organised movements. The papers in this panel explore varied questions around the practices of violence, examining how societies respond to resistance movements; how resistance movements and their leaders seek to mobilise support for their cause; how violent actors use particular tactics as recruitment tools; and how non-state actors seek to exploit emerging technologies.
Rethinking world order and the study of state power
Rethinking world order and the study of state power
(International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
State power has been one of the most studied and used perspective to analyse and understand how the world works. This panel offers to take a fresh look at concepts and theoretical perspective that are widely used to study such phenomena as well as to offer new perspective about them.
Security, Coloniality and the Policing of Mobility
Security, Coloniality and the Policing of Mobility
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
This panel examines the intersections of colonialism and the migration-security nexus. Contemporary migration scholarship explores this intersection through its instruments, practices, and impact on populations in a hypersecuritised context. Less discussed is the role of everyday colonial practices, discourses and lived experiences that affect this relationship. With this objective, this panel further explores the migration-security nexus, and examines how the ‘afterlife’ of Empire prevails through the creation of transience, insecurity and precarity. First, colonial rationalities govern racialised practices of control, surveillance and policing with an increasing trend toward the blending of institutions, infrastructures, and public and private organisations. Second, hierarchies of migrant and citizen populations continue to be ordered according to colonial rationalities that govern practices of control, surveillance and policing in formal and informal spaces. Third, colonial renderings of the migration-security nexus trouble binaries of what is traditionally conceived as local/global, citizen/non-citizen and us/them, as well as challenging concepts of sovereignty and citizenship.
Selective Reconstruction: Conceptualising (Re-)Engagement in the Post-Brexit UK-EU Security Relationship (Panel 2 of 2)
Selective Reconstruction: Conceptualising (Re-)Engagement in the Post-Brexit UK-EU Security Relationship (Panel 2 of 2)
(European Security Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: History Room, Student Union
With the entry into force of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) in January 2021, scholarly attention has turned to the dynamics that will govern the EU-UK relationship going forwards. Far from being a uniform process, the re-construction of the UK-EU relationship post-Brexit is characterised by a significant degree of variation across policy fields, in which both sides seek to engage in greater cooperation in some areas more than others, through more or less formalised mechanisms. This panel examines how distinct dynamics of engagement - focusing on disengagement, continued engagement and re-engagement - have developed in the context of the EU-UK security relationship, incorporating both internal security matters as well as the area of external relations and defence. It asks a number of questions, including: (1) How, and in what ways, will the UK continue to engage with the EU in the security domain post-Brexit? (2) How will the dynamics of engagement differ from those of accession, membership and/or withdrawal? (3) How can we understand theoretically and conceptually these examples of engagement? (4) What factors impinge on the ability and willingness of both sides to pursue engagement? (5) What is the contribution of the security policy field(s) to the study of UK-EU relations?
The International Political Economy of Development
The International Political Economy of Development
(International Political Economy Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
The International Political Economy of Development
The Role of Actors in Foreign Policy Change
The Role of Actors in Foreign Policy Change
(Foreign Policy Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
The contributions in this panel critically discuss the link between Foreign Policy Analysis and Role Theory by looking at empirical contributions examining the case of Germany, India, Russia and small states.
The cultural politics of empathy in war and memory
The cultural politics of empathy in war and memory
(Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
Research on militarism has long identified gender, race and class as central to the cultural, political and technological processes which enable, legitimise, and contest practices of war-making. The papers in this panel seek to contribute to these debates by explicitly looking at ways in which narratives and embodied experiences of empathy contribute to our understanding of war and violence in a range of different cultural sites. The papers explore what political work is being done through cultivating, announcing, or resisting feeling with and for figures and sites of war. In doing so, they investigate who may be part of these communities of feeling and how affective participation in war-related activities is rendered (in)visible as part of everyday lives.
Towards hybridity in the Protection of Civilians
Towards hybridity in the Protection of Civilians
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
10:45 AM - 12:15 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Centre
This roundtable will explore Protection of Civilians (PoC) activities, focusing on how we can better understand processes of implementation, contestation and adaption in areas of violent conflict. The roundtable will link civilian protection with the concept of 'hybridity', a term used in the peacebuilding field, to better understand the evolving flexibility of models of civilian protection. The roundtable forms part of an ESRC/IRC funded project which brings academic, practitioners and policymakers together to explore such issues.
12:15 PM
Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group Meeting
Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group Meeting
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
Lunch: SPONSORED BY REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Lunch: SPONSORED BY REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
12:15 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Banqueting Hall, Civic Centre
12:30 PM
BISA 2022 Prize Giving Ceremony
BISA 2022 Prize Giving Ceremony
12:30 PM - 1:15 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
1:15 PM
BISA Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group Prize Panel
BISA Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group Prize Panel
(Review of International Studies)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
This roundtable examines the way in which IR journal editors can increase the geographical diversity of the authors. At presents the majority of articles are written by authors who work in Western Europe, North America or Australia and New Zealand (WENAANZ). This Roundtable will seek to understand why this might be the case and how to include more articles by authors working in institutions located outside WENAANZ. *More participants to be added
Contemporary Views of a Changing World Order
Contemporary Views of a Changing World Order
(Foreign Policy Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
This panel critically discusses new challenges in the global orders. It does so by examining new ways of peace, by comparing forms of engagement and influence and foreign policy shifts in the humanitarian discourse.
Defence reform and military transformation in a changing world: cross-regional approaches to military change
Defence reform and military transformation in a changing world: cross-regional approaches to military change
(War Studies Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
The contemporary international system encompasses complex security threats and rapid societal changes. Challenges such as terrorism, informational warfare, cybersecurity, nuclear proliferation, and great power competition affect how societies prepare and deploy armed forces. Hence, military change is a chief aspect of the contemporary world. Yet, why and how military organisations change and innovate is subject to substantial scholarly discussion as the militaries are complex, hierarchical, and conservative bureaucracies prepared to provide security and wage war. The international environment, technology, socialisation, strategic culture, bureaucratic competition, civil-military relations are just a few possible explanations to the issue. What factors drive change in contemporary military organisations? How have armed forces engaged in reforms worldwide? These are the questions this panel will address. Papers will focus on the issue of military change, military innovation, and defence reform from a cross-national, cross-regional, and multidisciplinary perspective. The panel presents a diverse set of theoretical approaches from different regions with distinct strategic cultures, historical paths, and patterns of civil-military relations—represented by the cases of France, Colombia, Brazil, Germany, Tunisia, and Turkey. The main goal is to explore societies and military organisations’ quest to innovate, improve efficiency, and develop effective defence and security apparatus from distinct perspectives.
Early warning and mass atrocity prevention
Early warning and mass atrocity prevention
(Intervention and Responsibility to Protect Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
This panel discusses institutional attempts to prevent mass atrocity crimes and the utility of the international community's early warning mechanisms
Feminist Foreign Policy - interrogating a developing idea
Feminist Foreign Policy - interrogating a developing idea
(Gendering International Relations Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
Ideas of feminism and gender within policymaking often remain contested. Whilst some states, international organisations and individuals are increasingly eager to use this language to discuss their work and have heavily invested in feminist policymaking, questions over what policy is feminist, if and how policy can ever be feminist, and the limitations, exclusions, and complicities of liberal feminism on the one hand are set against the backdrop of powerful rejections of feminism and gender ‘ideology’ on the other. Much academic interest has been focussed on this division between pro- and anti-gender expressions at the heart of policymaking. Yet, beyond this dichotomy there are interesting new innovations in policymaking (feminist foreign policy being one such prominent example) and points of pressure and change in unexpected locations. This panel explores these developing innovations and the contentions within feminist policymaking, with case studies including Chile, Sweden, France and NATO.
From order to peace? Debating (and comparing) local ordering and actor constellations across Eurasia
From order to peace? Debating (and comparing) local ordering and actor constellations across Eurasia
(Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
What insights can the study of politics, peace, conflict and intervention offer on sustainable ways of building peaceful and secure societies? More than three decades after the fall of Socialist regimes across Eurasia, this aspect remains under-explored in various post-conflict and ‘transitional’ contexts, while cross-regional dialogue and comparison on this aspect have been even more scarce. Building upon exchange in a network on “Studying Local Ordering and Peace", the present panel aims to fill this void by assembling scholars who inquire ‘what works’ and the enabling conditions for sustainable peacebuilding and security. This analysis aims at embedding ideas of ‘bottom-up’ and ‘local ordering’ in a critical understanding of the regressive logics of present-day politics and international interventions, broadly defined. To this end, the second aspect concerns the actor constellations that foreground ‘local ordering’, including the roles of international organisations, national or sub-national actors like governments, corporations, but also community-level structures and initiatives. The third contribution lies in exploring potentials for comparing and dialoguing across specific contexts in Eurasia, including Central Asia, the Caucasus and (South-)Eastern Europe. This perspective will serve to identify possibilities – and ongoing practices – of transfer, exchange and collaboration in the areas of social and political activism, academic knowledge production and their intersections.
Global Defence Policy and Practice.
Global Defence Policy and Practice.
(War Studies Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
This panel of international scholars brings to our attention some of the most important issues in global defence policy and practice. Attendees with leave this panel with a better understanding of defence reforms in India, Japan and South Korea, along with new understandings of the challenges faced by Women in security forces and how armed forces around the globe are increasingly investing in education focused defence engagement programs.
Global Intersections – The governance of health at the intersection with political economy and the environment
Global Intersections – The governance of health at the intersection with political economy and the environment
(Global Health Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: History Room, Student Union
Health governance is often referred to as one of the few truly global issues – alongside other essentially illimitable challenges, such as the unfolding environmental crisis of the Anthropocene. This conception of globality is significant, as it means that ‘the environment’ and ‘health’ cannot be studied in isolation, and that considerations of health or environmental policy should necessarily form part of any other governmental question. Contributions to this panel open up the intersection between health and the environment, and also delve deeper into the wider challenges of governing an essentially global issue area – ranging from questions of global access and equity to conflicts between global and national interests. These questions coalesce around different ‘health’ issues with wider implications, such as the challenges faced over the course of the COVID pandemic, and also issues of longer standing such as anti-microbial resistance, or tensions between the promotion of health and the safe-guarding of intellectual property.
Interpreting global politics
Interpreting global politics
(Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Papers on this panel focus on a variety of empirical cases which are analysed using bespoke interpretive methodology.
Race, coloniality and the Women, Peace and Security agenda: Reflections on research and practice
Race, coloniality and the Women, Peace and Security agenda: Reflections on research and practice
(Gendering International Relations Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, commonly related to the sequence of ten resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council since 2000 under the title of “women and peace and security”, involves numerous actors, activities and artefacts. Conventional accounts of WPS development and implementation tend to reproduce a narrative that positions states and actors located in the global North as “providers” of WPS, and those in the global South as “recipients”. This assumption in turn prescribes, and proscribes, forms of WPS engagement and has a constitutive effect on the agenda itself, as shown by the post- and decolonial critiques of the agenda that have been advanced in recent years. This roundtable brings together experts engaged with various aspects of the WPS agenda to explore the operation of racialized power in the agenda and its colonial imprint, reflecting on ongoing research and contemporary policy practice.
Rethinking Pedagogy in Political Economy
Rethinking Pedagogy in Political Economy
(International Political Economy Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
How does our scholarship shape our teaching? What kind of insights and experiences do we want to produce in the classroom? And what can we learn as academics from our interactions with students? This roundtable brings together five scholars, each engaged in projects located at the nexus of research and teaching, to stimulate discussion on these questions. The projects address avatars of Eurocentricism in IPE textbooks (Baumann), the teaching of economic policy institutions in Economics and Political Science (Berry), classroom activities inspired by Everyday IPE (Elias, Rethel), an understanding of pedagogy as encounter (Inayatullah), and teaching with activists to help realise a polyphonic university (Natile). After brief introductions of their respective projects, the panellists will be invited to reflect on questions and comments taken from the audience.
Rethinking Security and Solidarity Through Emotions
Rethinking Security and Solidarity Through Emotions
(Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
Rethinking Security and Solidarity Through Emotions
The politics of emotions in social movements
The politics of emotions in social movements
(Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
1:15 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
The Politics of Emotions in Social Movements
2:45 PM
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
2:45 PM - 3:00 PM
3:00 PM
(State) Terrorism and violence: Processes of legitimation in (in)security narratives
(State) Terrorism and violence: Processes of legitimation in (in)security narratives
(Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
Lisa Stampnitzky: From official secrets to official discourse: how the state came to justify torture Raquel da Silva, Catarina Rosa: Ideologically inspired hate crimes: Victims’ narratives and police officers’ unconscious cognitive biases Ugo Gaudino: How do political parties translate security? Securitization of Islam from the populist radical Right to the Left Joel Abdelmoez: "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Sends its Condolences” : Twitter diplomacy and governmental responses to terrorism Frank Foley: Rhetorical manoeuvres to enable torture: ‘reverse shaming’ and narrative contestation in Spain and the UK
British Foreign Policy and Human Rights
British Foreign Policy and Human Rights
(Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
This panel considers the evolution of British foreign policy and human rights since the 1970s. It considers the extent to which human rights have been prioritised in foreign policy decision making and considers the tools used by policy-makers to promote human rights. It also explores the domestic and international obstacles faced by human rights promoters. The panel regards the 1970s as a pivotal decade for the incorporation of human rights into government policy but argues that the changes were not institutionalized. The policies were ad hoc and though they prefigured what came later, clear processes and structures on policy making were not put in place. The panel therefore considers the lessons of the 1970s experience and their implications for the contemporary practice of human rights promotion. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, the panel assesses the practical and theoretical implications for future human rights policy.
Communication and messaging of violence
Communication and messaging of violence
(Political Violence, Conflict and Transnational Activism)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
Political violence isn't solely reducible to actual physical acts: It invariably involves communicative dimensions that give the violence its political character. The papers will explore the communicative practices of violent actors, examining questions around the ways in which they use social media; how they seek to shape ideologies and identities through their statements and other outputs; and the role of the visual in propaganda.
Disrupting the Western intellectual foundations of IR
Disrupting the Western intellectual foundations of IR
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
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Emerging Strategic Trends and Hybrid Warfare
Emerging Strategic Trends and Hybrid Warfare
(War Studies Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Dobson, Civic Centre
This panel combines research on military strategy and military capacity with research on emerging and established practices of hybrid warfare. By bringing together a mix of international perspectives, this BISA War Studies panel will generate novel discussion and debate on these overlapping and pertinent issues.
International Institutions and Organisations: Complexity, Bureaucracy, and Funding
International Institutions and Organisations: Complexity, Bureaucracy, and Funding
(International Law and Politics Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
The study of international institutions and international organisations (IOs) has gained new relevance with increasing geopolitical tensions, a demand for measurable impacts of global governance, and a shrinking fiscal space for multilateralism. This panel situates international institutions and IOs in interaction with the broader environment of global politics. The papers speak to the complexity of inter-institutional relations, the politics of resource mobilisation in IOs, as well as expertise and agency of international bureaucracies. The panel also sheds light on how new organisational forms interact with formal intergovernmental IOs. Hybrid institutional complexes and global governance complexes capture new modalities of cooperation with different degrees of formalisation and layering. The panel contributions offer findings based on the analysis of novel datasets and qualitative data. This panel consists of five paper contributions from scholars working on the inner life, relationships, and broader regime context within which international institutions and IOs operate. The panel offers a space for dialogue among scholars working on such diverse issues as financial regulation, global public health, chemical and nuclear non-proliferation, food security and agricultural development, peacekeeping, and African governance.
Material Politics and the circuits of colonial relations
Material Politics and the circuits of colonial relations
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
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Participation and Protection in Security
Participation and Protection in Security
(European Journal of International Security)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
This is the second EJIS ECR-PGR panel, concentrating on issues of participation and protection in security
Procuring together, procuring more efficiently? European states and defence procurement in the 21st century
Procuring together, procuring more efficiently? European states and defence procurement in the 21st century
(European Security Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: History Room, Student Union
Over the last several decades, states have increased their collaboration in the field of defence procurement. In Europe, for instance, following the end of World War II, Western European leaders understood that procuring weapons at the level of individual states was no longer efficient. Since then, deep mutations have affected both procurement practices and the defence market. As a result, nowadays, several factors play into states’ decisions to enter collaborative endeavours to procure military equipment. These factors include, but are not limited to, greater cost of weapons, the globalisation of armaments supply chain and the increasing involvement of international institutions such as the EU seeking to foster collaboration among its member states. Collaborating in defence procurement might be seen as a win-win situation for the actors involved: they can save money, they can favour economies of scale, thereby lowering the unitary price, and they can also rely on the expertise of other partners. This can ultimately lead to a product of better quality than if they had worked on it on their own. Yet, collaborative weapons is seldom a state’s first choice. Why is that the case? What explains the success or failure of collaborative defence endeavours? What role do international institutions such as the EU and NATO play in pushing states to cooperate? How is Brexit affecting the European procurement market?
Remembrance, War and Peace: Critical Approaches to Violence and Militarism
Remembrance, War and Peace: Critical Approaches to Violence and Militarism
(Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
Remembrance, War and Peace: Critical Approaches to Violence and Militarism
Rethinking research practices in IR
Rethinking research practices in IR
(International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
3:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
Since the establishment of IR as an academic field, research methods and perspectives used by scholars to study and better understand the world we live in have been developed and evolved in very different directions. This panel proposes to shed some new light on the processes of studying IR. More precisely, it proposes to revisit and interrogate some of the mostly used methods and research instruments by students and scholars as to improve research practices.
4:30 PM
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
Break with tea and coffee: SPONSORED BY REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ECONOMY
4:30 PM - 4:45 PM
4:45 PM
Global Governance, International Organization, and Emerging Technologies
Global Governance, International Organization, and Emerging Technologies
(International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Council Chamber, Civic Centre
This panel investigates aspects of the role played by International Organizations in the global governance of emerging technologies.
International approaches to peace and conflict
International approaches to peace and conflict
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Carloil, Civic Centre
Examining how states and international organisations approach peace operations
Politics of International Law
Politics of International Law
(International Law and Politics Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Armstrong, Civic Centre
Politics of International Law
Practices of Violence and Control in the Middle East
Practices of Violence and Control in the Middle East
(Orphan Papers track)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Swan, Civic Centre
PRACTICES OF VIOLENCE AND CONTROL IN THE MIDDLE EAST
Practising Peacekeeping: Experiences of Peacekeepers and Beyond
Practising Peacekeeping: Experiences of Peacekeepers and Beyond
(Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Daniel Wood, Student Union
Peacekeeping follows increasingly complex mandates and peacekeepers are often simultaneously required to fight armed groups, protect civilians, build roads and states, train security forces and provide initial humanitarian support. While research has accounted for the challenges and shortcomings of peacekeeping, we know little about the everyday practices of peacekeeping and how peacekeepers themselves straddle their responsibilities and experience their tasks. This panel calls for papers that examine peacekeeping practices and attend to the multiple dimensions of the experiences of peacekeepers. Papers could be centred around the following broad themes: • Organizational practices or cultures of peacekeeping • The everyday experiences of peacekeepers • Gender and peacekeeping • Relations between peacekeepers and hosts • Practical effects of South-North divisions between troop sending and funding countries • Ethical and practical dilemmas of peacekeeping • Internal tensions for example between mission command, national HQs; and field offices; military and civilian peacekeeping; troop contributing countries
Rethinking Emancipation
Rethinking Emancipation
(International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Bewick, Civic Centre
Emancipation is a central component critical thinking and, the raison d’être of a ‘critical IR’. However, 'Critical IR’, both historically and in the present day, has both an aversion to and a deeply problematic understanding of emancipation. It either draws on Euro-centric under-standings of emancipation and its inherent universalised norms or refuses normative think-ing altogether. This panel is based on the premise that in order to conduct a critical analysis of international politics, we need to rethink the relation between normativity and emancipa-tion. This is a theoretical task with enormous practical consequences given the present con-stellation of crises – economic, political and ecological-which which we are confronted. Specifically, the panel will engage with the following themes: • The conceptualisation of emancipation in IR and political theory • The relation between normativity and emancipation in IR/political theory • Genealogical accounts of the role of emancipation and/or the relation between emanci-pation and normativity in IR • Ontological and/or epistemological problems of emancipation. • Emancipation in concrete (empirical) fields of study such as peace studies, climate change politics and gender studies • Decolonial and non-Eurocentric accounts of emancipation • The panel will conclude by posing the question between emancipation and ontology in IR
The Diverse Politics of Secession
The Diverse Politics of Secession
(Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Parson, Civic Centre
The diverse politics of secession
The Ethics and Politics of 'Harm'
The Ethics and Politics of 'Harm'
(Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Martin Luther King, Student Union
This roundtable critically evaluates the possibilities and limitations of the concept of harm as a foundation for responsibility, accountability and liability in global ethics. Rationalist approaches to global ethics (Hutchings, 2018) such as consequentialism and deontology treat harm as an objective foundation: as something that can be measured, or as the content of a moral imperative. Contributors will be invited to consider but think past this, by building on Linklater's (2006) more intersubjective interpretation of harm as an 'essentially contested concept' (Gallie, 1956; see also Hoseason 2018, Karp 2020). This will be connected to substantive areas including business and human rights, migration policy, international criminal justice, racial/colonial capitalism, and hate speech. The roundtable begins a conservation between scholars ranging from established academics to PhD researchers. It fosters a discussion about how each contributor's research and professional experience in this area, as well as future research plans, can help to construct a larger collaborative research agenda about the ethics and politics of harm in IR.
The Power of Narratives: Russia’s Strategic Narratives of Identity and Crises
The Power of Narratives: Russia’s Strategic Narratives of Identity and Crises
(Russian and Eurasian Security Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Kate Adie, Student Union
This panel brings together five research papers that explore different aspects of strategic narratives articulated by the Russian state, and by Russian state-sponsored and independent media. The papers draw on diverse theoretical traditions and methodologies to analyse the formation and the reception of these narratives. Focusing on the formation, Chatterje-Doody’s paper examines the ways in which the Russian state-sponsored RT constructs strategic narratives promoting populist sentiments among ‘Western’ audiences, while Kazakov’s study investigates RT’s attempts to discredit political actors in the UK’s 2019 General Election. Focusing on the reception of strategic narratives, Szostek explores the impact of Russian media narratives on popular attitudes to democracy and good citizenship, and on belief in disinformation in Ukraine, while Hoyle studies the impact of Russia’s ‘antagonistic strategic narratives’ on media consumers in the Netherlands and Sweden. Finally, Feklyunina and Bilsland interrogate the link between Russia’s strategic narratives of past victories and defeats and the ways in which the Russian authorities have interpreted Russia’s ‘rightful’ international role in its relationship with the US and Afghanistan.
The academic-practitioner nexus: what can we learn?
The academic-practitioner nexus: what can we learn?
(Learning and Teaching Working Group)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Collingwood, Civic Centre
The engagement of academia with practitioners and the development of policy is not new. Think-tanks such as Chatham House and journals such as *International Affairs* were created as mechanisms form bringing different groups together in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Today's REF also gives a significant emphasis to impact. This roundtable brings together a number of academics with varying experiences of policy engagement to reflect on their experiences and the lessons that they would pass on to ECRs and so forth.
Understanding transnational violent and non-violent activism and its challenges
Understanding transnational violent and non-violent activism and its challenges
(Political Violence, Conflict and Transnational Activism)
4:45 PM - 6:15 PM
Room: Stephenson, Civic Centre
This panel seeks to explore transnational activism in its different forms and the challenges it represents for their communities and state authorities in both homeland and hostland. At the violent end of the spectrum, the panel explores jihadi ’foreign fighters’ in relation to ISIS. At the non-violent end, the panel examines political and non-political transnationalism of diaspora communities and the nexus between homeland and hostland policies. What are the implications of grass-root political transnationalism and non-political transnationalism for diaspora communities at home and abroad? How are transnational violent and non-violent forms of activism shaping the counterterrorism policies of their home country and host country? How can mobilisation and non-mobilisation trajectories of violent transnational non-state actors be explained and how are they understood by the state and used for counterterrorism purposes?