Name: BISA 2025 Conference
Start: 2025-06-17T09:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-06-20T19:55:00+01:00
Location: No location set

BISA 2025 Conference

from Tuesday, 17 June 2025 (09:00) to Friday, 20 June 2025 (19:55)

Monday, 16 June 2025
Tuesday, 17 June 2025
18:00 Public lecture by Professor Cynthia Enloe: What feminists reveal when they investigate masculinities: The case of military 'manpower'. Although this is open to all conference delegates you need to register in advance to attend at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/what-feminists-reveal-when-they-investigate-masculinities-tickets-1095161801429?aff=oddtdtcreator. The public lecture is organised in partnership with the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, the Centre for Gender in Politics and the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science at Queen’s University Belfast. - Cynthia Enloe (Clark University)
Public lecture by Professor Cynthia Enloe: What feminists reveal when they investigate masculinities: The case of military 'manpower'. Although this is open to all conference delegates you need to register in advance to attend at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/what-feminists-reveal-when-they-investigate-masculinities-tickets-1095161801429?aff=oddtdtcreator. The public lecture is organised in partnership with the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, the Centre for Gender in Politics and the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Science at Queen’s University Belfast.
- Cynthia Enloe (Clark University)
18:00 - 19:30
Room: Canada Room and Council Chamber
19:45 Postgraduate Network and first-timers meet up
Postgraduate Network and first-timers meet up
19:45 - 20:45
Wednesday, 18 June 2025

09:00 Africa and the world
Africa and the world (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Africa and the world

An exploration of the race, colonialism and the binaries and hybridities of IR theory
An exploration of the race, colonialism and the binaries and hybridities of IR theory (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
An exploration of the race, colonialism and the binaries and hybridities of IR theory

Anticolonial Solidarities and Resistance: Learning from Ireland to Palestine
Anticolonial Solidarities and Resistance: Learning from Ireland to Palestine (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This roundtable addresses the horizontal and temporal learning and building of community that occurs between and across anticolonial movements. In speaking to the current moment of the Palestinian anticolonial struggle, this roundtable highlights the importance of transnational support in maintaining the resilience and vitality of anticolonial movements. This session explores the history of anticolonial connectivities, focusing particularly on Ireland and Palestine, as well as other sites of support. We hope to observe and discuss what travels between geographies of resistance, from the prisoners’ movement strategies, to anticolonial literature, and symbols, stories of heroes and other structures that sustain struggles over time. What does looking across sites of anticolonial struggle tell us about international relations more broadly, perhaps sitting at odds with the methodological nationalism that at times dominates the discipline. In this way, this roundtable collectively investigates anticolonial imaginaries and futures, and the ways in which solidarities allow to re-think contemporary political, economic and social relations.

Applied History and British Foreign Policy
Applied History and British Foreign Policy (Foreign Policy Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel interrogates British foreign and defence policy using a shared 'Applied history' approach. The authors discuss a wide range of cases but do so with a view to identifying how analysing current policy dilemmas in historical terms can shed useful light on how the present was formed and how the past shapes current policy choices and understandings.

Arts and Conflict: Bodies, Landscapes, and Generations
Arts and Conflict: Bodies, Landscapes, and Generations (War Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This roundtable at the intersection of arts and conflict centres on the ways in which artists and the arts offer insights into the complexities, histories and legacies of war. Engaging with scholars and artists, we aim to explore the generational impacts of war through traumas, bodies, nature and histories. Bringing together research across contexts, methods and scholarly spaces, the roundtable will centre on the role of the arts to illuminate theoritical and empirical questions surrounding the study of war and its aftermath. Using artistic mediums to communicate, teach and research the complexities of conflict we hope to expand the interdisciplinary conversation of art and war studies, opening new dialogues with artists and scholars alike.

Control and Resistance in Global Health
Control and Resistance in Global Health (Global Health Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
What does it mean to be healthy and stay safe in our world? Where can we witness spaces of power, control and resistance to existing paradigms of (global) health governance? This panel dives into the politics of power in global health governance through the lenses of technology and resistance in various intersecting papers. From practices of resistance to health policy in the EU and the integration of rights-based approaches in public health policies to the mobilisation of queer solidarity during the recent mpox outbreak, this panel shows that the domain of health is not only deeply political but that it inspires activism and dissent. Moreover, this panel highlights the role of surveillance and control on the level of neurobiology and mental health, thereby contributing to ongoing debates about the disciplinary scope of global health scholarship.

Critical approaches to feminist foreign policy: ethics, politics, security, justice and diplomacy
Critical approaches to feminist foreign policy: ethics, politics, security, justice and diplomacy (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Orthodox foreign policy analysis is notoriously gender-blind (True & Aggestam 2020), disregarding the gendered and colonial dynamics, harms and injustices that prevail in global politics and states’ external relations (Bergman Rosamond 2020). Feminist scholars and activists have for long critiqued the idea that global challenges and conflicts can be solved through militarized means, favouring peaceful and non-lethal settlements of conflicts and injustices. Thus, feminist scholars view FFP as a largely ethical project, committing states and other actors to structural change across intersectional divides, advocating peaceful and demilitarized responses to armed conflict, economic hardship and poverty. This panel brings together papers that advance critical explorations of the achievements and shortcomings of FFPs worldwide, zooming in on such things as militarism, conflict, gendered oppression, indigenous and climate justice, foreign policy change, economic development and peace diplomacy. Methodologically the papers are underpinned by a dedication to intersectional analysis, recognising the intersecting power relations that undergird foreign policy, and, as such staying attentive to the gendered and colonial silences that undergird actual FFPs.

Emotions, Subjectivity and Fantasy
Emotions, Subjectivity and Fantasy (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel looks into the intersection between ontological security and emotions/affect by exploring key concepts of subjectivity and fantasy.

Environmental injustice and inequality in a degrading climate
Environmental injustice and inequality in a degrading climate (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Environmental injustice and inequality in a degrading climate

From War to Peace: The Politics of the Troubles
From War to Peace: The Politics of the Troubles (War Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel revisits the ‘troubles’ and asks a series of questions about how and why those years of war shaped the politics of the British Isles, how peace was eventually negotiated and discusses the consequences of that settlement. Experts reflect on how education, society and policing were affected towards the end of the ‘troubles’. It also asks what lessons can be learnt for other divided places. Chair: Michael Cox (m.e.cox@lse.ac.uk) - LSE Ideas, London School of Economics Discussant: Richard English (R.English@qub.ac.uk) – Queen’s University Belfast Panelists: ‘Integrating education in the Shadow of War’ Fiona Stephen (fiona.stephen@gmail.com) - LSE Ideas. London School of Economics ‘Reflections on How Wars End’ Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (C.M.Kennedy-Pipe@lboro.ac.uk) – Loughborough University ‘Lessons for another place: From Belfast to Seoul’ Wooyun Jo (W.Jo@lboro.ac.uk) – Loughborough University ‘The Consequences of Britain’s Longest War’ Martin Thorp (M.Thorp@lboro.ac.uk) – Loughborough University

Health(care) and its bordering mechanisms
Health(care) and its bordering mechanisms (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
A panel on the various ways through which health, care, and healthcare are imbued with carcerality and bordering mechanisms, and the ways in which they can be resisted.

India: Politics, Diplomacy, Development
India: Politics, Diplomacy, Development (Global Politics and Development)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel brings together researchers of India's development.

Law and War: New Challenges
Law and War: New Challenges (International Law and Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
The panel considers innovative technologies and unexpected developments in the relationship between warfare and law governing actors and actions.

Lost in Transition? Movements and Contestations from South East Europe
Lost in Transition? Movements and Contestations from South East Europe (South East Europe Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel explores different transitions that emerge from and in South East Europe and beyond, ranging from post-war transition to neoliberal transition, and most recently green transition. It brings together papers that critically examine activism, resistance, transitional justice, and state-building across the region.

Military encounters I: sites and spaces of CMS
Military encounters I: sites and spaces of CMS (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel is the first of two exploring diverse, messy and complex military encounters. Centring on the sites and spaces of Critical Military Studies, it provokes thinking on where military encounters take shape, how they are/become embodied, and what bodies they entangle with(in) them.

Models of state building
Models of state building (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Understanding different processes of state building amidst evolving geopolitical tensions

Mourning, Migration and Maturity: the politics of (un)belonging
Mourning, Migration and Maturity: the politics of (un)belonging (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel would continue some of the discussion on mothering from BISA 2024 and raise new issues around how we negotiate grief while working in international relations, conflict studies, youth studies, peace studies, postcolonial studies— how is this intersected by the dislocatedness associated with migration and how caring responsibilities are intensified when we are ‘out of place’. What does it mean to think of older age mothering and ageing/mature bodies/minds/selves as we navigate conferencing, ageing parents, older children, long working/commuting days, COVID aftermaths, increasing and chronic stress related illnesses and what it means to be senior or junior in academia. How does the conversation change when we look at mothering from this more inclusive, broader and deeper perspective? What does it mean to do IR in the midst of these kin and other responsibilities and conditions? What do we do when our kin is many miles away, suffering or in need? How does that affect how we think about the international and what kind of IR scholars we can or should be?

No united Ireland on a dead planet
No united Ireland on a dead planet (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Debates about the reunification of Ireland have accelerated post-Brexit and in the context of recent Sinn Féin electoral successes. These debates have generally focused on the economic prospects of reunification, the provision of health and social care, and the likely outcome of a border poll. Within this there has been limited discussion of the ecological and climate implications of a united Ireland. This may seem strange when one considers that the island of Ireland has always been a single biogeographic unit of landscapes, water sources, flora, and fauna despite its historic political divide. This panel asks why the two green politics in Ireland - republicanism and environmentalism - have not been brought together within a sustained debate. Beginning from the premise that the 'big question' of Irish politics cannot be answered apart from the 'big question' of planetary politics, we invite papers that examine the tensions between these two green politics from theoretical and empirical perspectives. We invite papers that focus on, but need not be limited to: - The overlap between nature restoration/climate action and post-conflict reconciliation - Conflict transformation and just transitions - Cross-border environmental activism - Managing the habitats along the border - The nexus of neoliberal economic policies, peace, and environmental degradation - Class and sectarian division in the access to nature and natural spaces

Outer Space and the Challenges of Economic Interests, Environmental Distress, and Legal Disputes
Outer Space and the Challenges of Economic Interests, Environmental Distress, and Legal Disputes (Astropolitics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel explores a cross-section of pressing concerns in outer space with a particular focus on self-interested and competitive economic behaviour, environmental distress in particular through the proliferation of space debris, and the legal disputes surrounding them. The panel will explore questions over the meaning of sustainability in outer space, the spectre of ecofascism, and how legal mechanism and public-private relationships can help or hinder the challenges facing governance and managing these problems in outer space.

Pluralising Social Reproduction Approaches
Pluralising Social Reproduction Approaches (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Social reproduction offers an important theoretical framework for understanding the gendered division of labour that underpins the reproduction of life itself and raises questions such as who does paid/unpaid social reproductive work, how it is valued and the resources allocated to supporting it, without which those doing this work can experience depletion. However, most of these debates are theorized from experiences and localities in the Global North. This Roundtable aims to pluralize the theoretical premises of social reproduction through interdisciplinary conversations, taking into account global south focused empirical cases, and exploring new methodologies to build a global progressive agenda able to speak to the challenges that processes of life-making are facing worldwide. Based on their current work, the participants will address the following questions: 1. To what extent does social reproduction account for complex experiences of life-making under global capitalism in different parts of the world and in what ways does it need pluralizing in our approaches? 2.How does location matter when it comes to social reproduction? 3. What methods and methodologies do we work with to build alternative practices of knowledge building/creation about social reproduction? The Roundtable builds on the work of the Pluralising Social Reproduction Approaches Network and hopes to extend and deepen its analyses through theoretical, empirical and methodological insights.

Protests: Cases, Lessons, Critiques
Protests: Cases, Lessons, Critiques (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
We examine a range of protest and social movement case studies across the Middle East to identify comparisons, lessons, and critiques.

Rethinking Nuclear Order: Survival, Victimhood, and Resistance
Rethinking Nuclear Order: Survival, Victimhood, and Resistance (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel critically rethinks the foundations of nuclear order by interrogating themes of survival, victimhood, gender, and resistance. Drawing on diverse perspectives, including securitization, gender, and colonial legacies, the panel explores how nuclear policies and discourses shape, and are shaped by, power dynamics and struggles for justice in a nuclear age

SPERI Presents… “Towards a Political Economy of organised violence: war, technologies, labour, and (re)production”
SPERI Presents… “Towards a Political Economy of organised violence: war, technologies, labour, and (re)production” (International Political Economy Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
**SPERI Presents… “Towards a Political Economy of organised violence: war, technologies, labour, and (re)production”** **Conveners:** Elena Simon, University of Manchester; Frank Maracchione, University of Kent and SPERI - University of Sheffield **Chair:** Remi Edwards, SPERI - Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute, University of Sheffield **Participants:** Vicki Reif-Breitwieser, University of Sheffield, SPERI Joanna Tidy, University of Sheffield Elena Simon, University of Manchester Frank Maracchione, University of Kent, SPERI Beryl Pong, University of Cambridge This roundtable discusses the Political Economy of violence committed by, between and within states. Critical Security and Military Studies and Feminist IPE have been at the forefront of researching war and violence, but often parallel rather than in conversation with each other (Stavrianakis and Stern 2018). While Feminist Political Economy research on war has highlighted gendered, militarised labour (Enloe 1983), the connections between welfare and warfare (Cowen 2005) and the violence against women (e.g True 2012), mainstream IPE has studied the political economy of liberal interventionism and conflicts, often drawing on historical examples (e.g. Coyne and Mather 2012). Critical Security studies studied technologies of power, and the privatisation of security (Abrahamsen and Leander 2016), reconceptualised (in)security and sought to understand how security labour is shaped by contemporary capitalism (Chisholm and Stachowitsch 2017). Recent moves in critical military studies investigated war’s materiality (e.g. Tidy 2015, Basham 2018) and how technologies of armed violence are applied to produce global order (Stavrianakis 2023). Both disciplines brought to the fore racial, gendered and colonial power relations in global war. Taken together, these contributions suggest that the production and maintenance of contemporary war and violence is rooted in capitalist economies and movements for non-violent futures are inherently situated in and shaped by the economies that make violence possible. So, what would a Political Economy of contemporary war and violence look like? The roundtable will be recorded and will become an episode of the podcast series *New Thinking in Political Economy*, hosted by Dr Remi Edwards. The series is part of the SPERI Presents… podcast, produced by the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute, taking on the big questions in political economy within and beyond the discipline. SPERI Presents... brings insights from foundational debates and brand-new research in the field to make sense of the social world around us by foregrounding the power relations of the global economy. We invite academics and practitioners to discuss contemporary capitalism, its ever-shifting dynamics, crises, and governance - and how this shapes our experience of everyday life.

Subversive Pedagogies in Global Politics Roundtable
Subversive Pedagogies in Global Politics Roundtable (Learning and Teaching Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This roundtable explores pedagogical innovations in global politics that subvert pedagogy-as-usual via an emphasis on joy, care, intimacy and encounter. The discussion will focus on the under-recognised potential of pedagogy to shape political inquiry, inviting deeper engagement with its power and its promise. The contributors to the roundtable are united in their contention that pedagogy should be understood as going beyond the epistemological to the ontological - shaping not just what we know, but how we learn, relate and act. While pedagogical practices in global politics still tend to prioritise Enlightenment principles of decontextualised rationality and universality, this roundtable discussion features pedagogies that subvert these dominant narratives and expectations. Including several recent BISA Teaching Excellence Award winners, the roundtable discusses innovative theoretical and practical approaches to learning and teaching in global politics, in particular highlighting ways in which joy, relationality and care are central to learning. It invites audience members to critically reflect on their own pedagogical values and practices in light of the novel visions of pedagogy and learning practices shared by the panellists.

Taking Seriously the Unserious in Resistance: The subversive force of pop culture in non-Western states 1
Taking Seriously the Unserious in Resistance: The subversive force of pop culture in non-Western states 1 (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
International Relations (IR) Studies considers itself a ‘serious’ discipline. As such, the political potential of popular cultural productions has been overlooked and become a footnote to more traditionally important matters within the field. In today’s world where political leaders tweet and appear on podcasts and Saturday Night Live, where election campaigns and protest movements are carried out on digital platforms like YouTube and Instagram in collaboration with celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Cardi B, the strength of popular culture in political theorisation and political activism needs to be recognised. In fact, the entertainability and unseriousness of popular culture is precisely why it could be politically effective. Papers in this panel consider the question of ‘How do different forms of popular culture subvert hegemony and resist political oppression?’ from a diverse range of theoretical, empirical, and geographical perspectives. Panellists aim to explore how various forms of popular culture—such as vlogs, music, comedy, tourism and more—serves as a tool of resistance against ideological and political oppression in restrictive, non-liberal societies, ranging across North Korea, China, Russia, Iran, Egypt, Turkey and more, in non-violent, tacit, individual and creative ways, and how such resistance can play a role in reshaping and sometimes reinforcing forms of authority and control. Panellists wish to emphasise the importance of looking beyond the traditional perception of these popular cultural forms as mere entertainment, and call at this crucial moment where we envision the future of IR, that we take seriously the ‘unserious’ popular cultural productions in all their multiple and creative forms. *Note: This is part one of the proposed double panel. Our panellists’ research is situated in various non-Western states ranging across North Korea, China, Russia, Egypt, India, Turkey and Iran, focusing on various forms of popular culture including vlogs, different genres of music, memes, comics and tourism products. Hence, we propose a double panel with the aim of covering different forms of popular culture across a variety of different geographical locations in the non-West in order to ascertain not just the similarities, but also the distinctions among these forms of popular culture and their political impacts within International Studies.*

Wargames, Peacegames: The increasing relevance of 'Serious Games'
Wargames, Peacegames: The increasing relevance of 'Serious Games' (Security Policy and Practice)
09:00 - 10:30
The resurgence in the use of wargames for exploring and informing the conduct of international relations has sparked renewed interest within the field of IR. While traditionally associated with military strategy, the concept of "serious games" has evolved to encompass a broader range of applications, including "peacegaming" and other simulations that focus on diplomacy, conflict prevention, and post-conflict reconstruction. This panel brings together experts who have applied serious games in both research and policymaking contexts. Through their diverse experiences, the panelists will explore the methodological and practical challenges of using these games as a research tool and as a bridge between theory and practice in international relations.

Whose labour makes the international: extractive and gendered labour practices
Whose labour makes the international: extractive and gendered labour practices (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Whose labour makes the international: extractive and gendered labour practices

10:30 Break
Break
10:30 - 10:45

10:45 Anticolonial Solidarities and Resistance
Anticolonial Solidarities and Resistance (CPD/CST)
10:45 - 12:15
Proscribing anticolonial movements and indigenous struggles for national liberation and self-determination as terrorists and terrorism is a consistent strategy of imperialism and settler states. Terrorism is not so much the name given to a particular form of political violence, says Heike Schotten, as an ideological tool by which resistance to empire and colonisation is illegitimated out of existence. Proscription not only engenders legal obstacles against anticolonial movements, but it also hypermoralises them, casting their political demands as illegitimate and anachronistic. This panel seeks to draw attention to the different tactics employed to buttress the moral castigation of resistance, such as the racialised and orientalist employment of sexuality and gender. This panel would host research and discussion on the plasticity of the label “terrorist” and the conditions under which anticolonial movements move in and out of this ideological terrain. It speaks to the similarities between the cases of Irish and Palestinian resistance against imperial and settler control, as well as other cases, such as the Kurdish and Kashmiri movements and indigenous struggles worldwide.

At the Frontiers of International Studies: the Emerging Prominence of Law, War Crimes and Genocide over 50 Year and New Research for the Future
At the Frontiers of International Studies: the Emerging Prominence of Law, War Crimes and Genocide over 50 Year and New Research for the Future (International Law and Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
In 1975, law was barely noticed as feature of international life, although always a present condition for governments. The Helsinki Final Act that year resoundingly emphasised that political agreement was more possible and powerful than gaining a legal end to the Second World War. The My Lai massacre raised attention, but no real focus, on war crimes. The mass murder in Cambodia elevated use of the word 'genocide', but no more than that. Yet, 50 years later, every event involving political violence and armed conflict invokes calls 'war crimes' and 'genocide' by one side or both, or by observers, as well as calls for truth, reconciliation and peace and security through justice. And international criminal justice has not only been the most radical innovation of the era, making individual human beings subjects of international law for the first time, rather than states alone, but is has also become a major growth industry, both in the 'real' world, with tribunals, courts, cases and investigations ever more numerous (if challenged), and as a brand new branch of international studies. The roundtable will reflect on this historical evolution in practice, conceptualisation, theory and example, while also examining new research at the frontiers of knowledge and understanding on relevant issues and cases or mass atrocity, law, politics, investigations, contestations and reconciliation attempts, including Ukraine-Russia, the Middle East, Sri Lanka, Yugolslavia, Slovenia, Iraq and more, as well as key shifts in the broad focus of scholars.

Base Women and Beyond I: Contemporary feminist research agendas on military/nuclear installations and their discontents.
Base Women and Beyond I: Contemporary feminist research agendas on military/nuclear installations and their discontents. (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Cythia Enloe’s pathbreaking work has illuminated the role of women in the daily operations of military bases. Moreover, Enloe shows how gender ideologies and relationships are key to the national and local legitimisation of such sites, an essential part of what keeps them working – and how challenges to these relationships are often a crucial factor in anti-base mobilisation. This panel seeks to both revitalise Enloe’s research agenda and explore critical moves ‘beyond’ it to better capture and investigate the intricate entanglements of military bases and other sites constituting the nuclear/military industrial complex. Our thinking for the panel is inspired by recent feminist trajectories on gender and coloniality in the global nuclear order, feminist research into the everyday, affective and embodied politics of war and militarism and multidisciplinary writings on the material, affective and environmental legacies left behind by military and nuclear activity. Papers contribute and expand the conversation by bringing feminist critical insights into different lifeworlds of military and nuclear installations, their deeply gendered and colonial/racialised underpinnings and on the efforts to undo, challenge and resist their logics, durability and impact.
Book Launch: A Century of State-Making in Iraq: Baghdad, Kurdistan, and the Development of the Constitution - Sheraz Ibrahim (British International University, KRI, Iraq) Sherzad Ahmed Ameen (Salahaddin University KRI, Iraq) Moritz Mihatsch (University of Cambridge) MARIANNA Charountaki (University of Lincoln)
Book Launch: A Century of State-Making in Iraq: Baghdad, Kurdistan, and the Development of the Constitution
- Sheraz Ibrahim (British International University, KRI, Iraq)
- Sherzad Ahmed Ameen (Salahaddin University KRI, Iraq)
- Moritz Mihatsch (University of Cambridge)
- MARIANNA Charountaki (University of Lincoln)
10:45 - 12:15
Edited by Marianna Charountaki, James Moore and Liam Anderson Dr Marianna Charountaki (Lincoln), Dr Moritz Mihatsch (Cambridge), Prof Sherzad Ahmed Ameen, Salahaddin University KRI, Iraq and Mrs Sheraz Ibrahim, British International University, KRI, Iraq
Bringing sexy back: relocating the sexual in International Relations
Bringing sexy back: relocating the sexual in International Relations (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Where has the sexy gone in International Relations, as a discipline, as pedagogy, and in its research methods? This panel brings together scholars who engage with the erasure of (a)sexuality, the politics of sex and intimacy in pedagogy, theory and ethnography, and who engage with the sexy/sexual as a generative analytical frame. We consider IR's epistemological and ontological terrain shifts, with renewed lenses including antinormativity, bisexuality, bordering, and the fictioning of intimate ethnographies. Through these frames, we ask if the discipline might just collapse were we to acknowledge ourselves, our interlocutors, colleagues, and pedagogies within sexual frames.

Diagnosing Security or the Medicalization of Knowledge, Authority, and Resistance in IR
Diagnosing Security or the Medicalization of Knowledge, Authority, and Resistance in IR (Global Health Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic have critical security scholars pointed to the increasing securitization of public health. The COVID-19 crisis has further amplified the importance of such calls, sparking a variety of important investigations. What has received little attention so far, however, is the global trend towards the medicalization of society and by extension the disciplinary realm of International Relations. This roundtable draws attention to this trend by investigating multiple sites where medicalization of/in Global Politics is enacted. Four thematic questions anchor the discussion. First, what types of knowledge does medicalization privilege or marginalize, specifically focussing on how medical frameworks obscure or silence alternative viewpoints. Second, how does medicalized security influence political legitimacy? As scientific authority rises, medical classifications and “objective” terminologies lend a veneer of neutrality that masks cultural biases and shapes perceptions of political authority. Third, what subjectivities emerge from practices of medicalization? For example, how do diagnostic frameworks influence and shape identities in ways that may reinforce societal inequalities and exclusions. Finally, we consider possibilities for resistance, investigating how activism and scholarship might challenge the disguised biases of medicalized security practices..

Gender-Based Violence, Organized Crime and Transitional Justice: A Comparative Roundtable on Colombia, Mexico, and Northern Ireland
Gender-Based Violence, Organized Crime and Transitional Justice: A Comparative Roundtable on Colombia, Mexico, and Northern Ireland (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
***Objective:*** This roundtable seeks to interrogate the complex intersection of gender-based violence, transitional justice, and organized crime, particularly (but not exclusively) drug trafficking, in three contexts where peacebuilding efforts coexist with ongoing armed violence: Colombia, Mexico, and Northern Ireland. Despite their different contexts, all three regions currently face a continuum of violence. The emergence of organized crime and organized criminal groups in these contexts disproportionately impacts women, particularly those from marginalized backgrounds such as Indigenous women, Afro-descendant women, LGBTQ+, migrant women, and rural and working-class women, amongst others. By exploring these diverse cases, the discussion aims to: 1. Critically evaluate the limitations and shortcomings of traditional, “paradigmatic” frameworks of transitional justice in addressing gender-based violence linked to organized crime. 2. Examine how organized crime and the legacies of armed conflict exacerbate gender-based violence and perpetuate cycles of insecurity for women, particularly from marginalized backgrounds. 3. Critically discuss gender-sensitive peacebuilding and transformative justice approaches that address structural inequalities and prioritise women’s lived experiences, aiming for deeper, more inclusive, and sustainable solutions to gender-based violence and injustice This roundtable brings together women scholars from diverse geographical, academic, and professional backgrounds to foster a comparative dialogue. The goal is to explore ways to bridge the gaps between transitional justice, gender-based violence, conflict studies, and organized crime studies, offering fresh perspectives and practical insights from each case study ---------- ***Contexts:*** - Colombia’s over six decades of armed conflict, driven by paramilitary groups, guerrillas, and drug cartels, has left a lasting legacy of violence and instability (Colombian Truth Commission, 2022). While the 2016 Peace Agreement marked a critical step towards peace, the persistence of drug trafficking and other illicit business such as illegal mining, human trafficking and human smuggling continues to fuel conflict, with devastating consequences for women and marginalized communities (Ombudsman's Office of Colombia, 2024). Dissident guerrilla factions, remnants of paramilitary forces, and new organized crime groups wield sexual and gender-based violence as weapons of terror, control, and political suppression. Their primary targets? Women, particularly peasant, Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and LGBTQ+ individuals, who continue to face the compounded impacts of systemic inequality and organized crime violence (Sisma Mujer, 2021; Caribe Afirmativo, 2024; Stallone & Zulver, 2024). This stark reality underscores the urgent need for justice and inclusive strategies that address these interconnected forms of harm. - Mexico’s "War on Drugs" began in 2006, when President Calderón initiated a militarized approach against drug cartels. Official sources state that the ‘War on Drugs’ has claimed the lives of about 350,000 people, while more than 72,000 are missing because of enforced disappearances. While reasons for the strategy’s failure vary, its impact on Mexican lives, especially women, is profound, as Mexico remains engulfed in violence. Critics, including NGOs and international bodies, have condemned Mexico’s human rights shortcomings (Anaya-Muñoz and Frey, 2019) and the ongoing "invisible wave" of violations against women (Tamés, 2019). Reports from the UN and Inter-American Commission highlight inadequate protections for women and urge comprehensive measures (CEDAW, 2012; CIDH, 2019). - Northern Ireland has made important progress in peacebuilding since the Good Friday Agreement (1998), yet the legacy of The Troubles, particularly gender-based violence, remains unresolved. Paramilitary groups, though less visible, continue to exert control through coercion, fear, extortion, drug trafficking, and exploitation (House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committe, 2024), with women in abusive relationships with paramilitary-affiliated men suffering the most (McAlister et al, 2021). These women face not only intimate partner violence but also the broader influence of paramilitary power, which limits their freedom and safety (Swaine, 2024; Hughes, 2022). The normalization of violence in paramilitary-controlled areas has pushed many young people, including women, into crime and sexual exploitation (Kelly, 2024; BBC, 2024; Walsh, 2022). In this sense, lasting peace in Northern Ireland has not been fully achieved, as paramilitary control and its gendered impact continue to fuel cycles of violence and fear. Each region selected for this roundtable has faced unique challenges related to the legacies of armed conflict and organized crime. While we recognize the particularities of each case and how they are shaped by their unique contexts, we believe they share common challenges that are further exacerbated by the pervasive hyper-masculinization of violence, the devaluation of the feminine, entrenched cultures of silence within communities, and a significant absence of a gender-sensitive approach among authorities and judicial institutions. They, therefore, serve as important examples for exploring how to tackle the intricate continuums of violence within the contexts of transitional justice and peacebuilding. ---------- ***Key questions:*** *Transitional Justice and Definitions of Conflict* - What are the limitations of paradigmatic definitions of “conflict”? - Should transitional justice mechanisms apply in "non-paradigmatic" contexts, for example: context of ongoing conflict such as Mexico’s “War on Drugs,” and if so, how can they adapt to these situations? - How might expanding this definition help capture the experiences of those affected by organized violence, particularly women? *About organized violence and organized violence groups* - Is there a correlation between the public violence perpetrated by organized criminal groups and the private violence experienced by women, such as conforming to traditional feminine roles in the household, intimate partner violence, and coercive control? - To what extent are these forms of violence distinct, or are they interrelated in some way? - How has the hypermasculinization of violence shaped responses to gender-based violence in Colombia, Mexico, and Northern Ireland, and what strategies can deconstruct these norms to promote inclusive transitional justice? *Women’s experiences of gender-based violence in conflict* - How can transitional justice frameworks move beyond tokenistic inclusion of women to achieve feminist transformations in peacebuilding? - What adaptations are needed to address structural violence, such as economic marginalization, political exclusion, and gender inequality, that exacerbate women's vulnerabilities during conflict? ---------- ***Members of the roundtable*** The chair and discussants bring expertise closely aligned with the roundtable’s themes: transitional justice, gender-based violence, and organized crime in conflict and post-conflict settings. Each participant offers a unique blend of academic and practical perspectives, creating a rich foundation for discussion. The group includes scholars at various stages -PhD candidates, early-career researchers, and established academics- with expertise in gender-based violence, human rights, transitional justice, feminism, international studies, political science, and Indigenous studies across the three focus regions: Colombia, Mexico, and Northern Ireland. Many also have hands-on experience in activism, public policy, civil society work, and litigation, grounding the discussion in real-world insights. This diverse and interdisciplinary team, which includes voices from the regions under study, provides an invaluable opportunity to share context-sensitive knowledge, analyze case-specific challenges, and explore comparative strategies for addressing these critical issues. ---------- ***Chair: Dr. Yassin Brunger (Queen’s University Belfast)*** Dr. Yassin Brunger is a Lecturer in Human Rights Law and Co-Director of the Gender, Justice, and Society research network at Queen’s University Belfast. For over a decade, Dr. Brunger has worked at the intersections of law and politics, conflict and peace and justice, and the rule of law. She is an expert on international criminal courts, sexual and gender-based violence, and feminist legal theory. Her published research explores gaps between international and comparative legal processes and the lived experiences of conflict-affected communities. ***Discussants*** Dr Daniela Suárez Vargas (Queen’s University Belfast) Dr. Daniela Suárez Vargas is a Colombian lawyer and an ESRC postdoctoral fellow at Queen's University Belfast, specializing in victimhood, sexual and gender-based violence, and transitional justice in conflict settings. She holds a PhD in Law from Queen's University Belfast, where she was an AHRC Northern Bridge Consortium scholar, as well as an LLM in Human Rights and Criminology from the same university and a law degree from Universidad del Rosario in Colombia. Her research examines how victimhood narratives in Colombia’s transitional justice process shape the recognition of sexual, reproductive, and gender-based violence experienced by combatants in guerrilla and paramilitary groups. Daniela has also worked as a lawyer and researcher in the areas of international criminal law, human rights, international humanitarian law, and the UN Women, Peace and Security Agenda. *Diana Ortega Torres* (Queen’s University Belfast) Diana Ortega Torres is a final-year PhD student at Queen's University Belfast, School of Law. She worked in the nonprofit sector and as a high school teacher for five years before transitioning into academia. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from her home country, Mexico, and an MA in Conflict Transformation from the Mitchell Institute at Queen's University. Diana currently teaches modules on communications, mass media, and contemporary conflicts at ITESO University in Mexico. Her PhD research examines transitional justice through an intersectional feminist lens, focusing on non-paradigmatic cases such as Mexico’s ongoing conflict, the 'War on Drugs,' with fieldwork in two high-risk states with high levels of gender-based violence *Monica Pitt* (Queen’s University Belfast) Monica Pitt is a PhD student at Queens University School of Law, in a partnership between the university and the Committee for the Administration of Justice. She previously held an MA from the University of St. Andrews in history and social anthropology before obtaining her MLitt at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Through her work with CAJ, she worked on the Bitter Legacy: Impunity in Northern Ireland report, where she focused on gendered violence in interrogation. Her PhD research focuses on the use of oral history to generate a fuller understanding of sexual and gender-based violence during the Northern Irish conflict, particularly as weaponized by the state. *Aoife Clements* (50:50 NI & Queen’s University Belfast) Aoife Clements is the Founder of 50:50 NI and a PhD at Queens University School of Law. With a background in politics and women’s rights, Aoife is committed to advancing gender equality and ensuring the inclusion of women in the legislative process. Aoife has earned her BA in Anthropology and Law from the London School of Economics and an MA in Socio-cultural Anthropology from Durham University. She is currently researching the experiences of domestic abuse survivors in Northern Ireland as they navigate the criminal justice system in pursuit of redress. *Dr Claire Wright* (Ulster University) Claire Wright is Lecturer in Politics and International Studies at Ulster University. She has also held academic positions at Queen’s University Belfast, Universidad de Monterrey, and Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. Claire holds a PhD in Contemporary Political Processes and a Masters in Latin American Studies from the Universidad de Salamanca. Her research focuses on politics in Latin America, including the participation of Indigenous and other ethnic peoples, peacebuilding, and emergency powers. Claire’s research has been published widely in English and Spanish and she has also acted as a consultant for UNDP and Cooperación Española on the issue of extractive industries and prior consultation.

Governance, Infrastructure & Institutions in a Digital World
Governance, Infrastructure & Institutions in a Digital World (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel explores a range of cutting edge problem areas arising from new technologies, and resultant attempts and failures to govern. The functionality of existing institutions, as well as considerations of necessity for new types of governance infrastructure required to meet challenges are considered across the papers.

How do museums, statues and cultural artefacts remember and forget?
How do museums, statues and cultural artefacts remember and forget? (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
How do museums, statues and cultural artefacts remember and forget - on culture, museums, and memory.

Hydropolitics in a Changing Climate
Hydropolitics in a Changing Climate (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Hydropolitics in a Changing Climate

Insights on Türkiye: From diasporas to authoritarianism
Insights on Türkiye: From diasporas to authoritarianism (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel investigates a range of political dynamics in Türkiye, from diaspora communities, to nationalism, soft power, and political economy.

International Politics of Cultural Heritage (RIS special issue)
International Politics of Cultural Heritage (RIS special issue) (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Despite the widespread and creative use of heritage politics by a range of international actors, such as multilateral institutions and states, the field of International Relations (IR) has paid insufficient attention to the topic. To the extent that these politics have entered the field’s attention, it has been primarily through instances of highly publicized cultural heritage destruction during armed conflict. This special issue of RIS brings together eight research articles, as well as a framing introduction and a conclusion, with the aim of launching international heritage politics as an important IR research agenda. Moving beyond destruction to the productive politics of heritage, these contributions show the range of these politics from the construction of international cultural status to forging contemporary international alliances along themes of cultural and historical familiarity. Further, they show heritage politics at work in international institutions, from UNESCO to the ICC, in bilateral and multilateral relations, and as moving between international and domestic politics. In these broad deployments, heritage politics are attached to museum collections, traveling exhibits, archeological digs, DNA tests, restitution demands, and debates on international land swaps.

Japan’s emerging regional and global security role: new sources of national and international cooperation and legitimacy
Japan’s emerging regional and global security role: new sources of national and international cooperation and legitimacy (Security Policy and Practice)
10:45 - 12:15
Japan has continued apace to strengthen its military posture and shift away from post-war anti-militaristic constraints, especially since the pivotal reforms of 2022 that included adoption of the two percent of GDP defence and ‘counterstrike’, and given momentum by China’s rise, North Korean adventurism, and Russian revanchism. Japan’s pursuit of a more active military profile has been facilitated by a variety of national and international sources of cooperation and legitimacy that lend strength to its policy efforts. This panel examines how Japan has sought to expand it defence activities through increasing domestic acceptance and bypassing of constitutional constraints, and by building new international coalitions to support its regional and global security role.

Military encounters II: creating and imagining CMS
Military encounters II: creating and imagining CMS (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel is the second of two exploring diverse, messy and complex military encounters. Centring on the creating and imagining of Critical Military Studies, this panel urges possibilities to reimagine military encounters critically, creatively, collaboratively and illustrates how these encounters shape and bring into being, make and unmake, do and undo Critical Military Studies itself.

Objects of state interest: from diaspora engagement to transnational repression
Objects of state interest: from diaspora engagement to transnational repression (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Objects of state interest: from diaspora engagement to transnational repression

Peacekeeping and peace building in Africa
Peacekeeping and peace building in Africa (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The discussion focuses on peace keeping and peace building in Africa.

Pulling on Threads: Exploring Trustworthiness and Trust within Relational Contexts
Pulling on Threads: Exploring Trustworthiness and Trust within Relational Contexts (Foreign Policy Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Twenty years have now passed since the initial discussion of trust research within International Studies, yet unpacking the concept of trust within the discipline continues. In part this is because concepts like trust seem to offer a means of better understanding and explaining the past, navigating the present and a means to shape the future. This panel draws together a number of papers exploring the concepts of trust and trustworthiness in a diverse range of settings whether the maintenance and development of relations is crucial, from within organisations (like the UN) or supranational unions (like the EU) to between states in formal and informal diplomatic spaces. In doing so, the panel continues to pull on the numerous threads of trust research that have emerged since those early debates, engaging with both the theoretical discussions around the concept and the practical, real-world implications.

Returning to Some Basic Questions: Social Reproduction and IPE of everyday life
Returning to Some Basic Questions: Social Reproduction and IPE of everyday life (International Political Economy Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
It is more than welcome news that the concept of social reproduction has made its way into an established cannon of texts referred to as ‘Social Reproduction Theory’ (SRT) that is largely multidisciplinary. While still overwhelmingly produced in the Global North, research in this vein has looked at the Global South from the variety of disciplines including Geography, Sociology and Economics. Furthermore, and in line with its critical outlook, SRT has been open to a postcolonial, intersectional and poststructuralist challenges – creating a body of work that while not necessarily entirely coherent, provides a catalogue of inspiration to understanding the International Political Economy. Against this background and by introducing some current work in IPE on Social Reproduction this panel seeks to ask a variety of questions: What is specific IPE about Social Reproduction? Is the discipline of IPE still the/a home to SRT? Has SRT managed to bridge disciplinary gaps that were seemingly intangible for other approaches?

Revisiting Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament
Revisiting Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel revisits key debates in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament and analyses the effectiveness, challenges, and future prospects of the global nonproliferation regime. Through case studies on HEU minimization, North Korea, quadrilateral diplomacy, and disarmament rhetoric, the panel provides an exploration of the tensions and opportunities shaping the path toward a nuclear-free world

Revolution Vs Evolution: Debating Technology and the Character of War
Revolution Vs Evolution: Debating Technology and the Character of War (War Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Artificial Intelligence (AI), autonomous systems, robotic weapons, and quantum technologies (to name but a few) are either already impacting war, or are poised to 'revolutionise' contemporary conflict. Yet what will this revolution look like and is it just new technologies that are dominating and altering the character of war in novel, disruptive, and unforeseen ways? This roundtable brings together an international mix of leading experts in new technologies and conflict to discuss how (and how not) new and old technologies are altering the landscape of modern warfare.

Space Warfare and its Impact on Security and Governance
Space Warfare and its Impact on Security and Governance (Astropolitics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel explores the role of changing technologies in outer space and their implications for space warfare, security, and governance, and also considers the framings around such technologies and whether they inhibit the pursuit of "responsible" behaviours in outer space. The papers in this panel also investigates the prospects for cooperation amid the looming dynamics of a security dilemma between the major powers in outer space.
Special roundtable celebrating the work of Dr Emma Hutchison - Debbie Lisle (Queen's University Belfast) Chaeyoung Yong (University of St Andrews) Pauline Zerla (Kings College London) Naomi Head (University of Glasgow) Karin Fierke (University of St. Andrews) Roland Bleiker (University of Queensland) Marcelle Trote Martins (Liverpool John Moores University)
Special roundtable celebrating the work of Dr Emma Hutchison
- Debbie Lisle (Queen's University Belfast)
- Chaeyoung Yong (University of St Andrews)
- Pauline Zerla (Kings College London)
- Naomi Head (University of Glasgow)
- Karin Fierke (University of St. Andrews)
- Roland Bleiker (University of Queensland)
- Marcelle Trote Martins (Liverpool John Moores University)
10:45 - 12:15
Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group
The Aftermath of COVID-19 I: States, Borders and Global Infrastructures
The Aftermath of COVID-19 I: States, Borders and Global Infrastructures (Global Health Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The COVID-19 pandemic re-oriented politics in myriad ways within, between, and across states. It also brought to the fore or accelerated existing dynamics, and in some cases has forced a reckoning with what we thought we knew about state, non-state, and supra-state power and infrastructures. This panel examines these dynamics across different levels of analysis to shed light on changes to the power, legitimacy, authority, autonomy, effectiveness, and, indeed, temporality, of the global (health) governance architecture. It does this by examining the performance of so-called hybrid regimes during crises; the interpenetration of public and private interests and power in health security as seen through border regimes; changes in the WHO’s autonomy in and through the pandemic; COVID-19 dashboards and assemblages of supposedly real-time data; and the normalisation of exceptional, peak-pandemic era public health and social measures despite lacking evidence for their effectiveness.
The Future of Security Studies - Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham) Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (University of Loughborough) Timothy Edmunds (University of Bristol) Jason Ralph (University of Leeds and EJIS) Ruth Deyermond (King's College London)
The Future of Security Studies (EJIS)
- Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham)
- Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (University of Loughborough)
- Timothy Edmunds (University of Bristol)
- Jason Ralph (University of Leeds and EJIS)
- Ruth Deyermond (King's College London)
10:45 - 12:15
As the European Journal of International Security enters its tenth year, the journal is using this roundtable to take stock of the direction of the field. What debates have run their course? What debates are emerging? In short: what will volumes of EJIS in the next ten years be filled with? Chaired by the current EJIS editor and comprising former editors, editorial board members, and a current associate editor, the roundtable brings together a set of academics from disparate sub-fields of security studies to debate the state of the discipline and signpost the future direction of travel. Participants: Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (University of Loughborough)
The Role of Elites in Ontological Security Studies
The Role of Elites in Ontological Security Studies (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Until recently, Ontological Security Studies (OSS) in IR has primarily been concerned with how states react to various forms of negative rupturing effects to their identities, usually caused by experiences of trauma, shame, fear, and anxiety. This focus on the unitary state was then challenged by a new wave of scholarship exploring the ontological (in)security of individuals and their everyday experiences of ontological (in)security. Yet what is the role of elites in OSS? The scholars on this roundtable have engaged with this question in other way or other, implicitly or explicitly – the purpose of this roundtable is therefore to assemble their different insights on the role of elites in OSS to answer questions such as the following: what is their role in the identification of crises and the ontological security-seeking process? How can we conceptualise elites and how does analytically prioritising elites help us expand the research programme of OSS? And finally, what is the relationship between elites as distinct actor vis-à-vis other existing levels of analysis in OSS? In doing so, the roundtable will further our understanding on the relationship between the level-of-analysis and ontological (in)security and.

Trade Politics from Above and Below
Trade Politics from Above and Below (International Political Economy Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel explores contemporary trade politics across a variety of arenas, highlighting the multiplicity of actors that are involved in shaping outcomes. While trade politics all too often focuses on tensions between the US and China, the panel turns elsewhere to examine areas afforded less limelight. Across the papers, the panel explores how power is exercised and by whom within the trade system.

War and Nature I: On the Eco-Social Costs of Warfare and Military Build-Up [Panel 1]
War and Nature I: On the Eco-Social Costs of Warfare and Military Build-Up [Panel 1] (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
How do war and military build-up wound socio-environmental relations and landscapes? What are the consequences of war – its making and preparation – for nature, ecologies, and environmental inequalities and vulnerabilities? What histories, memories and knowledges of environmental issues and changes are produced along the before- and aftermaths of armed violence? And what are the political implications thereof for seriously tackling contemporary ecological crises? For this session, split across three related panels, we hear from contributors that recognise and expand upon growing scholarly interest in these questions, exploring the multiple entanglements between militarisation, practices/ rationalities of warfare, and the environment. Special attention is dedicated to the multi-scalar politics of militarisation, extractivism and socio-environmental destruction, from local ecologies to global climate breakdown. The panels aim to explore how International Relations, and critical security/military studies in particular, can build on emerging studies in (geo)political ecology, environmental anthropology and critical geography addressing war and the Earth. We depart from a refutation of the tendency among scholars and practitioners to promote apolitical, atheoretical and non-empirically driven distinctions between war’s human and environmental costs, such as the ‘climate security’ and ‘threat multiplier’ narratives so favoured by contemporary policymakers and military actors. Further, the panels aim to expand critical scholarly knowledge of the emergence of ‘net zero militaries’, ‘green war’ and ‘sustainable arms’, inquiring into the socio-environmental wounds of military ‘greening’. Two closely linked sides of scholarly inquiry emerge here: on the one hand, the panels inquire into the socio-environmental costs of late-modern war, rising militarism and geopolitical contestation; on the other, they dig into the encroachment of military actors, infrastructures, technologies and interests into climate action spaces and green transition trajectories. What are the implications of a ‘military green transition’ for the pursuit of eco-socially just global futures? The panels approach the war and nature nexus through a great range of angles, including (not limited to): - Geographies and ecologies of war and militarism - Green war, green violence and the militarisation of conservation - Carbon footprint of war and militarism - The before- and aftermaths of technologies of violence (e.g. extractivism, environmental damage, public health etc.) - Green and military sacrifice zones - ‘Green Militarism’ and military responses to climate change - Climate securitisation and/or climate change and geopolitics - Militarisation of green transition supply chains and new extractive frontiers - Ecocide and/ as a weapon of war - Future war and the climate (AI, automation, digitalisation, human enhancement, etc.) - Socio-environmental struggles and resistance in the wake of/against militarism and extractivism - War, militarism and eco-social justice/just transitions - Organising, activism and art on the military-ecological nexus - Peace-making and anti-militarism for climate and eco-social justice

12:15 Lunch - Sponsored by RIPE
Lunch - Sponsored by RIPE
12:15 - 13:15

13:15 Causal Inquiry in International Relations
Causal Inquiry in International Relations (International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
A roundtable on Humphreys and Suganami, *Causal Inquiry in International Relations* (Oxford University Press 2024). The product of a ten-year collaboration, this ground-breaking work defends a new, philosophically informed account of the principles which must underpin any causal research in a discipline such as International Relations. It explores philosophically-informed debates about causation in IR, lays out the underlying logic of causal inquiry, and explores the methodological implications of this logic, including for causal inference and causal explanation. It also considers how causal inquiry relates to other approaches to the study of world politics, including normative, interpretive, critical, and historical inquiry. The book is likely to be of interest to a wide range of academics and research students in International Relations and has been published open-access by Oxford University Press, making it free to download around the world. Note: We have two participants coming from Sweden, but the Swedish Midsummer celebration is 20-21 June, which will make return travel difficult for them. If the roundtable is accepted, please could it be scheduled for the first day of the conference (the 18th), or if that is not possible, the second day (the 19th)? Thanks!

Climate leadership in a disintegrating international order?
Climate leadership in a disintegrating international order? (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Climate leadership in a disintegrating international order?

Conflict & Technology in Insecure Territory
Conflict & Technology in Insecure Territory (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel considers the disruptive function of new technologies in active conflict zones, with special consideration of Ukraine. The papers each explore important problems arising from the application of high tech warfare and the public realm of social media, as well as classical problems of state strategic rationales in the constantly evolving contemporary battlespace.

Contemporary Approaches to the Dynamics of Women, Peace, and Security
Contemporary Approaches to the Dynamics of Women, Peace, and Security (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel will explore innovative and contemporary approaches to the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, analyzing how gender perspectives are integrated into conflict resolution, peacekeeping, and post-conflict rebuilding. The papers will discuss emerging frameworks that prioritize women's agency and leadership in peace processes, examining case studies that reveal both challenges and successes. Key topics include the intersectionality of gender with other social identities, the role of grassroots movements in shaping WPS policies, and the impact of global governance structures on local realities.

Critical Perspectives on NATO
Critical Perspectives on NATO (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This roundtable brings together a range of critical perspectives on NATO. Against the backdrop of NATO’s return to the spotlight, capturing global headlines in response to the Russia-Ukraine War. Russia’s war on Ukraine, including the Russian intervention and illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, has gravely affected international security, not least by raising concerns about the threat of nuclear war. Within this context, the Alliance appears to be returning to its Cold War roots as its membership has expanded to include Finland and Sweden. Ukraine itself desires NATO membership. All of these dynamics have renewed conversations about the opportunities and challenges of the Alliance’s growth in size and means. Here we are interested in unpacking the seemingly contradiction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ security within the workings of the Alliance. The roundtable will focuse on a range of critical feminist perspectives to address several related issues (e.g., Human Security, LGBTQ Rights, and Feminist Foreign Policy). By exploring perspectives on NATO from within the Alliance, the roundtable also aims to examine perceptions of civil society and the public of the Alliance (including anti-NATO activism), and to interrogate NATO’s visual and spatial politics.

Decolonising Pedagogy and exploring prose, poetry and narration
Decolonising Pedagogy and exploring prose, poetry and narration (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Decolonial explorations of prose, poetry and narration

Disappearances and Mass Graves: Exploring Repressive Violence and Human Rights Challenges
Disappearances and Mass Graves: Exploring Repressive Violence and Human Rights Challenges (International Law and Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel brings together scholars from two major ERC-funded projects—MaGPIE, led by Bournemouth University, and DISACT, based at the University of Cyprus— and prominent academics in the field to examine the intersection of enforced disappearances and mass graves. The focus is on understanding how these acts of repressive violence serve as tools of control and the implications for human rights and international accountability. Disappearances and mass graves, while distinct in their manifestations, are interconnected phenomena that reflect systematic efforts to conceal violence, erase evidence, and deny justice. This panel explores how the management of human remains, from enforced disappearances to the discovery and disturbance of mass graves, shapes narratives of repression, impedes justice, and challenges international frameworks.

Everyday peace and local peace building
Everyday peace and local peace building (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Papers engage with everyday peace, dialogue, the local turn, youth peace and security, and the politics of NGO's

Exploring the Climate-Nuclear Nexus
Exploring the Climate-Nuclear Nexus (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Nuclear holocaust, Jonathan Schell wrote in 1982, ‘is only one of countless threats that the human enterprise, grown mighty through knowledge, poses to the natural world....The nuclear peril...should be seen as the very center of the ecological crisis’. Yet few attempts have been made, either before or since Schell published The Fate of the Earth, to compare the politics and ethics of nuclear weapons with other environmental problems. This panel brings together papers that explicitly connect and compare research on nuclear weapons and climate change. It highlights implications for how we think about and envision the long-term future, as well as shared policy challenges—ranging from the difficulty of sustaining public attention over time to the need for justice for communities disproportionately affected by both nuclear and climate impacts.

French Intervention in North Africa and the Sahel: Local, Regional and Global Security Trajectories
French Intervention in North Africa and the Sahel: Local, Regional and Global Security Trajectories (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
French interventions in North Africa and the Sahel have significantly shaped local, regional, and global security trajectories since the violent process of colonization. This panel aims at exploring the different dimensions of French involvement in the region, examining their historical roots, contemporary manifestations, and implications for regional stability and international security dynamics. From colonial legacies to post-colonial interventions, French presence – broadly defined – in North Africa and the Sahel has been marked by geopolitical interests ranging from counterterrorism efforts to international development. By examining different means of international intervention, this panel seeks to highlight processes of continuities and changes in French policy towards the Sahelian region and North Africa area. Moreover, the panel examines the local and regional dynamics within societies in the region, exploring how French intervention intersects with indigenous political, social, and economic realities. It critically analyzes the consequences of French military operations, development initiatives, and diplomatic engagements, interrogating their implications for state sovereignty, human rights, and regional stability. Lastly, this panel investigates the broader geopolitical implications of French intervention, considering its ramifications for transnational security threats and regional power dynamics. By fostering interdisciplinary dialogue, between scholars and policymakers, and providing insights that can influence both research agendas and policy, this panel aims to connect the role that local contexts, regional initiatives, and global forces play in shaping security trajectories in North Africa and the Sahel.

Great power security strategies
Great power security strategies (Security Policy and Practice)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel explores the evolving security strategies of great powers in the context of shifting global power dynamics. As rising powers challenge the established international order, traditional security paradigms are being redefined. This panel will examine how states are navigating these dynamics, and the implications these have for global order.

Ideas, History, and Agency in IPE
Ideas, History, and Agency in IPE (International Political Economy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
The Imperial Origins of the Federal Reserve System Author: David K. Johnson (London School of Economics and Political Science) On the merits and limits of Polanyian Analysis in the Global South: Embedded Economies and Neoliberal Transitions Author: Aila Trasi (Johns Hopkins and Goethe University Frankfurt) Forestalling Hegemonic Decline: Joseph Chamberlain and Britain’s Return to Mercantilism Author: Oksana Levkovych (London School of Economics and Political Science) The racialisation of mundane economic language Author: Jessica Eastland-Underwood (University of Warwick) This panel examines how ideas are employed and how agency shapes global political economy in the moments of systemic rupture and paradigm shifts characterised by high volatility and uncertainty. The four papers take novel approaches to key puzzles and challenge dominant explanations in IPE while expanding our understanding of the role of ideas in trade policy formation, design and functioning of monetary institutions, the range and the nature of responses to financial crises, and the everyday, racialised experiencing of the “economy” by ordinary actors. The theoretical contributions that the papers seek to make advance the research agenda for the integrated, empirically rigorous approach to the study of structure and agency that engages with archival and recent data analysis. By offering these big themes and cases up for a critical discussion, the panellists aim to reflect on the extent to which IPE as a discipline that bridges politics and economics, and its often historically informed research agenda, are equipped for understanding today’s world and the future. Johnson’s paper investigates how the US Federal Reserve System became the global structural force that it is today, regulating the supply of money and credit on a global scale. Standard accounts explain the emergence of the Fed in 1913 as an institutional response to the disorder of the domestic US banking system, the international role of the dollar being a later development with little place in its original design (Meltzer 2004). Those who have investigated the international dimensions of the Fed’s origins (Broz 1997) have emphasized the importance of export interests in propelling the US policy elite to establish a central bank. The paper argues that the international sources of the Fed were far more central to its formation than either of these approaches suggest. Drawing on primary and archival documents, the paper investigates how the intellectual architects of the Fed drew on their experience in international financial integration in the US state’s newly established colonial empire – from the Philippines to Cuba – to inform their designs for the American central banking system. Uncovering the imperial origins of the Fed clarifies how a purportedly domestic institution exercises structural power in the world economy. Trasi contributes to an ever-growing literature on the use of Karl Polanyi’s concepts and theories is receiving a new wave of appreciation in Political Economy. In particular, scholars are frequently using the idea of the Double Movement to understand recent social, political, and economic transformations in countries of the Global South. What does the transposition of this concept through both space and time elucidate? What does it obscure? In this paper, Trasi argues that Polanyian analysis remains especially useful to explain the evolution between states, societies, and the economy during neoliberal transitions. It accounts for the rise of neoliberal state/economies through processes of globalization, and is also well-suited to explain counter-movements that led to post-neoliberal compromises and the expansion of welfare and social security in many emerging economies. On the other hand, the explanatory power of Polanyian analysis in non-democratic contexts, when “re-embedding” happens without a significant push from below, remains limited. In these cases, the author proposes to complement Polanyian analysis by looking into what kind of State Projects, from a strategic-relational perspective, support this process. The theoretical argument is illustrated through a discussion of Thailand’s “embedded neoliberal” compromise in the years following the Asian Financial Crisis and IMF austerity policies. Levkovych's paper analyses the continued relevance of the Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST), given the United States’ relative decline, the rise of China and the Sino-American trade war. As a structural theory, however, HST glosses over those pivotal individuals who drive domestic policy back into alignment with the dictates of the evolving systemic structures. This paper demonstrates the significance of Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) who led that realignment at international and domestic levels in the economic case of the British hegemonic decline a century ago. Inspired by the British Historical Economists, he sought to revert the UK’s loss of competitiveness to its rising challengers Germany and the United States by raising protectionist tariffs. Chamberlain thus made a first, crucial step to reorient Britain’s commercial policy towards the economic and political consolidation of the Empire through mutual preferential trade until this inter-generational effort was accomplished politically when Britain departed from free trade and adopted Tariff Reform and Imperial Preference in 1932. Drawing on extensive archival research, the paper examines how this pivotal individual and his decades-long campaign drove Britain’s trade policy back to mercantilism. It highlights the contingency involved in economic policymaking and deepens our understanding of the contemporary relevance of this crucial IPE case. Eastland-Underwood examines the compelling arguments that political economists are uniquely suited to measure the ‘wages of whiteness’, or the material impacts of the racial regime of white supremacy. However in this paper, I argue that political economists must also account for the ideational environment that allows such inequality to be legitimised. Indeed, I contend that the practice of giving meaning to economic language obfuscates the imperialist context in which this language emerged. The drive to catalogue the material, then, ought not to foreclose an investigation of more banal processes of political ideology that can imbue mundane economic language with whiteness. To demonstrate my case, I analyse the rhetorical situation of the 2024 US presidential election. While there is abundant evidence that the Trump campaign and its surrogates modelled more overt forms of racist argumentation, the number one issue mobilising voters was ‘the economy’ and the rise of prices/inflation according to the most credible polling firms. Instead of seeking to uncover prejudicial beliefs of voters, I provide evidence that ‘the economy’ is a linguistic/rhetorical device that normalises the hierarchisation of human beings that bestow material privileges to those aligned with whiteness at the cost of violence against minoritised groups. By helping us understand the responses to contemporary and historical challenges by different sets of actors, it is possible to evaluate the effect that ideas and agency can have on the global economic order. These papers therefore create opportunity for a debate that cuts across traditional lines of epistemological enquiry in IPE.

Indebtedness as a political condition
Indebtedness as a political condition (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Indebtedness is a significant political condition at multiple levels of the international system, producing multiple vulnerabilities, asymmetries, forms of coercion and the undermining of democratic governance structures. The papers in this panel examine these multiple facets of the condition of indebtedness, from race to austerity to developmental transformation, challenging International Relations to more closely examine the material processes conditioning international political life.

Islam and Islamism
Islam and Islamism (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Islam and Islamism
Meet the Editors of the Review of International Studies, European Journal of International Security, and International Affairs - Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham) Andy Hom (University of Edinburgh) David Mainwaring Rita Floyd (University of Birmingham)
Meet the Editors of the Review of International Studies, European Journal of International Security, and International Affairs (BISA)
- Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham)
- Andy Hom (University of Edinburgh)
- David Mainwaring
- Rita Floyd (University of Birmingham)
13:15 - 14:45
Andrew Mumford - European Journal of International Studies Andy Hom - Review of International Studies Rita Floyd - International Affairs David Mainwaring (Chair)
Michael Cox War Studies keynote - Belfast Days: Teaching War - Living Peace, 1972-1995 SPONSORED BY POLITY - Michael Cox (LSE)
Michael Cox War Studies keynote - Belfast Days: Teaching War - Living Peace, 1972-1995 SPONSORED BY POLITY
- Michael Cox (LSE)
13:15 - 14:45
Middle Space Powers and Non-State Actors in Outer Space
Middle Space Powers and Non-State Actors in Outer Space (Astropolitics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Space is not only for the "great" or "super" powers - there are many "other" powers in space, including what can be loosely referred to as "middle powers". This panel explores a range of activities and policies in outer space from a diverse range of perspectives, including the Middle East, Latin America, South Asia, and Africa, and considers the impacts of the space age on them as well as their impacts on the continued evolution of the politics of outer space.

Past and Emotions: Trauma, Nostalgia, and nationalism
Past and Emotions: Trauma, Nostalgia, and nationalism (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel looks into emotional dynamics that shape and are shaped by trauma, nostalgia, and nationalism.

Politics and Development in the Indo-Pacific Region
Politics and Development in the Indo-Pacific Region (Global Politics and Development)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel brings together researchers of development in the Indo-Pacific.
Reflections on gender, peace and security with Northern Ireland’s feminist activists and peacebuilders (Sponsored by the Centre For Gender in Politics at QUB) - Charmain Jones (Women’s Spaces Strengthening Women's Role in Peacebuilding) Danielle Roberts (Reclaim the Agenda/Alliance for Choice) Louise Coyle (NI Rural Women’s Network (NIRWN)) Tara Grace Connolly (All Ireland Women’s Forum/UN Youth Delegate) Cynthia Enloe (Clark University) Maria Adriana Deiana (Queen’s University Belfast) Avila Kilmurray (Social Change Initiative)
Reflections on gender, peace and security with Northern Ireland’s feminist activists and peacebuilders (Sponsored by the Centre For Gender in Politics at QUB)
- Charmain Jones (Women’s Spaces Strengthening Women's Role in Peacebuilding)
- Danielle Roberts (Reclaim the Agenda/Alliance for Choice)
- Louise Coyle (NI Rural Women’s Network (NIRWN))
- Tara Grace Connolly (All Ireland Women’s Forum/UN Youth Delegate)
- Cynthia Enloe (Clark University)
- Maria Adriana Deiana (Queen’s University Belfast)
- Avila Kilmurray (Social Change Initiative)
13:15 - 14:45
As we approach the 25th anniversary of UNSC Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, this roundtable takes stock of decades of peace and feminist activism in Northern Ireland in conversation with global feminist discourses and practices. We reflect on women’s contributions to the peace talks and peace process, trace strategies for action and explore the meanings of peace and security for different generations of feminist activists and peacebuilders.
Remaking military identities?
Remaking military identities? (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
From wives to widows, from the enemy to the family, this panel questions the (re)making of military, (non)militarised and martial identities.

The Aftermath of COVID-19 II: Management, Discourse and the Everyday
The Aftermath of COVID-19 II: Management, Discourse and the Everyday (Global Health Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
The COVID-19 pandemic is still being investigated for the range of different political responses that it has engendered. This panel investigates a number of these responses. This includes the bureaucratic adaptation of the care industry in order to facilitate resilience. New imaginaries of crisis have also emerged that move beyond the exception and the everyday to reveal new forms of enduring care. The novel role of particular actors is also being unearthed. This includes the philanthrocapitalists that have influenced social policy in responding to health emergencies. Pharmaceutical companies too as actors within global health were reframed in terms of their control over a life-saving resource. The COVID-19 pandemic still remains a resource for new understandings of global health practices and actors.

The IPE of Industrial strategy, global value chains and production
The IPE of Industrial strategy, global value chains and production (International Political Economy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel explores contemporary issues in industrial strategy and production chains, across a range of case stdies.

The Iceberg and the Freezer: The Planetary Politics of Freezing and Thawing
The Iceberg and the Freezer: The Planetary Politics of Freezing and Thawing (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This roundtable invites participants to reflect on the planetary politics of freezing and thawing, materially and metaphorically. Materially, freezing and thawing has a central place in the environmental and political consequences of climate change – from the receding of glaciers; to the rise in sea levels; to the thawing of the tundra; to unprecedented access to shipping lanes and underwater resources (Dodds and Nuttall 2016; Rowe 2020; Wrigley 2023). In addition, our mastery over the ice through the development of refrigeration transformed global capitalists circuits and made ice a commodity to be bought and enjoyed (Hobart 2022). Metaphorically, freezing and thawing has also served as a framing device for our thinking about global politics – from the Cold War; to freezing and thawing diplomatic relations; to cold, hard facts; to cryogenic seedbanks that seek to freeze time and nature (Harrington 2022; Yao 2022). In addition, quests to conquer frozen places as the ultimate frontier often reinforces global hierarchies and racial difference (Wedderburn 2023; Yao 2024). This roundtable puts these differing analytical strands in conversation to explore the co-constitutive relationship between the materiality and imaginaries of freezing and thawing, and how these understandings shape planetary politics in the Anthropocene.

The spaces and place of migration
The spaces and place of migration (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel opens up a space within the ecologies of migration, broadly construed, to query when, how, and why space of migration might emerge. It challenges traditional renderings of where people on the move might find space while recognizing that known institutions, and their governance structures play a role in generating this discussion. The panel pays tribute to this mode of governance while seeking to prompt a wider conversation that wonders at what, if any, materialities are created as people on the move travel, and reside (either on their own terms or otherwise) in and through space. The panel pushes its participants to imagines the relational nature of these encounters, incorporating both human and non-human encounters, encapsulating the legacies that emerge when lived experiences does not culminate in death, but rather, remains open to the possibility of stories that emerge in death and dying.

War and the Lessons of History
War and the Lessons of History (War Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
War and the Lessons of History

War in Ukraine: New Interpretations
War in Ukraine: New Interpretations (War Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
War in Ukraine: New Interpretations

14:45 Break
Break
14:45 - 15:00

15:00 (Re)Thinking Touristic Governance
(Re)Thinking Touristic Governance (International Political Economy Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Tourism has increasingly become a ‘hot’ global governance topic, with many scholars, policymakers, and stakeholders around the world weighing in on how to best govern it. By paying attention to multiple forms and relations of power, the papers on this panel offer critical perspectives on mainstream tourism governance. Critical perspectives on tourism governance shift away from the question of, ‘How to “best” govern tourism? (tourism governance) to analysing how tourism itself enacts governing power, or ‘How does tourism govern?’ (touristic governance). Through this reorientation, the scholars on this panel unearth and analyse how tourism is an effect of diverse forms of socio-material power, which, in turn, shapes how tourism enacts governing power with performative and transformative consequences for institutions, places, and people. Offering empirical examples from different temporal/spatial contexts (mainly) in the Global South, the panel focuses on tourism’s underlying dynamics, which encompass structural and productive forms of power, hierarchical and exclusionary relations, and everyday practices that are often obscured in mainstream approaches to governance. The panel demonstrates how mainstream tourism governance often reinforces existing forms of global privilege and marginalisation and why approaches seeking to govern tourism ‘better’ ultimately fail to solve many of the problems they profess to address.

Aesthetics and pop culture in poststructuralist IR
Aesthetics and pop culture in poststructuralist IR (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel brings together a broad range of papers examining visuality and poststructural approaches within International Relations

Africa and the political economy
Africa and the political economy (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel includes papers that focus on resource scarcity, tax revenue cycles, an entrepreneurship in Africa.

Algorithmic Warfare: How Decision-Support Systems Reshape Military Practices and Regulation
Algorithmic Warfare: How Decision-Support Systems Reshape Military Practices and Regulation (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Warfighters continue to evolve and expand the use of algorithms and data science tools across the range of their activities. One of the most significant uses, however, is arguably within decision-support and intelligence production. For example, the Israel Defense Forces use tools to identify threats, their location and track their movement in real-time. These systems are not neutral, and they are skewed towards data which can be made machine readable. They provide a description of the battlefield, which constitutes and regulates the contemporary conduct of warfare. These technologies have influenced ideas and continue to prevent meaningful discourse around alternative practices and the regulation of military behaviour. This, it is imperative that academia undertake a critical analysis and conceptualisation to highlight consequences of warfare’s collective data fixation. This panel builds on recent research on algorithmic warfare to present papers that contribute to discussions on how technologies are imbued with assumptions about war that are often difficult to challenge. Furthermore, by taking technological mediation seriously, it seeks to demonstrate how technology enables certain perceptions and courses of action of military actors on the battlefield while constraining others. Finally, it seeks to place these developments in the context of regulation, inquiring whether and how the risks of algorithmic warfare can be mitigated.

Alternative Ethics of the International/Global
Alternative Ethics of the International/Global (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
The papers in this panel all seek to rethink basic foundational/normative assumptions of International Relations, drawing on a range of traditions and practices either beyond 'the West' or marginalised within the 'Western' tradition.

Base Women and Beyond II: Contemporary feminist research agendas on military/nuclear installations and more than human resistance .
Base Women and Beyond II: Contemporary feminist research agendas on military/nuclear installations and more than human resistance . (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Cythia Enloe’s pathbreaking work has illuminated the role of women in the daily operations of military bases. Moreover, Enloe shows how gender ideologies and relationships are key to the national and local legitimisation of such sites, an essential part of what keeps them working – and how challenges to these relationships are often a crucial factor in anti-base mobilisation. This panel seeks to both revitalise Enloe’s research agenda and explore critical moves ‘beyond’ it to better capture and investigate the intricate entanglements of military bases and other sites constituting the nuclear/military industrial complex. Our thinking for the panel is inspired by recent feminist trajectories on gender and coloniality in the global nuclear order, feminist research into the everyday, affective and embodied politics of war and militarism and multidisciplinary writings on the material, affective and environmental legacies left behind by military and nuclear activity. Papers contribute and expand the conversation by bringing feminist critical insights into different forms of resistance, from peace camps to story sovereignty to more than human relations.

Conflict in South America: Trends and Developments
Conflict in South America: Trends and Developments (War Studies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Conflict in South America: Trends and Developments

Critiquing Diplomacy and an anticolonial lens of treaty making
Critiquing Diplomacy and an anticolonial lens of treaty making (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Rethinking and critiquing diplomacy, relational sovereignty, and treaty-making

Dynamics of Institutionalisation and Deinstitutionalisation in the International System - Part I
Dynamics of Institutionalisation and Deinstitutionalisation in the International System - Part I (International Law and Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
The processes of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization are central to understanding both the historical evolution and the contemporary shape of the international system. This panel examines how international institutions—both formal entities like the League of Nations and the United Nations, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), or International Criminal Court, as well as informal norms and practices—are created, adapted, or dismantled over time. In the past decades, the field of International Relations (IR) has focused on institutionalisation, reflecting a world that is increasingly interconnected and governed by joint laws and international organizations. However, the reverse process, deinstitutionalisation, has often been overlooked both analytically and empirically, making this panel particularly timely. As global power dynamics shift and new challenges emerge, institutions face pressure to evolve, reform, or in some cases, dissolve. This panel investigates, from both a historical and contemporary perspective, the forces driving these dynamics. It also investigates the implications of these dynamics for global governance, security, and cooperation. Please note that this is the first of two panels on the topic.

Emotions and non-state actors
Emotions and non-state actors (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel explores the relationship between emotions and non-state actors beyond state-centred approaches.

Everyday narratives of crises
Everyday narratives of crises (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel looks at citizens’ changing perceptions of international politics, including the impact of re-bordering processes and the fallout from the last few years, which have been rich in significant international events. The humanitarian crisis in 2015, the COVID-19 pandemic, social movements like Black Lives Matter, and the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine—amongst many others—have important repercussions on domestic politics and foreign policy. They are also narrated differently by diverse governments, which all tell a different story about these events. While much of the literature in international studies continues to adopt a top-down approach to the study of narratives, the papers in this panel adopt a novel approach by drawing on citizens’ voices and interrogating both citizens and media narratives that shape perceptions of political phenomena and entities at the international level. The presenters in this panel contribute to the narrative and everyday turns in international studies by combining both strands of literature and examining ongoing political processes from a bottom-up perspective. We draw on citizens’ voices as well as news media from across diverse countries like Italy, Germany, Slovakia, the US, and the UK, to investigate crises including the European humanitarian crisis, Brexit, the economic crisis, and Black Lives Matter, to investigate these narratives. As such, this panel explores citizens changing perceptions of international politics and what this can mean for the future of democratic processes.

Financing the future? Challenges in the political economy of climate
Financing the future? Challenges in the political economy of climate (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Financing the future? Challenges in the political economy of climate

Foreign and security policy in the Indo-Pacific
Foreign and security policy in the Indo-Pacific (Foreign Policy Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel examines different country case studies and alliance strategies in the Indo-Pacific.

Governing and Problematizing Global Health
Governing and Problematizing Global Health (Global Health Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Global health is shaped by different actors, knowledges and power structures. When studying global health, we regularly encounter competing priorities and vocabularies, which makes the field intrinsically interdisciplinary. This panel examines these dynamics across different levels of analysis to interrogate the object and relationality of global health. It does so by highlighting the role of epistemic communities in international health policy; the role of technology in shaping access to medicines; the complexity and fluidity of the contagion as an object of 'expertise'; and the politics of naming diseases in global health. As such, this panel offers a critical and problematizing angle to the study of global health in revealing the underpinning exertion of power through discourse, knowledge, and technology.

Indebtedness in, of and to the Global South
Indebtedness in, of and to the Global South (International Political Economy Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
The political condition of indebtedness in the Global South is particularly acute, with high sovereign debt burdens significantly impacting state capacity, poverty and hunger, an increased vulnerability to mechanisms of indebtification and a set of political struggles to do with the legitimacy of debt, its repudiation and its reformulation in the light of imperial service. The papers on this panel highlight a variety of ways in which the present politics of indebtedness are encountered at empirical, normative and political levels.
Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Artificial Intelligence IR (Sponsored by QUB and BISA's Emerging Technologies WG) - Deepak Padmanabhan (QUB) Sandra Scott-Hayward (QUB) Mike Bourne (Queen's University Belfast) Toni Erskine (Australian National University) Nitasha Kaul (Professor of Politics, International Relations, and Critical Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Westminster, London)
Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Artificial Intelligence IR (Sponsored by QUB and BISA's Emerging Technologies WG)
- Deepak Padmanabhan (QUB)
- Sandra Scott-Hayward (QUB)
- Mike Bourne (Queen's University Belfast)
- Toni Erskine (Australian National University)
- Nitasha Kaul (Professor of Politics, International Relations, and Critical Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Westminster, London)
15:00 - 19:00
Room: Titanic Rooms
Introduction to Book Publishing - Don Jacobs (Georgetown University Press) Isobel Cowper-Coles (Palgrave Macmillan) Juliet Dryden (BISA) John Haslam (Cambridge University Press) Atifa Jiwa (Bloomsbury)
Introduction to Book Publishing (BISA)
- Don Jacobs (Georgetown University Press)
- Isobel Cowper-Coles (Palgrave Macmillan)
- Juliet Dryden (BISA)
- John Haslam (Cambridge University Press)
- Atifa Jiwa (Bloomsbury)
15:00 - 16:30
John Haslam (CUP) Donald Jacobs (Georgetown) Isobel Cowper-Coles (Palgrave Macmillan) Atifa Jiwa (Bloomsbury) Joanna Godfrey ( Yale) TBC Plus one other? Juliet Dryden (Chair)
Neo-liberal militarisation and the "progressive" way of war
Neo-liberal militarisation and the "progressive" way of war (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel explores the neoliberal militarisation of war - from the bureaucratisation of preparedness efforts to war labour and unionisation - and the 'progressive' way of war - where military climate accountability and the ecological way of war produce a 'sustainable' politics of violence

Panel - A "NewSpace" Race? The Ultimate High Ground? Or an Orbital Wild West? The Narrative Construction of Space Power
Panel - A "NewSpace" Race? The Ultimate High Ground? Or an Orbital Wild West? The Narrative Construction of Space Power (Astropolitics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
While "spacepower" is often considered in IR the domain of strategists contemplating how to best use material forms of power, it is undeniable that narrative constructions or imaginaries have been consistently deployed to explain and shape perceptions of outer space. Tropes such as “the ultimate high ground,”, "the second Space Age", “space as a sanctuary,” and “congested, contested, and competitive,” among others, serve to construct value frames that construct notions of power within the strategy, policy, and governance of space. These narratives are used throughout professional and academic space communities to construct understandings of the nature of the space environment. This panel explores how these tropes are used and whether or not they have a meaningful or desirable impact on understanding and planning human activities in space, and what alternatives may be explored.

Planetary Politics: Foundations and Crisis
Planetary Politics: Foundations and Crisis (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This roundtable considers the problem of planetary politics by stepping back to consider our founding images and institutionalisations of the political as they have related to the Earth. Based around a series of commentaries on Stefanie Fishel and Anthony Burke’s new book, The Ecology Politic, participants consider whether the modern state is doomed to remain irredeemably entangled with capitalism, an “extractive state” enacting a “sovereign ban of nature” that is now our foundational structure of international law and order. They ask what it means to live at the planetary scale when we are already acting at it, discuss the problematic ontologies of global climate and environmental governance, and consider the decolonial and new materialist vision of the Anthropocene the book argues. Is an Ecology Politic possible or desirable and are there further possibilities or lines of flight to be considered?

Queering the Carceral State: Race, Gender and Sexuality
Queering the Carceral State: Race, Gender and Sexuality (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
We are entering an era of enhanced and deepening carceral logics. As racial capitalism’s disastrous social consequences intensify, states are increasingly responding through carceral practices including mass-imprisonment, the fortification and proliferation of borders, and the widespread use of technologies including surveillance, disablement, displacement and criminalisation. Whilst the links between carcerality, racism and gender are becoming established in IR (despite some disciplinary hostility), the links between LGBTQ+ lived experiences, abolitionist politics, queerness and carcerality are less well-explored. Queerness interpreted in a decolonial sense includes the extent to which racial, gendered and sexual tropes form co-constitutive elements of the colonial project. These tropes help govern those populations who are deemed deviant or pathological, and thus must be controlled and/or locked away. Foregrounding a concern with such structures and technologies, this panel brings together a diverse range of scholars who engage in some way with the carceral state from a queer perspective, whether this be in practical, theoretical or epistemological terms. This engagement also comes from a wide range of empirical perspectives, including scholarly interests in bordering, LGBTQ+ migration studies, state-building and militarism.

Re-Enchanting IR from Central and Eastern Europe
Re-Enchanting IR from Central and Eastern Europe (South East Europe Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Relational approaches play an increasingly central role in the future of International Relations (IR), particularly in the context of pluralising disciplinary onto-epistemological registers. The relational turn amplifies alternative and subaltern voices that seek to ‘do IR differently’ (Trownsell et al. 2019). Relational IR is much less a ‘North American social science’ (Kristensen 2013) and much more a lively and vibrant inquiry into how world(s) get made and unmade by a variety of actors, processes and forces. Relational approaches to IR speak of ‘re-enchanting’ (Mitchell 2014, Trownsell 2021, Querejazu 2024) the discipline, suggesting a new programme for IR, which is pluriversal, relational, de-colonial and communal, as opposed to universal (Western), rational, atomistic and interactionist. This panel contributes to relational IR by highlighting perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). CEE has had an uncomfortable relationship with modernity and realpolitik, being part of Western modernity for many years while also serving as a battleground of various empires and forces. Hence, the diverse region is usually subsumed under ‘West,’ while also being orientalised as ‘not-Western-enough.’ This panel raises the following questions: What might approaches to IR from CEE teach us about relationality? How might we revive lost knowledges and cosmologies of CEE to help the broader effort of re-enchanting IR?

Security agents beyond the state
Security agents beyond the state (Security Policy and Practice)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel examines the growing role of non-state actors in global security. While traditionally, the state has been thought of as the primary agent of security, recent scholarsihp has made clear that a diverse range of actors—such as multinational corporations, international organizations, NGOs, and even criminal groups—are increasingly influential in shaping security outcomes. Across this panel, we explore contemporary security politics through the lens of securiy agents beyond the state, asking what role such actors play in contemporary security, and the extent to which the activities of such actors encourages us to rethink our assumptions about who produces security and how.

The Middle East in the International System
The Middle East in the International System (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
We examine the hegemonic ambitions of Gulf petrostates, dilemmas over sovereignty, and the role of China in balancing rival powers.

The Russo-Ukrainian War and Beyond
The Russo-Ukrainian War and Beyond (War Studies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel explores the multifaceted impact of the Ukraine war, examining its psychological, political, and technological dimensions and the broader implications for global security. Through four interlinked studies, we investigate the profound psychological trauma experienced by soldiers and civilians on the front lines, shedding light on the long-term effects of conflict on mental health. Additionally, we analyse the rise of private military contractors within Ukraine, questioning their influence on warfare dynamics and ethical accountability. Expanding beyond Ukraine, we assess how the conflict reshapes geopolitical interests in the High North, where security concerns intersect with strategic resource competition. Finally, we delve into the weaponisation of artificial intelligence within the war, addressing its immediate battlefield applications and the ethical dilemmas posed by autonomous systems in combat. Together, these papers provide a comprehensive perspective on how the Ukraine war redefines warfare and regional stability.

Transatlantic storms and Anglo-American relations: How the UK-US alliance weather crises
Transatlantic storms and Anglo-American relations: How the UK-US alliance weather crises (Foreign Policy Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
The withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was regarded in some quarters as a watershed moment in UK-US relations. For several senior British politicians, the lack of consultation and coordination between the two governments during the debacle signalled a “demise” in the partnership and the “biggest foreign policy disaster” since the Suez crisis of 1956. Yet, to paraphrase (or misquote) Mark Twain, rumours of the UK-US relationship’s death are greatly exaggerated. Despite the grim auguries made in 2021, the historic AUKUS defence pact was signed just a month later. The UK-US alliance has long been a story of episodic peaks and troughs. Those who have a “terminal” view of the relationship often overplay the significance of the latest crisis, betraying a degree of presentism or historical amnesia. Indeed, the UK-US alliance is arguably the closest in history considering the degree of institutional economic and security cooperation. The Afghanistan-to-AUKUS example underscores the need for deeper research about the nature and character of US-UK strategic relations over time. This panel will highlight hitherto undervalued case studies and interrogate the extent to which the institutional aspects of cooperation (notably nuclear, intelligence, mil-to-mil, and economic) are affected by such flashpoints. It brings together several papers which will ultimately form part of an edited volume on the UK-US alliance.

Transnationality, identity and belonging
Transnationality, identity and belonging (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Transnationality, identity and belonging

Violence, non-violence and resistance
Violence, non-violence and resistance (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel interrogates the boundary between violence and non-violence; legitimate and illegitimate violence; and the use of the 'terrorism' label with regards to resistance.

16:30 Break
Break
16:30 - 16:45
16:45 50 years and counting: reflecting on the discipline and profession of International Studies (past BISA Chairs, hosted at theTitanic Museum) - Barry Buzan (LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science)) Chris Brown (LSE) Richard Whitman (University of Kent) Ruth Blakeley (University of Sheffield) Mark Webber (University of Birmingham) Chris Hill (University of Cambridge) Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (University of Loughborough)
50 years and counting: reflecting on the discipline and profession of International Studies (past BISA Chairs, hosted at theTitanic Museum) (BISA)
- Barry Buzan (LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science))
- Chris Brown (LSE)
- Richard Whitman (University of Kent)
- Ruth Blakeley (University of Sheffield)
- Mark Webber (University of Birmingham)
- Chris Hill (University of Cambridge)
- Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (University of Loughborough)
16:45 - 18:15
Africa: politics and power
Africa: politics and power (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel considers the question of power in relation to Somaliland, declining democracy and democratic discourses in Africa.

Championing Pedagogical Scholarship: The ASPIRE Network for Politics and International Relations
Championing Pedagogical Scholarship: The ASPIRE Network for Politics and International Relations (Learning and Teaching Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Teaching tracks have become increasingly common across UK institutions as demand grows for high-quality education. With a focus on pedagogical research and innovation, these career paths actively further the quality, accessibility and experience of student education in higher education. However, career progression and job descriptions can vary widely across institutions, with some academics reporting lower job satisfaction, lower morale, and the potential for perceptions of inferiority when compared to colleagues in more traditional combined posts (Bennett et al. 2018). In 2024, nine Politics, International Relations and Development colleagues from four UK institutions came together to found the Academic Scholarship in Politics and International Relations Education (ASPIRE) Network for academics on teaching-track career paths in our discipline. ASPIRE seeks to represent and advocate for staff on this career trajectory, influencing academic institutions and policy makers to help shape how the teaching-track path functions, how staff can progress within these roles, and how these positions can be used to innovate in high-quality research and teaching in politics and international relations. Launching formally in June 2025 the network aims to empower members to navigate their career paths more effectively, while also fostering the development of research in teaching and learning. In solidarity with members at different career stages across multiple UK institutions, the network will provide guidance to academic leaders seeking to support and champion the Teaching and Scholarship trajectory in their institutions. In a period of perpetual political uncertainty and as calls grow to reshape the study of politics, ASPIRE therefore takes up the charge to equip the next generation of educators with the tools and vision to meet future challenges head-on. We believe that by prioritising pedagogical scholarship and diverse perspectives, ASPIRE can contribute to a more adaptable and inclusive future for Politics and International Studies, one that engages critically with the changing political landscape, and which prepares students to do the same. This roundtable will present ASPIRE’s mission to BISA members, sharing how the network fosters a platform for mentorship, best practice sharing, and policy advocacy that connects theory to urgent, real-world applications. Attendees will gain insights into ASPIRE’s strategic initiatives, including its upcoming launch, resources for SoTL research, and avenues for cross-institutional collaboration. By convening this roundtable, ASPIRE seeks to connect with BISA’s engaged community to reinforce teaching and scholarship as essential pillars of academic practice in Politics and International Studies. Together, we aim to nurture a community ready to support and drive an evolving discipline, grounded in pedagogical excellence and responsive to the complex demands of the next fifty years.

Cyber-Strategy in South Asia
Cyber-Strategy in South Asia (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This series of papers explore strategic challenges in South Asia, focusing on cyber policy and security practices. They present findings on the nature of Chinese cyber security doctrine, on key aspects of infrastructural development in the region more broadly and consider the interplay between these areas through profound questions on the dynamics of sovereignty in digital society.

Dynamics of Institutionalisation and Deinstitutionalisation in the International System - Part II
Dynamics of Institutionalisation and Deinstitutionalisation in the International System - Part II (International Law and Politics Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
The processes of institutionalization and deinstitutionalization are central to understanding both the historical evolution and the contemporary shape of the international system. This panel examines how international institutions—both formal entities like the League of Nations and the United Nations, the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), or International Criminal Court, as well as informal norms and practices—are created, adapted, or dismantled over time. In the past decades, the field of International Relations (IR) has focused on institutionalisation, reflecting a world that is increasingly interconnected and governed by joint laws and international organizations. However, the reverse process, deinstitutionalisation, has often been overlooked both analytically and empirically, making this panel particularly timely. As global power dynamics shift and new challenges emerge, institutions face pressure to evolve, reform, or in some cases, dissolve. This panel investigates, from both a historical and contemporary perspective, the forces driving these dynamics. It also investigates the implications of these dynamics for global governance, security, and cooperation. Please note that this is the second of two panels on the topic.

Emerging frontiers in global governance and finance
Emerging frontiers in global governance and finance (International Political Economy Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Exploring a range of actors within global governance. Panel put together by the IPEG WG. These descriptions are not included in the programme so I have included the minimum. If you need more please contact james.m.scott@kcl.ac.uk

European foreign policy issues
European foreign policy issues (Foreign Policy Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
European foreign policy issues

Everyday challenges within places of sanctuary and hostile environments
Everyday challenges within places of sanctuary and hostile environments (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Everyday challenges within places of sanctuary and hostile environments

Gender Crossing Borders
Gender Crossing Borders (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Gender Crossing Borders

Governing collapse: States and state based governance in a changing climate
Governing collapse: States and state based governance in a changing climate (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Governing collapse: States and state based governance in a changing climate

Life and Death on the Balkan Route: Violent Borders
Life and Death on the Balkan Route: Violent Borders (South East Europe Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
The ‘Balkan Route’ - a set of intersecting routes of mobility to and through the EU - is, as Piro Rexhepi notes, ‘... a corridor of transitional and transient sites of migrant mobility’ but also one in which multiple actors, including the EU, enact ‘containment and controls.’ The EU’s containment and controls in the region have given rise to violence used to enforce borders, both at the EU’s external borders in Hungary, Croatia and Greece but also within the ‘Balkan Route’ in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Border violence against people on the move is widespread, systematic and institutionalised, it is enacted at the border but also in cities, camps, at sea, and through policies that govern life and death on the Balkan Route. Violent borders shape every aspect of life and death of people on the move. In life, people on the move experience spatial segregation, inability to access basic health care as well as sanitary facilities, and the aspect of "making insane" - the impact on mental health and the lack of instruments to face problems of depression. In death, the institutions, spaces and policies that govern mobility of people on the move, also govern their (in)visibility after death. On the ‘Balkan Route’, we find a context in which death of people on the move disappear into bureaucratic statistics and procedures, and whose graves are hidden and obscured from public view, taking with them any evidence of violent deaths and violent borders. Against this background, the panel asks: How are the lives and deaths of people on the move regulated along internal and external EU borders? What violent practices of border enforcement practices and infrastructures shape mobility? We ask, how does the violent enforcement of the border lead to deaths of people on the move, and why are those deaths made invisible? The roundtable brings together early career academics and established scholars, whose aim is to open a discussion of the centrality of the border within the field of International Relations, challenge the field’s narrow approach to structural violence of the border, and bring the border rituals of life and death to the centre of knowledge production within the field.

Mediated militarisms, militarised mediations: politics, practices, phenomena
Mediated militarisms, militarised mediations: politics, practices, phenomena (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel explores the intersections of militarism and mediation in their various forms and the politics, practices and phenomena this encompasses.

Methodological considerations in peace and conflict
Methodological considerations in peace and conflict (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Understanding frameworks in which to understand the world, taking into account novel methods and perspectives

Methodologies and future directions for Queer(ing) Conflict Research
Methodologies and future directions for Queer(ing) Conflict Research (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This roundtable includes reflections about the methodologies and future directions of queer conflict research from the editors and several contributors to the book Queer Conflict Research: New Approaches to the Study of Political Violence (BUP). Bringing together a team of international scholars, this volume provides a foundational guide to queer methodologies in the study of political violence and conflict. Contributors provide illuminating discussions on why queer approaches are important, what they entail and how to utilise a queer approach to political violence and conflict. The chapters explore a variety of methodological approaches, including fieldwork, interviews, cultural analysis and archival research. They also engage with broader academic debates, such as how to work with research partners in an ethical manner. Including valuable case studies from around the world, the book demonstrates how these methods can be used in practice. It is the first critical, in-depth discussion on queer methods and methodologies for research on political violence and conflict. We will use this roundtable to reflect on the methodologies we use in each of our approaches to queer conflict research, as well as where we hope this broader research agenda goes in the future.

Middle East Politics: Authoritarianism, Violence, and Solidarity
Middle East Politics: Authoritarianism, Violence, and Solidarity (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
We consider conflict in the Middle East from a range of perspectives, considering the challenges of authoritarian regimes and violent conflicts and the possiblities of solidarity.

Militarism in Popular Culture: Comparative perspectives
Militarism in Popular Culture: Comparative perspectives (Orphan Papers track)
16:45 - 18:15
Representations and discourses of militarism in popular culture play an important role in shaping the political possibilities for armed violence and war, but also for sustainable peace and reconciliation. In a time of increasing political tension, the return of large-scale wars to Europe and the Middle East, and the threat of conflict looming in different parts of the world, paying attention to the complex and multiple ways in which popular culture is implicated in militarism is more crucial than ever. Popular culture, of course, is not homogenous and plays not just multiple roles, but often competing and contradictory ones as well. It can help embed ideas of militarised fetishism and masculinity through social media, video games, and the action blockbuster while simultaneously it can also disrupt and challenge the discourses of violence by bringing the horrors of war to an otherwise disconnected audience in documentary cinema, poetry, or art. Given the unique intersection of a history of internecine violence, vibrant culture, and an ongoing peace process to be found in BISA's 2025 host city of Belfast, Northern Ireland we feel this is a particularly apt time and place to hold these conversations.

Narrating Security: Security narratives in policy and practice
Narrating Security: Security narratives in policy and practice (Security Policy and Practice)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel examines the role of narratives in shaping security policy and practice. Understanding security beyond the material, the panel explores the stories and discourses that frame threats, shape national security agendas and influence behavious. Drawing examples from a range of narrative sites, including state and non-state actors, this panel assesses the power of language, and it's ability to shape policymaking and security practices.

New Technology and Military Innovation
New Technology and Military Innovation (War Studies Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
New Technology and Military Innovation

Objects and Projects of Climate Politics: International Studies and the Politicization of a Climate Governance Object?
Objects and Projects of Climate Politics: International Studies and the Politicization of a Climate Governance Object? (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
How might governance practices and projects objectify climate/politics? This panel will provide a space for reflection on and discussion of: existing and emergent debates on climate as a 'governance object' within International Studies; objects and projects of climate politics in a wider sense; and potential new directions within scholarship on these topics and themes. Drawing on their research into, variously, international-institutional politics of climate change, relationships between expert/knowledge, power and action in climate politics, and interactions between science, policy and society (including detailed studies of governance frameworks and assessment processes and networks of expertise related to climate change negotiations, the IPCC, social movements, and geo/climate engineering proposals) contributors to the roundtable will be invited to engage with, consider, and reflect on key themes and issues including: - concepts, objects, and considerations of climate politics in a wider context of ‘objectual international relations’ (cf. Esguerra/Global Studies Quarterly special issue, 2024) - types of malleability and forms of politicization and contestation in relation to climate governance objects, projects, and objectives - roles and relative significance of academic, activist, and scientific knowledge and expertise in constituting and contesting objects of climate governance and their projected futures - political projects and policy debates related to current contexts and issues such as mitigation, climate finance, opposition to extractivism, and proposals for/emergent technologies of climate engineering and intervention. The roundtable will also provide scope for discussion (including audience/Q&A engagement) of a range of different conceptual, theoretical, and methodological approaches as employed and explored by the works of the contributors.

Perspectives on British (I)PE
Perspectives on British (I)PE (International Political Economy Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
The roundtable is an opportunity to bring together leading scholars to reflect on the past, present and future of British (international) political economy. British (I)PE is defined here to include not only British or ‘British School’ IPE, but also work in British political economy and British economic policy more broadly. The intention is to foster a more inclusive dialogue among political economists beyond the traditional boundaries of IPE to encompass CPE and political science. Participants will be invited to define the contours and characteristics of British (I)PE, to discuss the state of the field, its historical lineages and distinct traditions, and to outline its key contributions with respect to theory, empirics, methods and/or pedagogy. The roundtable is an opportunity to begin a conversation about the future of British (I)PE, to support the next generation of scholars and scholarship in this area, and to build an interdisciplinary academic network with a view to organising future events and initiatives.

Re-thinking International Relations and Development
Re-thinking International Relations and Development (Global Politics and Development)
16:45 - 18:15
Re-thinking International Relations and Development

Studying emotions: Insights from disciplines beyond IR
Studying emotions: Insights from disciplines beyond IR (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
It explores emotions by engaging with different disciplinary knowledge and approaches such as art and literature

Temporal Security in International Relations
Temporal Security in International Relations (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Three days after the start of the Russian ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz gave a speech in the Bundestag that described the Russian invasion of its neighbour as a historic turning point or Zeitenwende for European security, which necessitated a fundamental change in foreign, security and defence policy in response. Subsequently, the term Zeitenwende would enter the lexicon of German and international politics and media as shorthand for transformative change of national security and strategic culture, or at least the aspiration for such change. This panel brings together researchers examining the role of temporality in international relations, and in particular how social constructs of time sustain or challenge narratives and practices of international security. Its conceptual starting point is the ‘temporal turn’ in IR, which seeks to examine and challenge the hegemonic foundations of the discipline and notions of the ‘timelessness’ of theoretical foundations and axiomatic assumptions, as well as the linearity of historical processes. Political constructs of time are inherently contested and as such can be subjected to revisionist challenges, while the timing of events and the imposing of chronological order in international relations, such as the ‘unipolar moment’, the ‘end of history’, the ‘peace of Westphalia’ or the ‘rise of China’, is in itself a political act. We argue that the Russo-Ukrainian War not only violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty, but it fundamentally disrupted a sense of historical progress and chronological continuity in European security, characterized by an end of geopolitical division, a ‘peace dividend’ of substantial defence cuts, and the strategic assumption that interstate war and territorial conquest were relics of the past. This panel explores this ontological shock to temporal security in international politics and its wider implications for the study of time in IR.

The 2024/25 Strategic Defence Review: Submissions and Reflections
The 2024/25 Strategic Defence Review: Submissions and Reflections (Astropolitics Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This roundtable discusses the outcomes of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) and its implications for UK Space, reflecting the panelists’ recommendations to the SDR and reflecting on the outcomes announced in 2025. On 16 July 2024, the new Labour Government announced a Strategic Defence Review focused on determining the roles, capabilities, and reforms required by UK Defence to meet the challenges, threats, and opportunities of the twenty-first century. The review aims to ensure that Defence is affordable within the resources available and aligned with the trajectory toward 2.5% of GDP. Additionally, it seeks to position Defence as central to the security, economic growth, and prosperity of the UK. Leading up to the evidence submission, there was uncertainty regarding the Starmer government's enthusiasm for space and its support for developing the National Space Strategy. Will this new government take a definitive position on space? If not, how can public policy issues concerning emerging threats be addressed within the constraints of the budget? given the UK's historical mix of pragmatism and skepticism toward space? What is the impact of the SDR on the UK role in space going forward?

Theorising non-violence and the possibility for repair
Theorising non-violence and the possibility for repair (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Potentialities of reconciliation, justice, and repair

Totality, Smallness, Intimacy, Gigantism: Rethinking the Politics of Scale
Totality, Smallness, Intimacy, Gigantism: Rethinking the Politics of Scale (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
How have social and political movements deployed a politics of scale to make claims, forge solidarities and imagine worlds? Breaking with international relations' somewhat rigid imaginary of levels of analysis, this panel draws on anticolonial, feminist, queer, indigenous, posthumanist and other critical approaches to re-centre the question of scale in the analysis of world politics. By exploring totality, smallness, intimacy, and gigantism, the panel will suggest methods for analysing how power operates—and is resisted—across different scales, from the personal to the global. It will suggest that a reconsideration of scale is central to theorising international power, with implications for how we think about capitalism, imperialism, and decolonisation. In the process, it will also suggest different ways of addressing the conceptual issues and pitfalls that commonly emerge when we try to describe the interrelationship between scales.

Tragedy and Irony: Just War and Intervention
Tragedy and Irony: Just War and Intervention (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
The papers in this panel reflect on a series of ethical challenges of contemporary warfare, either through exploring a series of just war related issues or through foregrounding sources of ethical reflection on war beyond the just war tradition.

18:45 BISA 2025 Reception
BISA 2025 Reception
18:45 - 21:00
Thursday, 19 June 2025

08:00 Navigating Critical Approaches to IR: Troubleshooting your PhD. This event is sponsored by the QUB School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy & Politics, and the QUB Mitchell Institute. Although this is open to all conference delegates you need to register in advance to attend at https://indico.bisa.ac.uk/e/troubleshootingyourphd
Navigating Critical Approaches to IR: Troubleshooting your PhD. This event is sponsored by the QUB School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy & Politics, and the QUB Mitchell Institute. Although this is open to all conference delegates you need to register in advance to attend at https://indico.bisa.ac.uk/e/troubleshootingyourphd
08:00 - 09:00

09:00 Africa: State and Society
Africa: State and Society (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel consider the role of civil society and internet shutdown, the diaspora, invisible child soldiers and South Africa's chemical and biological warfare programme.

Approaches to reparative and transformative justice in response to European imperialism: Shaping contemporary international relations
Approaches to reparative and transformative justice in response to European imperialism: Shaping contemporary international relations (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
As recent contestations over enslavement and reparations at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting has shown, the legacies of Western European imperialism continue to permeate international relations, shaping contemporary power structures, diplomatic relations, and global inequities. This panel explores the transformative potential of reparations, truth-telling and reconciliation as mechanisms to address these legacies and foster a more equitable global order. While reparations and truth commissions are well established and theorised mechanisms in the field of transitional justice and post-conflict transformation, we aim to shed light on concepts and sites that address Western European colonial and imperial histories, their legacies and consequences.

Beyond the Silk Roads: Navigating the complexities of Central Asian relations with the People’s Republic of China
Beyond the Silk Roads: Navigating the complexities of Central Asian relations with the People’s Republic of China (East Europe and Eurasian Security Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
**Title:** Beyond the Silk Roads: Navigating the Complexities of Central Asian Relations with the People’s Republic of China **Abstract:** Our panel delves into the evolving dynamics of Central Asia’s relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Moving beyond discussions on state-to-state economic and security linkages under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), this discussion aims to unpack the multifaceted interactions that characterise contemporary China–Central Asia relations. We present several collaborative papers, which showcase some of the most recent research co-produced by European and Central Asian researchers on the topic. Each speaker will analyse distinct aspects of this relationship, including the political, economic, social, and environmental dimensions of China’s increasing presence in the region. Key themes will include Sinophobia, threat narratives, and evolving public opinion of China in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (Maracchione & Gruffydd-Jones; Neafie et al.); a problematisation of the state capitalism narrative in connection with new Chinese investment in electric vehicles in Uzbekistan (Galdini & Maracchione); and an analysis of Chinese discourse on Central Asian protests to explore the marketisation of autocratic norms (Sciorati). By addressing all layers of engagement, state, business and population, the panel will provide a nuanced understanding of how Central Asians are navigating their complex and often contentious partnerships with the PRC, contributing fresh insights into the broader implications for the region and its people. **Chair:** Dr Frank Maracchione, University of Kent and SPERI-University of Sheffield **Papers and participants:** **1) “Conceptualising Autocracy Promotion as Commercialisation: Marketising Narratives and Chinese Responses to Central Asian Protests”** *Dr Giulia Sciorati, London School of Economic; and Dr Eva Seiwert, MERICS - Mercator Institute for China Studies* **2) “Shared Concerns, Distinct Perspectives: Public Opinion on China’s Influence in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan”** *Dr Jessica Neafie, Nazarbayev University; Dr Frank Maracchione, University of Kent and SPERI Sheffield; Dr Rashid Gabdulhakov, University of Groningen; Khiradmand Sheraliev, American University of Central Asia; and Islam Supyaldiyarov, Suleyman Demirel University, Almaty.* **3) “The limits to state capitalism: Chinese investments in EVs in Uzbekistan”** *Dr Franco Galdini, University of Birmingham; and Dr Frank Maracchione, University of Kent and SPERI Sheffield* **4) “Sinophobia in the Global East: anti-Chinese sentiment and activity in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan”** *Dr Frank Maracchione and Dr Jamie Gruffydd-Jones, University of Kent*

Bridging Gaps: Advancing Latin American Studies in International Relations
Bridging Gaps: Advancing Latin American Studies in International Relations (Global Politics and Development)
09:00 - 10:30
This roundtable brings together researchers with extensive expertise in Latin American studies across a range of International Relations (IR) approaches and methodologies. Despite the growing relevance of Latin America in global governance, security, and international political economy, the region remains significantly underexplored in mainstream IR scholarship. This lack of focus creates challenges for researchers, limiting opportunities for collaboration, comparative analysis, and theoretical innovation. The session aims to foster a dialogue that bridges these gaps by uniting scholars with expertise in areas such as foreign policy analysis, regional security frameworks, democratisation processes, migration and post-hegemonic regionalism. Participants include researchers examining the intersection of populism and foreign policy, border studies, the role of leaders in decision-making, and the evolution of health diplomacy and social policy in the region. By incorporating diverse theoretical perspectives, this roundtable offers a space to identify synergies and advance a collective understanding of Latin America’s contributions to IR. Importantly, the roundtable includes scholars at various career stages, from early-career researchers to established academics, based at a range of institutions across the UK. This diversity ensures a dynamic exchange of ideas and experiences, fostering potential collaborations. Topics to be addressed include regional governance, security dynamics, and the role of Latin America in shaping global norms. By amplifying the voices of researchers focused on Latin America, this roundtable seeks to strengthen the region’s presence in IR scholarship and inspire new avenues of inquiry within the discipline.

Building, Maintaining, and Changing Global Order(s)
Building, Maintaining, and Changing Global Order(s) (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Papers on this panel present a number of studies that analyse institution building and practices of contestation.

Creative methods for bringing the climate into collective existence
Creative methods for bringing the climate into collective existence (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
The aim of this panel is to identify some of the creative and innovative approaches that scholars are developing to bring the presence of a living world into their research. Scholars are increasingly becoming aware of and sharing their concerns about the absence of a relationship with and the presence of the biological world in how they think and study global environmental degradation and collective responses to address this. This panel offers a forum for scholars to identify how they are addressing this through self-reflective practice, art-based methods, creative writing and more in order to bring themselves and a living world on to the page and to ensure traces of this presence remain in how environmental politics is taught and practiced.

Critical Drone Scholarship beyond the War on Terror
Critical Drone Scholarship beyond the War on Terror (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Over the past two decades, the increased use of militarised drones has given rise to a rich field of critical scholarship into their societal, ethical, legal and political implications. However, much of this scholarship remains focused on the use of drones in the context of counterterrorism, particularly in relation to the so-called Global War on Terror. Since then, the types and characteristics of drones, their uses, and their contexts of deployment have sharply increased in variety; it is, therefore, essential to broaden this focus and investigate the applications and effects of drones in other geopolitical and socio-technological settings. To do so, this panel moves beyond the paradigm of counterterrorism to expand critical engagement and investigate the multifaceted effects of the use of drones on their targets, operators and society more broadly. Bringing together scholars from a range of critical perspectives, this panel will investigate how drones continue to reshape the practice and our understanding of surveillance, warfare and the military/militarisation, thus exploring future avenues for critical scholarship on drones and security.

Discourses and practices of the international
Discourses and practices of the international (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel focuses on the relationship between discourse and practice (broadly understood) to help us better understand international politics.

Engaging Defence and Security policy through different stages of academic careers
Engaging Defence and Security policy through different stages of academic careers (War Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This roundtable brings together academics from different institutions and stages of career to discuss how they and their institutions engage defence and security policy makers and implementers. The intent of this roundtable is to demonstrate how academics at different career stages can and do engage with government in different ways. We will cover traditional pathways such as direct secondments and sponsored research, but also more emergent partnerships such as direct involvement with government activity by academics outside of funded participation, ad hoc relationships that have spun out of more organised efforts and how all of these provide different opportunities for academics to engage policy figures. The members of this round table are drawn from a variety of backgrounds and will show the myriad different ways engagement can take place. **** note for organisers - One of our participants (DB) has security concerns so would prefer to remain unlisted on the final programme. They have also requested that their participation be concentrated on the last day. The roundtable can progress without them but it would benefit if these concerns could be addressed.

Existentialism for existential times? Contemplating the Anthropocene, and other catastrophes
Existentialism for existential times? Contemplating the Anthropocene, and other catastrophes (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
As climate collapse looms, wars rage on, great power competition returns under new management, fascists revel in renaissance, and societies continue to recover from Covid-19, global life seems saturated with existential challenges. Though it emerged to grapple with war and colonial violence, matured in the first nuclear age, and continues to theorise multiple dangerous and anxious phenomena, IR has not, as a discipline, engaged as much with existentialism – even as it treats a number of ‘existential threats’ like climate change in the Anthropocene. Drawing on theories of time, timing, and temporality, this panel builds on recent scholarly collaborations that suggest IR was always existentialist without really admitting it. It expands upon such efforts by tracing the influence of existentialist themes on core IR concerns and by thinking creatively about how to adapt existentialism to our current moment(s). Authors scrutinize what resources existentialist thought and culture might furnish to environmental catastrophe and other global traumas, as well as how existentialism has changed our ability to understand those experiences and ‘the world’ in which they take place. In so doing, they unpack problems of meaning, death, responsibility, and collective action in a time of multiple threats to existence.

Financial regulation from past to present
Financial regulation from past to present (International Political Economy Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
A set of papers on financial regulation. Panel put together by the IPEG WG. These descriptions are not included in the programme so I have included the minimum. If you need more please contact james.m.scott@kcl.ac.uk

Governance and Legitimacy in a Changing Technological Context
Governance and Legitimacy in a Changing Technological Context (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This series of papers explores a wide range of highly relevant case areas to reflect on the challenges in conditions of governance for a global digital citizenry. The papers draw into focus key questions about the continued legitimacy of institutions in the midst of a destabilisation of perceptions of 'truth' and 'reality' in our understanding of ongoing political crisis. They explore the possibilities, and boundaries for new forms of governance and diplomacy in a range o different polities experiencing varied challenges. Modes of development of digital infrastructure, their capacity for immanent change and the protentional consequences of their capture by established, entrenched systems of power are all considered as serious problem areas for future research.

Home and Homemaking in International Relations
Home and Homemaking in International Relations (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Home is one of those concepts that we all, consciously or not, relate to on a daily basis. Simultaneously the most universal and particular of concepts, home is fraught with contestation. Whether home is understood as a politically demarcated territory which ‘The Home Office’ governs and wars are declared in the name of; a spatially defined dwelling where people live, work and die; a site for political, social and cultural formation; a ghostly reminder of a place one used to belong to; or a destination one wishes to arrive at, home is as Katherine Brickell has argued ‘one of the most idealized sites of human existence’. Idealised for the promises it holds and the hope it contains, how it is supposed to function, who is welcome in it, who is responsible for running it, how this is done, and with what emotional, economic and creative input. With some exceptions, Home, in whichever way it is approached, is not a common site for investigations in the discipline of IR. Wishing to rectify this, through an exploration of home at various levels – the personal, the communal, the national, and the international – this roundtable explores the how home functions in international relations. Phenomenologically it explores the ‘emotional desire’ (Diane Chambers) of home at these various levels, as well as unpacking the material and embodied practices and costs associated with home and homemaking in several different sites. From this the roundtable invites a space from which to begin an examination of what it recognises as a neglected focus for the discipline.

Imageries of Nation: Nationalism, Gender and Militarization
Imageries of Nation: Nationalism, Gender and Militarization (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
How do imageries of nationalism and construction of the idea of a nation co-opt/dilute/hegemonise women’s narratives within its grand arc? Thus determining their role in the narrative of the ‘nation’. Papers in this panel unpack the relation between dominant narratives of nationalism/nation building and the feminist narratives that challenge it ground up. The authors detangle the co-option of war widows in state led militaristic discourses, the silencing of counter hegemonic feminist narratives, co-constitutivenes of masculinities and feminises in the gendered history of a nation, agency and women’s activism and militancy and self identification of feminist actors and their complex interactions with hegemonic nationalism(s). The authors explore these themes through varied standpoints employing feminist IR theory, postcolonial theory, queer theory employing varied methodological tools.

Immigration Detention: Investigating the Persistence of a Failed Project
Immigration Detention: Investigating the Persistence of a Failed Project (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel examines the expansion and diffusion of immigration detention systems, despite evidence that they cause harm and do not deliver stated policy objectives. Immigration detention fails to deter, is disproportionate to immigration control objectives, discriminates on the basis of race, gender and class, and often includes inhuman and degrading treatment. Scholars have highlighted the high financial and human costs of detention that regularly involves the incarceration of already vulnerable adults and children, produces additional vulnerabilities, and harms detained individuals and their families. From the state narratives to the involvement of non-state actors and the sites of incarceration, this panel explores why immigration detention systems are sustained and expand despite their failings, how this continuation is justified, and how it is resisted. The panel focuses on three case studies—Australia, the UK, and US—early adopters of immigration detention and innovators and leaders in the transnational policy field. It asks how we understand the plasticity of detention regimes, alongside an enduring carceral logic, and how detention is resisted at the local, national and international levels.

Pedagogical approaches to nuclear politics
Pedagogical approaches to nuclear politics (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
*Pedagogical Approaches to Nuclear Politics* continues and expands upon a [recent workshop][1] which gathered scholars and practitioners to explore innovative methods for teaching on issues related to nuclear politics. The roundtable will feature discussions on traditional and critical approaches, syllabus innovations, and best practices for training the next generation of nuclear experts. There will also be strong representation from the [Decolonizing Nuclear Studies][2] team, who will be able to share interactive teaching resources with the audience. The roundtable will be of value to educators, researchers, and practitioners of nuclear politics. [1]: https://www.bisa.ac.uk/members/working-groups/gno/events/workshop-pedagogical-approaches-nuclear-politics [2]: https://highlynriched.com/decolonizing-nuclear-studies/

Performing Alternative Worlds
Performing Alternative Worlds (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Performing Alternative Worlds

Power, State, and International Relations with South East Europe
Power, State, and International Relations with South East Europe (South East Europe Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel explores the intersection of state power, International Relations, world politics, and ideological frameworks in South East Europe and beyond. It focuses on the question of how regimes shape global and national discourses, positioning themselves domestically and internationally, through history and at present.

R2P, Intervention, and Conflict Management
R2P, Intervention, and Conflict Management (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Papers engage with questions of mass atrocity prevention, the R2P, and international models of conflict management

Regions, Norms and Power
Regions, Norms and Power (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
From transregionalism to balancing and asymmetry, we consider how states operate in a multi-polar world.

Revisiting Realist Ethics
Revisiting Realist Ethics (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Once dismissed as an oxymoron, Realist ethics continues to develop apace. The papers on this panel contribute to the growing interest in this field of study with a collection of papers that probe the past, present, and future of Realist ethics. The panel highlights the diversity of Realist ethics, including the tensions within Realism and also between Realism and its putative originators and current theoretical interlocutors. The panel begins with Chris Brown’s examination of the central concept of prudence, which is alleged to link Realism to ancient Greek political philosophy. Brown is not convinced that the modern, Realist concept of prudence as caution is compatible with the Aristotelian principle of phronesis – a disjunction that allows him to excavate the differing character of political judgment in both traditions of thought. Seán Molloy further explores the role of judgment in Realist ethics by reference to the parallels between E.H. Carr and Machiavelli, who – although deeply influenced by the ancients, nonetheless ushers in a distinctly modern way of thinking about the relationship between political necessity and moral requirement. Molloy argues that Carr is more Machiavellian than Morgenthau realised, which provides the former with greater philosophical resources than Morgenthau recognises when alleging his thought is that of a ‘disastrous’ Machiavelli without virtù. Carmen Chas rounds out the critical-historical part of the panel by focusing attention on Georg Schwarzenberger’s attempt to think the relationship between politics and ethics in terms of international law and the standard of civilisation. The panel concludes with two papers that examine Realism in relation to contemporary theory. Guilherme Marques Pedro reads Reinhold Niebuhr’s work in the light of the burgeoning literature on ontological security, conjoining the insights of both approaches to develop an ‘ethos of security’ that foregrounds the importance of anxiety and angst to redirect ethics away from the impossibility of ultimate security to a focus on the achievement of security understood as a condition that can only be achieved in a precarious and imperfect manner. The final paper by Haro Karkour examines a faultline in John Mearsheimer’s thought between his insistence on the theoretical primacy of survival in offensive Realism and the profession of a personal morality that leads him to condemn Israel’s actions in Palestine. This faultline, Karkour argues, has important implications for Mearsheimer’s theory that leaves him open to the charge that his activity as a public intellectual – whether one agrees with his criticism of Israel or not - is without a genuine intellectual basis.

Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary bodies: feminism and beyond
Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary bodies: feminism and beyond (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Revolutionary and counter-revolutionary bodies: feminism and beyond

Seeing Resistance: Visual Narratives and Counter-Politics in Contemporary International Relations
Seeing Resistance: Visual Narratives and Counter-Politics in Contemporary International Relations (Orphan Papers track)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel examines how visual media and aesthetics shape and challenge political narratives, identities, and policies in International Relations. By exploring diverse contexts—from historical resistance to contemporary border violence, to populist security rhetoric and military games as sites of resistance—the presentations investigate how visual forms of storytelling can amplify marginalized voices, counteract official narratives, and foster public engagement.

The Present and Future of World Order
The Present and Future of World Order (International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel engages with the continuities and discontinuities in the rapidly changing world order from a wide range of theoretical and methodological perspectives.

UACES Panel: What is the role of Professional Associations in advancing Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Higher Education
UACES Panel: What is the role of Professional Associations in advancing Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Higher Education (Orphan Papers track)
09:00 - 10:30
Professional associations have long served as important spaces for knowledge exchange, collaboration, and advocacy within their fields. However, their potential as catalysts for advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) is increasingly recognised, yet often underutilised. This roundtable brings together members and committee members of the University Association for European Studies (UACES), the Irish Association for Contemporary European Studies (IACES), BISA and EISA to explore the role of professional associations in embedding EDI principles into the core of knowledge production, reflecting on how they can act as powerful forums for developing and promoting transformative pedagogies and practices. Participants will engage with the following question: How do professional associations leverage their structures and networks to challenge systemic inequities in research, teaching, and in higher education policymaking? We will explore the broader themes of knowledge production inside and outside the classroom. The discussion will cover strategies for supporting underrepresented voices, creating platforms for interdisciplinary dialogue, and encouraging membership focused initiatives that align values of inclusion. Ultimately, this roundtable seeks to reflect an acknowledgement of the evolving responsibilities of professional associations within a changing and often contentious global higher education landscape. Through this collective discussion, we may find pathways to generate best practices.

Vernacular and everyday securities in policy and practice
Vernacular and everyday securities in policy and practice (Security Policy and Practice)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel seeks to explore the political and/or intellectual implications of contemporary approaches that challenge and reconceptualise how ‘security’ is understood. It is particular interested in ‘vernacular’ or other ‘bottom-up’ approaches to interrogating security perceptions, experiences, policies or practices.

War and Nature II: On the Eco-Social Costs of Warfare and Military Build-Up [Panel 2]
War and Nature II: On the Eco-Social Costs of Warfare and Military Build-Up [Panel 2] (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
How do war and military build-up wound socio-environmental relations and landscapes? What are the consequences of war – its making and preparation – for nature, ecologies, and environmental inequalities and vulnerabilities? What histories, memories and knowledges of environmental issues and changes are produced along the before- and aftermaths of armed violence? And what are the political implications thereof for seriously tackling contemporary ecological crises? For this session, split across three related panels, we hear from contributors that recognise and expand upon growing scholarly interest in these questions, exploring the multiple entanglements between militarisation, practices/ rationalities of warfare, and the environment. Special attention is dedicated to the multi-scalar politics of militarisation, extractivism and socio-environmental destruction, from local ecologies to global climate breakdown. The panels aim to explore how International Relations, and critical security/military studies in particular, can build on emerging studies in (geo)political ecology, environmental anthropology and critical geography addressing war and the Earth. We depart from a refutation of the tendency among scholars and practitioners to promote apolitical, atheoretical and non-empirically driven distinctions between war’s human and environmental costs, such as the ‘climate security’ and ‘threat multiplier’ narratives so favoured by contemporary policymakers and military actors. Further, the panels aim to expand critical scholarly knowledge of the emergence of ‘net zero militaries’, ‘green war’ and ‘sustainable arms’, inquiring into the socio-environmental wounds of military ‘greening’. Two closely linked sides of scholarly inquiry emerge here: on the one hand, the panels inquire into the socio-environmental costs of late-modern war, rising militarism and geopolitical contestation; on the other, they dig into the encroachment of military actors, infrastructures, technologies and interests into climate action spaces and green transition trajectories. What are the implications of a ‘military green transition’ for the pursuit of eco-socially just global futures? The panels approach the war and nature nexus through a great range of angles, including (not limited to): - Geographies and ecologies of war and militarism - Green war, green violence and the militarisation of conservation - Carbon footprint of war and militarism - The before- and aftermaths of technologies of violence (e.g. extractivism, environmental damage, public health etc.) - Green and military sacrifice zones - ‘Green Militarism’ and military responses to climate change - Climate securitisation and/or climate change and geopolitics - Militarisation of green transition supply chains and new extractive frontiers - Ecocide and/ as a weapon of war - Future war and the climate (AI, automation, digitalisation, human enhancement, etc.) - Socio-environmental struggles and resistance in the wake of/against militarism and extractivism - War, militarism and eco-social justice/just transitions - Organising, activism and art on the military-ecological nexus - Peace-making and anti-militarism for climate and eco-social justice

10:30 Break
Break
10:30 - 10:45

10:45 Asian foreign and security issues
Asian foreign and security issues (Foreign Policy Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Asian foreign and security issues

Carceral systems and the border
Carceral systems and the border (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Carceral systems and the border

Cultural Artifacts get Political!: From Friendship and Immigration to Exceptionalism and Global Inequality
Cultural Artifacts get Political!: From Friendship and Immigration to Exceptionalism and Global Inequality (Orphan Papers track)
10:45 - 12:15
The distribution and circulation of popular cultural artifacts open up new spaces to reconsider how we make sense of the world, how we experience it, and what we define as political. This panel explores diverse cultural artifacts and their roles in shaping political and social narratives, ideas, communities, and understanding. The papers engage with artifacts ranging from novels and theme parks to ballet shoes, exploring concepts such as friendship, immigration, American exceptionalism, modernity, efficiency, and inequality. Central to these discussions is an exploration of identity and community, highlighting both grounds for optimism but also of (perhaps unfounded) utopianism. Together, these papers offer a multifaceted examination of how cultural artifacts and narratives influence and reflect broader political and social dynamics, from local friendships to global identities.

Feminist perspectives on violence: visibility, survival and resistance
Feminist perspectives on violence: visibility, survival and resistance (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This roundtable brings together scholars for discussions on feminist perspectives on violence and war. Our current moment is host to a proliferation of violences globally – those perpetrated through colonial, imperial and neocolonial patterns; those fuelled by inner- or interstate conflict; those found within daily, intimate levels. While some forms are rendered hypervisible, others become eclipsed and fall out of common lexicon. Feminist organising has been at the heart of struggles against different forms of violence, including state and imperial violence. Feminists have interrogated heteropatriarchal, capitalist and anthropocentric framings of conflict; drawn attention to the fluid boundaries of war and peace; exposed the violent constitution of gendered and racialised subjects and shown how violence affects them differently. Feminist approaches have also clashed, however. Liberal feminist narratives have been used to legitimise colonial and racialised forms of (state) violence throughout the global war on terror, and, more recently, violence in Gaza. Forms of radical feminism are being channelled to undermine trans and queer lives. Feminists have also justified peacekeeper’s violence in the name of protecting national communities. This roundtable asks how feminist approaches help us to understand ongoing violences particularly concerning how forms of violence are made visible, invisible or hypervisible, and what tools feminist approaches provide us to draw connections and solidarities between different struggles. This roundtable both draws attention to these tensions and seeks to bring us back to the role that feminisms can play in exposing violence, creating resistance and fostering transnational solidarity.

Genocidal Conjunctures and the Politics of Futurity in the Middle East
Genocidal Conjunctures and the Politics of Futurity in the Middle East (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
We find ourselves in a geopolitical conjuncture that, for many, has suffocated progressive and emancipatory political imaginaries and hopes for alternative futures. This panel brings together scholars of the Middle East to think through the purchase of imagining otherwise in deadening political contexts. It asks how IR, as a discipline often focused on making sense of the past and analysing the present, can benefit from and contribute to engagements with speculation, fabulation and futurity in a moment of horror and hopelessness. This panel brings together papers that engage the people of Palestine and Lebanon and those in solidarity with them in their insistence on a politics of refusal in the midst of massacres and genocide, looking in particular at the role of memory work and affective traces, as well as the virtual, cultural, and literary mediums through which Palestinians, Lebanese people, and their allies cultivate a commitment to and visions of the future-impossible even in the face of annihilation.

Geopolitical Challenges of US Foreign Policy in the 21st Century
Geopolitical Challenges of US Foreign Policy in the 21st Century (US Foreign Policy Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panels discusses challenges to US foreign policy in different regional contexts

Global Futures
Global Futures (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Global Futures

Global Health Governance, Equity, and Justice: What can IR contribute?
Global Health Governance, Equity, and Justice: What can IR contribute? (Global Health Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The field of global health politics is now well-established within International Relations (IR), including as a working group within BISA. Over the past 20 years, much of IR's contribution to global health has taken a critical approach, highlighting how global politics can create and exacerbate health inequities. However, there has been less progress in proposing actionable visions for achieving a more just and equitable world. What would 'global health equity' or 'global health justice' look like in practice, and how would we recognize it? What contributions can current global health governance structures make, and where do their limitations lie? What are the global political obstacles to achieving health equity and justice, and where are the opportunities for meaningful progress? This Roundtable brings together leading scholars from the fields of IR, global health politics, international law, and philosophy in a critical dialogue to address these conceptual and empirical questions. It explores potential points of connection between IR and other disciplines that grapple with similar challenges. Acknowledging the unique challenges faced by individuals at the intersection of various marginalised identities, the Roundtable will also discuss frameworks that support agency and justice, promoting more nuanced, equitable, and inclusive global governance. In doing so, it directly responds to the conference theme, examining whether IR as a discipline is equipped to meet the challenges of the future, and exploring what IR can contribute to—and learn from—other disciplines.

Identity and belonging in the UK Armed Forces
Identity and belonging in the UK Armed Forces (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel explores how the UK Armed Forces as an institution mediates and influences organisational identity and belonging amongst serving and/or veteran military personnel. The four speakers and the chair/discussant are all second and third year PhD students engaged in research which aims to contribute to the Critical Military Studies canon through several unique lenses: sports and disability, intersectionality and gender, and the concept of the ‘ideal’ service person. From both insider (veteran and Reservist) and outsider (academics who have never served) perspectives, the speakers will consider the ways in which the UK Armed Forces have shaped and continue to shape the identity and belonging of those who interact with and serve within the organisation.

India and China in Global International Relations
India and China in Global International Relations (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
We consider the place of India and China in a global world order.

International Politics of Cultural Heritage (RIS special issue)
International Politics of Cultural Heritage (RIS special issue) (RIS)
10:45 - 12:15
Chair: Andrew Hom (University of Edinburgh) Paper 1: Elif Kalaycioglu (University of Alabama), ‘Making World Heritage: Constructing International Cultural Prestige’ Paper 2: Jelena Subotic (Georgia State University), ‘The Nineteenth century ‘antiquities rush’ and the international competition for cultural status’ Paper 3: Annika Bergman Rosamond (University of Edinburgh), ‘Ethics, Peace and Masculinized Protection – A Feminist Analysis of World Heritage and Cultural Property’ Paper 4: Matthew Weinert (University of Delaware), ‘Crimes against Cultural Heritage: World-Building at the International Criminal Court’ Paper 5: Franziska Boehme, (Texas State University), ‘Art Restitution of Colonial-Looted Heritage: Norm Localization in Belgium and the United Kingdom’

Life and Death on the Balkan Route: Traces and haunting
Life and Death on the Balkan Route: Traces and haunting (South East Europe Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Violent borders and routes of forced displacement are spaces of disappearance and haunting. The violence that is enacted in enforcing border policies at EU’s external borders in Hungary, Greece and Italy, and its externalized border practices in Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, have long resulted in physical harm, death and disappearance of people seeking refuge. Throughout the ‘Balkan Route’ to and through the EU, abandoned refugee camps, rivers, forests and railways conceal violence - traces of those who drown in river borders are buried in unmarked graves in Bosnia; Greek island camps are demolished or burned, and the left-behind spaces are ‘dememorialised’. In this panel, we examine how violence against people on the move also includes the processes of attempted erasure - the concealment of border deaths, the left-behind camps - but also in traces left behind. The panel uses the themes of hauntology, disappearance and trace (Fiddler et al, 2022) to examine how often everyday spaces such as rivers, forests and camps witness spectacles of horror and loss, border violence and demomorialisation (Sendyka, 2016). We examine what disappears as these spaces fall back from public view, lost in the memories of those who still exist or in the stories of the lives that have passed through. In doing so, we also turn our attention to the traces, practices and witnessing by people on the move and solidarity activists, as attempts at place-making and countering the erasure of border violence.

Margins, Militaries, and Militarization in Russia's War Against Ukraine
Margins, Militaries, and Militarization in Russia's War Against Ukraine (East Europe and Eurasian Security Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Russia's war against Ukraine has been a crucial and generational turning point for young and marginalized peoples in both the invading and invaded countries. The panel explores the complex interplay between militarization, identity, and violence in Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine. Through a dialogue between studies drawing on critical and discursive approaches, the panel delves into the diverse motivations, methods, and impacts of Russia’s military policies on marginalized communities, Ukrainian cultural identity, and the socialization of Russian youth into militaristic ideologies. The papers explore: how myth and history in the Russian classroom can lead to mass violence in warfare; how Russia’s marginalized soldiers, including ethnic and sexual minorities, engage with discourses where killing is reimagined as a means of belonging; the evolution of Russia’s policies of destabilizing and eradicating Ukrainian identity, highlighting tactics of cultural destruction and psychological manipulation; and Russia’s “military-educational complex,” which conditions youth for future militarization. Together, the papers provide insights into how Russian state policies weave militarism, imperialism, and cultural subjugation into the fabric of the country's wartime sociocultural politics - and offer perspectives on the future and threat of militarism in both Russia and occupied Ukraine.

Navigating Gender, Caste, Race, Ethnicity in the Postcolonial South Asia
Navigating Gender, Caste, Race, Ethnicity in the Postcolonial South Asia (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel interrogates the feminist movements and women’s experiences within South Asia. The authors do so while detangling the varied axes of contestation, co-operation and dialogue within the multiple landscapes within postcolonial South Asian. They explore the revolutionary politics of feminist political movements through the intersections of class, caste, ethnicity, race and gender within postcolonial South Asia, the ramifications of unresolved conflict on the idea of home, the politics of race and caste in Global South Feminism and how women navigated post-imperial foreign policy spaces. The papers contribute to the critical debates that challenge the homogeneity of South Asian feminism(s) as well as gendered experiences. They also bring forth transnational convergences between radical feminist thoughts and unveil women’s lived experiences in post imperial landscape in conflict and beyond.

PUSHING THE FRONTIERS: RESHAPING PEACE AND SECURITY FRAMEWORKS IN AFRICA
PUSHING THE FRONTIERS: RESHAPING PEACE AND SECURITY FRAMEWORKS IN AFRICA (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The peace and security landscape in Africa continues to face dynamic waves of threats ranging from inter-state tensions to military coups, internal armed conflict and terrorism. The Sahel region specifically has in recent years witnessed an alarming rise in ‘borderless extremist activities.’ The threat becomes more complex when considered alongside lingering global issues such as climate change, geopolitical tension, the involvement of opposing blocs in Africa’s political, economic and security affairs, and technological advancement. The changing landscape and resulting uncertainty prompt a pertinent question on the capacity of the current peace and security frameworks to address future challenges. A fundamental limitation of most of Africa’s peace and security frameworks lies in the failure to adopt a reflective culture that enables regular evaluation of implemented efforts. Consequently, this results in frameworks that are considered inadequate, counterproductive or simply redundant. This is evidenced by a critical view of the limitations of the African Union’s mediation and peace support operations, which were solely tailored to address civil conflicts and wars. Another popular view observes the tendency of these tools to over-rely on conflict management and resolution rather than conflict prevention. As a result, African states continue to experience cycles of conflicts that further widen structural gaps and reproduce more conflicts. This panel aims to discuss the current capacity of Africa’s peace and security frameworks in light of emerging threats, while also highlighting the need for a ‘reshaping’ that suits purpose. This discussion mirrors the objective of the BISA 2025 conference, a reflection on the current state and future challenges of international relations. Similarly, we aim to examine the current and emerging wave of threats to Africa’s peace and security, which are continually evolving as is the global security landscape. Additionally, we assess the capacity and capability of Africa’s peace and security frameworks in responding to these emerging threats and the need for a shift towards more proactive, flexible and adaptable frameworks. The proposed panel aims to contribute to more tailored, effective and efficient peace and security frameworks in Africa, which have become the epicentre of perpetual political crisis, terrorism, climate change, and hegemonic struggles.

Reconciliation, forgiveness and peacebuilding
Reconciliation, forgiveness and peacebuilding (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Papers look at at actors and norms of reconciliation, forgiveness, cross-community peace building and the role of peace building organisations

Reflections on Identity/Nationality, Positionality and Knowledge Production in researching (Counter-)Terrorism in the Global South
Reflections on Identity/Nationality, Positionality and Knowledge Production in researching (Counter-)Terrorism in the Global South (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
How does national belonging between the researcher and fieldwork actors influence access to data for knowledge production on terrorism studies? What are the influences of power dynamics, shared identity/nationality, positionality, and social norms when researchers study terrorism within their national contexts? What are the gendered dynamics, methodology of unease or discomfort, and messiness in reflexive methodologies on (Counter-)Terrorism in the “Global South”? This special issue addresses these questions by inviting scholars and practitioners to contribute articles reflecting on the vagaries of researching terrorism and counter-terrorism. The field of International Relations (IR) is increasingly embracing reflexivity, a shift often termed the “reflexive turn” (Hamati-Ataya 2013), with scholars focusing more on examining their positionality and addressing the entrenched inequalities, power dynamics, socio-political biases, and politics that shape research processes (Alejandro 2021; Krystalli et al. 2021; Gani and Khan 2024). Despite this shift, Gani and Khan (2024) critique positionality statements for not adequately addressing the deep-seated link between power and knowledge, arguing that they reinforce intellectual inequalities by perpetuating a racialised and colonial logic, dividing researchers racialised as "white" and those racialised as “people of color” (Gani and Khan 2024, 2). This issue is particularly notable in international security, where reflexivity, especially within terrorism studies, remains “rare” (Rodermond & Weerman 2024; Schmidt 2021, 314; Allam 2018; Cohn 2011). There are arguments that the dearth of reflexive methodologies in the field is traced to perceived socio-legal consequences (Schmit 2021), challenges in accessing primary data (Njoku 2022, Pearson and Nagarajan 2020), methodology of unease or discomfort and messiness that researchers confront when studying violent contexts (Enloe 2016, Eriksson Baaz and Stern 2016, 126, 258; Pillow 2003). Furthermore, few studies on terrorism study have centred on the voice of Western scholars, who Njoku (2021) argues act as gatekeepers and contribute to silencing African scholarly voices in terrorism scholarship. This is so given that since the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania, the ‘9/11’ attacks and subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2008 Mumbai attacks and the proliferation of terrorist groups in Africa and the Middle East, scholars from the “Global South” have made important contributions to the field of terrorism studies through theoretical, conceptual, and empirical works. However, these scholars have faced methodological and disciplinary or professional challenges in scholarship on terrorism as such, Jackson et al. (2011: 12) highlighted how the embeddedness of academics within these dominant structures of power (political, ideological and economical) could constitute a form of ‘organic’ intellectualism – in a Gramscian sense – where academics function within and benefit from the prevailing power structures where the role of the intellectual becomes that of providing helpful policy advice whether to states situated in the Global North or to intergovernmental organisations. Scholars from the "Global North" with institutional affiliations in the "Global North" have been returning to their "home" countries to study terrorism (Oyawale, 2022). These scholars, often referred to as "Thirdworlders", "academic homecomers", or "diasporic researchers" (Adebayo and Njoku 2023, Behl 2017, Mandiyanike 2009, McFarlane-Morris 2020, Ite, U 1997), have developed a unique positionality known as betweenness—they are neither outsiders nor insiders (McFarlane-Morris 2020, Mandiyanike 2009). Even so, questions related to reflexive methodology, post-fieldwork/research reflections on terrorism and counter-terrorism studies, especially those emanating from these empirical projects, remain largely underexplored (Schmidt 2021). We know little about the accounts of “Global South” scholars studying their national contexts and the influence of shared national and ethnic identities and socio-cultural norms in the research process. Bibliography Adebayo, K. O., & Njoku, E. T. (2023). Local and Transnational Identity, Positionality and Knowledge Production in Africa and the African Diaspora. Field Methods, 35(1), 18-32. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X211051574 Alejandro, Audrey. 2021. "Reflexive Discourse Analysis: A Methodology for the Practice of Reflexivity." European Journal of International Relations 27(1): 150–74. Allam, Hannah. 2019. "‘It Gets To You.’ Extremism Researchers Confront The Unseen Toll Of Their Work." NPR. September 20, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/20/762430305/it-gets-to-you-extremism-researchers-confront-the-unseen-toll-of-their-work. Baaz, Maria Eriksson, and Maria Stern. 2016. Researching wartime rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo: A methodology of unease. In Researching War (pp. 117-140). Routledge. Behl, Natasha. 2017. Diasporic researcher: an autoethnographic analysis of gender and race in political science. Politics, Groups, and Identities, 5(4), 580-598. Cohn, Carol. 2011. "‘Feminist Security Studies’: Toward a Reflexive Practice." Politics & Gender 7(4): 581–6. Eagleton-Pierce, Matthew. 2011. "Advancing a Reflexive International Relations." Millennium 39(3): 805-823. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829811402709. Enloe, Cynthia., 2016. Globalization and militarism: Feminists make the link. Rowman & Littlefield. Gani, K., and M. Khan. 2024. "Positionality Statements as a Function of Coloniality: Interrogating Reflexive Methodologies." International Studies Quarterly 68(2): sqae038. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqae038. Hamati-Ataya, Inanna. 2013. "Reflectivity, Reflexivity, Reflexivism: IR’s ‘Reflexive Turn’—and Beyond." European Journal of International Relations 19(4): 669–94. Ite, Uwem. 1997. "Home, Abroad, Home: The Challenges of Post‐Graduate Fieldwork ‘at Home’." In Postgraduate Field-Work in Developing Areas: A Rough Guide DARG Monograph, edited by Elsbeth Robson and Katie Willis, 75–84. London, UK: Developing Areas Research Group. Jackson, R. the core commitments of critical terrorism studies. Eur Polit Sci 6, 244–251 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.eps.2210141 Jackson R, Breen-Smyth M, Gunning J, et al. (2011) Terrorism: a critical introduction, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Krystalli, Roxani, Hoffecker Elizabeth, Leith Kendra, And Wilson Kim. 2021.“Taking the Research Experience Seriously: A Framework for Reflexive Applied Research in Development.” Global Studies Quarterly 1 (3):ksab022. Mandiyanike, David. 2009. "The Dilemma of Conducting Research Back in Your Own Country as a Returning Student–Reflections of Research Fieldwork in Zimbabwe." Area 41(1): 64-71. McFarlane‐Morris, Shenika. 2020. "Home Sweet Home?” Struggles of Intracultural “Betweenness” of Doctoral Fieldwork in My Home Country of Jamaica." Area 52(2): 394–400. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12580. Njoku, E. T. (2024). Queering terrorism. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 47(8), 888-910. https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2021.2016514 Njoku, E. T. (2023). The state of terrorism research in Africa. In 9/11 Twenty Years On (pp. 106-109). Routledge. Oyawale A. (2022) The impact of (counter-)terrorism on public (in)security in Nigeria: A vernacular analysis. Security Dialogue 53: 420-437. Pearson, E., & Nagarajan, C. (2020). Gendered security harms: state policy and the counterinsurgency against Boko haram. African conflict and peacebuilding review, 10(2), 108-140. Rodermond, E., & Weerman, F. (2024). The Strengths and Struggles of Different Methods of Research on Radicalization, Extremism, and Terrorism. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 1-5. Schmidt, R. (2021). When fieldwork ends: Navigating ongoing contact with former insurgents. Terrorism and political violence, 33(2), 312-323.

Relationality in civil war: Toward a research agenda
Relationality in civil war: Toward a research agenda (War Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Studies of civil war have increasingly referred to relationality as crucial to understanding a range of conflict dynamics, from identity formation to mobilization to organizational politics of armed groups to rebel governance. How relations between different actors involved in civil wars evolve over time has also been shown to shape overarching trajectories of civil wars. Yet, the concept of relationality remains underdeveloped in civil war studies as it is used to convey a variety of meanings. Whereas feminist and interpretivist scholars of war, for example, situate relationality in the realm of socially embedded individuals and focus on the importance of quotidian relations of family and friendship, scholars of contentious politics trace interactions between aggregate actors, such as the state and social movements. This roundtable brings together established and early career scholars situated in different ontological, epistemological, and methodological traditions to outline distinct approaches to relationality in civil war and discuss specific relations associated with these approaches and their effects on broader dynamics and processes of civil war. The aim of the roundtable is to chart a research agenda that leverages the multi-layered nature of relationality in civil war and points ways forward in future studies that centre complex relations between multiple actors involved in civil wars.

Rethinking ‘Security’ in Indo-Pacific
Rethinking ‘Security’ in Indo-Pacific (Security Policy and Practice)
10:45 - 12:15
There are widespread concerns that an emerging global crisis is unfolding in the Indo-Pacific region. With the emerging US-China rivalry in the region, the rise of militarisation and security pact involving major countries outside the region, and the crisis in the South China Sea, scholars have considered the Indo-Pacific region as a new site for future strategic tension. The tension in Indo-Pacific has often been characterised as a part of great power rivalry between the United States and China, whose strategic competition has been intensified since the rise of China and the trade wars with the United States. This panel aims to bring different insights on ‘security’ in the Indo-Pacific region by problematising the notion of ‘security’ in the Indo-Pacific. Rather than reiterating dominant narratives that overemphasise great power competition, this panel highlights the marginalised actors and discursive practices understand Indo-Pacific security. It addresses four key questions. What does ‘security’ actually mean in the region, and for whom? Whose interests are best served in the security discourses in the Indo-Pacific? How do small and middle powers respond to the security challenges, and how do they negotiate with bigger powers? What are critical elements that play role to avoid future catastrophe in the region? To address these questions, this panel presents five papers that problematises various aspects of security in Indo-Pacific, including marginalised community, small states, astropolitics, and middle powers.

Seeing and Speaking International Relations
Seeing and Speaking International Relations (International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel brings together papers speaking to the role of narratives and visuals in contemporary International Relations, from a variety of perspectives.

The (re)design of science-policy relations in environment & nuclear governance
The (re)design of science-policy relations in environment & nuclear governance (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The aim of this panel is to explore how science-policy interactions are currently conceptualised and analysed in IR through analysis of environmental and nuclear issue areas. Traditionally, the epistemic community has been a central concept informing how science and scientists contribution to collective action has been conceptualised. More recently, scholars have drawn on Science and Technology Studies (STS) to rethink the boundary between science and politics and to study the organisation of scientific advice for political action. Interest in the relationship between science and politics in the production of global objects of governance has also generated critical insights, particularly in understanding questions of authority and power.

The Emotional Politics of Subjectivity in International Relations
The Emotional Politics of Subjectivity in International Relations (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Questions about the formation of the political subject are central to the discipline of International Studies. Since subjectivity shapes political action, critically accessing the Self is necessary to understand international politics. Connecting research on emotions in IR and Ontological Security Studies (OSS), this panel explores how emotional factors – including, remorse, satisfaction, destruction, anxiety, guilt and shame – shape individual and collective subject-formation processes. The papers show that while OSS provide the analytical tools to access the Self, accessing the affective dimensions of these processes is critical to conceptualise subjectivity in international politics. Drawing from a range of disciplines – including philosophy, political psychology, sociology, and critical security studies – and focusing on both Western and non-Western case studies, the papers offer comprehensive analyses of this interplay. By critically interrogating how we can access the Self, the papers show the productive interplay between emotional factors and the formation of subjectivity, thus offering valuable insights for both emotions research and OSS.

The Evolving EU Security and Defence Policies
The Evolving EU Security and Defence Policies (European Security Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel reflects on various challenges to the European Union's security, with specific regard to CSDP. From tracking recent developments in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to delving into specific actors and policies, the panel employes a variety of qualitative and mixed methods to better understand current and future directions in CSDP.

The ICC and Hybrid Courts: Processes of International Criminal Law
The ICC and Hybrid Courts: Processes of International Criminal Law (International Law and Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The panel investigates patterns and processes in the work of the ICC and of different hybrid courts that blend international and national elements, such as the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The panel examines the ways in which the ICC is effectively part of a network of international judicial activity involving institutions and practices of different kinds - a nexus rather than a pinnacle.

The Politics of Human-Machine Interaction in Military Technologies
The Politics of Human-Machine Interaction in Military Technologies (War Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel aims to investigate the political impacts and constraints on the interaction of emerging technologies and human control. While the mainstreaming of generative AI, its embedding in command, control, and information analysis systems, and the recent alleged employment of increasingly autonomous targeting processes in Ukraine and Gaza have brought to the fore debates concerning the proliferation of lethal autonomous weapons, we contend that the political changes entailed by these technologies are located in interaction of technological processes and human politics, decision-making, and experience, rather than in the technologies themselves. Consequently, we emphasise the contingent role of human-technology interaction in shaping international security, and examine how these processes of interaction shape and are shaped by emerging technologies. The presentations on this panel deliberately adopt a plurality of perspectives, scales, and technological manifestations, from discourses of lethal autonomy to great power competition, via remote control weaponry and the making of human experience. Through this plurality, this panel will seek to capture the variety of forms human-technology interaction takes, and address the multiple directions through which security actors respond to new technological manifestations.

The Sociocultural Life of Injury, Loss, and Recovery: Global South Contributions to Rethinking the International
The Sociocultural Life of Injury, Loss, and Recovery: Global South Contributions to Rethinking the International (International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Forced to navigate variegated experiences of harm, loss, and ruination, various populations across the Global South are violently excluded from an ‘international’ which seeks to relegate them into the periphery. As they face irreversible forms of injury, these populations also enact possibilities of recovery and rehabilitation. This panel examines the extent to which exclusionary definitions of ‘the international’ are themselves ‘injurious’. How do communities navigate the margins into which they are forced? In what ways do they imagine presences and futures beyond the cycles of violence to which definitions of ‘the international’ inevitably subject them? What forms of justice do they seek both imaginatively and materially? In answering these questions, this panel engages in various interdisciplinary and methodological approaches. These not only allow for a critical departure from the way in which ‘the international’ and ‘international studies’, as broadly defined, engage with the individual case studies in question, but also recentre Global South contributions within global understandings of a number of concepts, ranging from harm and ruination to care and rehabilitation.

The many Faces of Security
The many Faces of Security (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The panel explores multiple meanings of security across a variety of cases, including UN peacekeeping, the Cold War, and the Kurdish region of Iraq.

12:15 Lunch
Lunch
12:15 - 13:15

12:25 Prize giving ceremony
Prize giving ceremony
12:25 - 13:15

13:15 (Counter)solidarities in times of genocide. Historical and contemporary links of SEE societies with Palestine and Israel
(Counter)solidarities in times of genocide. Historical and contemporary links of SEE societies with Palestine and Israel (South East Europe Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
The death toll in Palestine caused by the Israeli army increases progressively despite difficulties from Palestinian authorities to accurately account for those killed or missing as a result of destroyed infrastructure (Khatib et.al., 2024). This unprecedented violence is not new. According to the International Court of Justice, numerous reports of UN Special Rapporteurs on the Palestinian territories and a handful of international organisations, Palestinians have been living under conditions of apartheid and racial segregation since 1967. Despite the landmark ruling of the International Court of Justice on the plausible risk of genocide against the Palestinian people, across the west, solidarities with Palestine have been hushed, toned down (Bastašić, 2023) or outright policed (Thompson and Tuzcu, 2024). Elsewhere, solidarities with Palestine have been self-policed or erased in function of geopolitical calculations (Musliu and Rexhepi, 2024). This roundtable takes stock of the historical and contemporary ties between the Southeastern Europe region and Israel / Palestine and discusses (counter)solidarities and structural complicities in times of genocide. Socialist Yugoslavia, as one of the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, was instrumental in the recognition of Palestine as a full NAM member state in 1975 (Horvat, 2023). Both NAM and Socialist Yugoslavia contributed greatly to recognition of the Palestinian people’s struggle for self-determination as a part of the circuits of decolonial solidarity that both helped to sustain (Baker, 2018). At the same time, socialist Yugoslavia also maintained economic links with Israel (Stubbs, 2020). Following the successful enactment of the Non-Aligned Movement, a good number of Palestinian doctors, nurses, pilots and educators studied in former Yugoslav cities (Lazić, 2021). Other countries in the region’s relations with Palestine and Israel, such as Greece and Turkey, have also historically oscillated between strong support for the Palestinian cause and close ties to Israel. Against this backdrop, over the last year and a half we are witnessing most SEE governments either abstaining or voting against so much as a ceasefire in Gaza, with other governments, such as Serbia, actively collaborating in arming Israel. From the grassroots level, however, the emerging social movements are challenging these complicities and silences of the regional governments while calling for boycott and organising transnationally. These transnational solidarity networks ground and build their symbolic and material actions both on the previous channels of mutual support and artistic collaboration, while at the same time creating new relations and entanglements. Among these historical and contemporary ties and tensions, this roundtable discusses: a) what legacies of the post-Ottoman predicaments,the Non-Aligned Movement, and the 1990s wars can help us understand (counter)solidarities with Palestine; b) how can we read the popular and government responses towards the ongoing genocide in Palestine; c) what (counter)solidarities with Palestine are articulated in places heavily exposed to Western and American liberal interventionism (e.g. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo); NATO membership (e.g. Montenegro, Macedonia), capitalist disciplining (e.g. Greece); warfare technologies and externalization of migration (e.g. Turkey; Croatia).

Bridging the Gap: Navigating Communication Barriers in Global Health Politics
Bridging the Gap: Navigating Communication Barriers in Global Health Politics (Global Health Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
The field of global health politics is marked by a high degree of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research. Whilst this is widely seen as a core strength and key intellectual attraction, it can also make effective communication much more challenging for researchers and practitioners alike. This roundtable will explore those communication challenges in the field of global health politics, and will bring together the collective experience of the roundtable participants about how to best navigate those challenges they have encountered in their research. Specifically, the roundtable will explore questions like: - How can International Relations researchers best communicate more critical social science issues around politics, power, and ethics to wider audiences in the field? - How can researchers communicate effectively about global health politics with vulnerable, marginalized and/or precarious groups, many of which do not possess much specialist medical or public health knowledge? - How do global health actors reconcile the need to communicate with highly divergent audiences when managing global health issues? - How can International Relations scholars navigate epistemic differences between the social, medical and life sciences in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research?

Childing IR
Childing IR (Orphan Papers track)
13:15 - 14:45
Parallel to currents of scholarship theorizing gender, race, and indigeneity in global political contexts, a new IR literature has emerged in recent years inquiring into childhood, not as a time of life but for the important meaning-making work the idea of childhood does. These interventions have revealed that much of what is often taken for granted about IR, its subject matters, and core concepts relies on a particular understanding of childhood as a time of innocence, vulnerability, and incapacity. Theorizing this ‘imagined childhood’ in ways analogous to but distinct from other key social categories of identity/difference, they have shown how childhood has never been absent from IR; newly noticed, perhaps, but not new. This scholarship has made crucial contributions on how to think about children in IR. This panel proposes the next steps. More than thinking about children in IR, contributions to the panel ask questions of how childhood is about IR itself. This means thinking about the discipline, its core concepts, preoccupations, and inclinations through the lens of imagined childhood; it means ‘childing IR’, just as feminist contributions have urged us to ‘gender IR’.

Comparative and individual foreign policy strategies
Comparative and individual foreign policy strategies (Foreign Policy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Comparative and individual foreign policy strategies

Constructing and othering in framings of migration and mobility
Constructing and othering in framings of migration and mobility (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Constructing and othering in framings of migration and mobility

Environment and Climate Politics: Another 50 years?
Environment and Climate Politics: Another 50 years? (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This roundtable, consisting of the convenors of the new Environment and Climate Politics working group, will be a reflection on why this topic needs to be central to IR over the next 50 years. Political decisions over the course of the last 50 years have left the world on the precipice of multiple intersecting environmental tipping points. For many, the results have already been catastrophic. It will be politics that determines how those consequences continue to unfold over the next 50 years. Realities of geopolitical conflict and competition and the international distribution of power and resources cannot be bracketed in research and debates about possible futures. British IR, with its pluralist orientation, has the potential to produce research and analysis that shapes understanding of and engagement with the possible futures of environment and climate change over the coming decades. This roundtable will consider possible future research directions, and pitfalls, in the international politics of climate change.

From Pixels to Politics: Popular Culture, Political Narratives and Communities
From Pixels to Politics: Popular Culture, Political Narratives and Communities (Orphan Papers track)
13:15 - 14:45
Popular culture is increasingly seeping beyond its representational importance to affect and effect everyday life in profound ways. At one level, it is increasingly serving as a space in which political communities and activities unfold. Some of these spaces can offer a more empowering and optimistic possibility for our politics, yet others suggest a darker and more exclusionary and disturbing form of politics. Popular culture can also act as a precursor and perhaps model of political possibility. The papers in this panel explore the intersection of popular culture and political narratives through various mediums, including video games, memes, television, and film, offering insights from multiple national contexts. Together, these papers offer a multifaceted examination of how cultural artifacts and narratives shape and reflect broader political and social dynamics, from local communities to global identities.

Hidden Spaces of Gender, Peace and Security
Hidden Spaces of Gender, Peace and Security (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This is the first of the two-linked panels examining spaces of gender, peace and security. Drawing on feminist approaches on security, the panel forefronts places, spaces, and objects as a means of understanding gendered experiences of insecurity from the micro to the macro level and across a variety of national contexts from the UK and Romania to Philippines and Japan. By adopting a broad understanding of insecurity from war and conflict to natural disasters, this panel excavates ‘gendered silences’ (Selimovic 2010; Wright and Bergman Rosemond 2024) in peace activism and anti-colonial struggles, peace reconstruction and conflict resolution, security and defence policy-making, and disaster preparedness, evacuation, mitigation, reconstruction and recovery. The panel raises the following questions: What role do objects and museums play in our understanding of gendered experiences of war and conflict? How do gender and place intersect in security and defence policymaking? What role does gender play in place-based conflict resolution and peace reconstruction? What role does gender play in disaster and war preparedness?

Human Rights: Legal and Non-Judicial Approaches
Human Rights: Legal and Non-Judicial Approaches (International Law and Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel considers different approaches to the promotion and upholding of human rights and freedoms. It examines treaties and their impact, the role of human rights in transitional situations and non-judicial practices in relation to practice and implementation in different contexts.

Immersive Platforms in Digital Society
Immersive Platforms in Digital Society (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel explores a range of issues arising from insecurity, at the national and international level and how we come to understand these challenges through our digitally mediated experience of everyday life. Platform capitalism is shaping our interaction with global social challenges, shaping not only what we see, but also what we see and believe.

International Orders and Ordering
International Orders and Ordering (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
International Orders and Ordering

Ontological security between existentialism and psychoanalysis: The anxiety of the liberal international order
Ontological security between existentialism and psychoanalysis: The anxiety of the liberal international order (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
The rather large literature on ontological security can be seen as being divided into roughly two camps: those that read ontological security through the insights of existentialism, and those that draw on psychoanalysis to make sense of the concept. The papers in this panel not only interrogate this divide in the literature, but also point to ways in which it can be overcome, showing that existentialist and psychoanalytical scholarship are not necessarily opposed to each other. Empirically, they do so by investigating one of IR’s core interests: the liberal international order. From how it is made to the effects of its demise on Western and non-Western states alike, this panel illuminates the various anxieties currently shaping the dynamics of the international system. In the process, the contributions assembled here also introduce new concepts, like absurdism and authenticity, to drive the study of ontological security in international orders, and thereby IR, forward.
Open Access Publishing in International Studies - Marianna Karakoulaki (University of Birmingham) Mark Salter (University of Ottawa) Jack Holland (University of Leeds) Jelena Subotic (Georgia State University) Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham) Andy Hom (University of Edinburgh) Kieran O'Meara (University of St. Andrews)
Open Access Publishing in International Studies (EJIS)
- Marianna Karakoulaki (University of Birmingham)
- Mark Salter (University of Ottawa)
- Jack Holland (University of Leeds)
- Jelena Subotic (Georgia State University)
- Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham)
- Andy Hom (University of Edinburgh)
- Kieran O'Meara (University of St. Andrews)
13:15 - 14:45
Amidst calls for greater inclusion in knowledge production, Open Access (OA) publishing has become essential to this effort, aiming to provide free access and unrestricted use of electronic resources for all. Within International Studies, this entails the provision of academic output that is not dependent on the reader's physical abilities, institutional affiliation, or disposable income. This roundtable unites a diverse group of scholars from various backgrounds, institutions, genders, and stages in their careers to explore the evolving landscape of OA publishing. Participants will address several critical questions: What should OA publishing be, and what is its function? How is it connected to knowledge production and dissemination? Can we entrench or broaden its principles, and if so, how? With each participant affiliated to a leading journal of British International Studies, this discussion will analyse the current state of OA publishing in the field and envision its future, considering challenges and opportunities in accessibility. Ultimately, this event seeks to foster actionable strategies for enhancing OA's impact within the discipline and to democratise knowledge so to ensure diverse voices are heard by a global plurality of readers. Hence, it serves the needs of researchers and educators while addressing contemporary challenges in the field.
Preventing 50 More Years of Neocolonialism in Aid? Interrogating and Disrupting Neocolonial Humanitarian Relationships within Europe and Beyond
Preventing 50 More Years of Neocolonialism in Aid? Interrogating and Disrupting Neocolonial Humanitarian Relationships within Europe and Beyond (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel takes stock of critiques in European-produced International Relations regarding the mechanisms of what might be called “liberal” humanitarian aid and interventions (eg: MacGinty, 2009, Fast, 2014, Pallister-Wilkins, 2021). The last fifty years have seen both a call for fundamental shifts in power, resources, and perspectives away from Western-centric approaches to humanitarianism and the persistence of colonial-relations of aid, currently focusing on concepts of “localisation” and “decolonisation.” Papers in this panel explore the persistence of colonial humanitarian practices by European actors within and beyond Europe by a host of actors. They also detail and analyze the possibilities of initiatives by diasporic communities within and beyond Europe that work to challenge the neocolonial relationships of European NGOs and their counterparts. Papers in this panel engage with various scales of humanitarian intervention–from foreign policy to everyday NGO practice. In evaluating the practices of neocolonial humanitarianism, this panel asks whether contemporary research and practice in the humanitarian sector represents new egalitarian articulations and or the turn to decolonizing aid risks reproducing or even exacerbating the inequities of the past 50 years.

Relations between Global North and Global South
Relations between Global North and Global South (International Political Economy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Papers on development and global relations Panel put together by the IPEG WG. These descriptions are not included in the programme so I have included the minimum. If you need more please contact james.m.scott@kcl.ac.uk

Researching ‘Military Social Harm’
Researching ‘Military Social Harm’ (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
In recent years CMS scholars have begun to question dominant concepts and theoretical frameworks used to describe, understand, and challenge military power in diverse contexts. The concept of militarisation has received particular scrutiny (Howell 2018). In response, this panel develops an alternative way of making sense of military violence and the associated impacts of maintaining armed forces using a Military Social Harm approach (Basham et al., 2024). Questions animating the papers include: How can we identify, track, and render visible, the various harms associated with war and war-preparedness? How do different vectors of military social harm intersect? What can a military social harm reveal about mechanisms of accountability and redress of these harms?

Rethinking Knowledge Production on Africa beyond data sources: Addressing the Systemic Silence of Africa’s original theoretical contribution and innovation
Rethinking Knowledge Production on Africa beyond data sources: Addressing the Systemic Silence of Africa’s original theoretical contribution and innovation (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
While global and local crises affect all nations, research on Africa is often framed through foreign theoretical frameworks that may not fully capture their complexities. Too frequently, Africa is positioned merely as a data source, with external lenses framing or interpreting its rich complexities. This approach, driven in part by institutional pressures to align with established theories, often obscures Africa’s diverse realities and silences its theoretical innovations and contributions. Consequently, African research seldom presents distinct epistemic perspectives that resonate authentically with local contexts or addresses the continent’s broader crises. This panel seeks to examine the systemic erasure of African theories in academic discourse and seeks to reposition African epistemologies at the centre of knowledge production about the continent. The panel would discuss papers from all disciplines that explore researchers' experiences in navigating the tension between institutional demands for established and often external theoretical frameworks whether they complement their research or problematize their academic writing on Africa. Topics include the systemic invisibility of African theories, the implications for Africa’s role in global knowledge production, the epistemic constraints imposed on African scholars, and the impact of these practices on theoretical innovation within African scholarship. Specifically, panelist would focus on: • Interrogating the impulse to prioritize non-African theories in African research • Examining the impact of this practice on Africa's role in global scholarship • Highlighting overlooked examples of African theoretical innovation • Proposing methodologies for centering African epistemologies • Discussing the implications of foreign theoretical frameworks on knowledge production about Africa By critically engaging with these issues, we hope to contribute to a more equitable and diverse academic landscape that amplifies African theoretical innovations and contributions.

Science Fiction, Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Future war – New Avenues for IR Research?
Science Fiction, Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Future war – New Avenues for IR Research? (War Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
It is well-established that popular culture has real implications for the ways in which international relations are understood and practiced. Yet the extent to which popular culture shapes our expectations and imaginaries of IR futures warrants further inquiry. To aid in this effort, this roundtable brings researchers together to debate what the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries – drawn from the field of Science and Technology Studies – can teach us about how, why and when certain ‘popular’ visions of the future come to be embedded discursively and materially across societies, and the extent to which these become a resource for policymakers. More concretely, we are specifically interested in the role that science fiction plays in the creation of sociotechnical imaginaries of future war, and their potential to shape real world policy decisions. Our roundtable marks the start of what we hope is an ongoing discussion, providing a route for initiating a new dialogue amongst scholars interested in how the study of science fiction, sociotechnical imaginaries and future war intersects, with a view to developing propositions for novel areas of future research.

Spaces of support and resistance between and beyond borders
Spaces of support and resistance between and beyond borders (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Spaces of support and resistance between and beyond borders

State, state-making and the policing of race
State, state-making and the policing of race (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
State, state-making and the policing of race
Teaching & Learning Cafe - Ilan Baron (Durham University)
Teaching & Learning Cafe
- Ilan Baron (Durham University)
13:15 - 14:45
Teaching Terrorism and Counterterrorism. Activities for the Classroom.
Teaching Terrorism and Counterterrorism. Activities for the Classroom. (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This roundtable engages in a collective exploration of the complexities of teaching (counter)terrorism in higher education through a critical, interdisciplinary lens. Bringing together diverse scholars, it presents innovative approaches and practical insights aimed at challenging conventional pedagogies and fostering critical thinking, reflection, and active engagement among students. The discussion will explore innovative methodologies that draw on popular culture, debates, simulations, and artistic approaches, which push traditional classroom boundaries. Global perspectives are incorporated throughout, enriching the conversation with diverse regional contexts. This session will provide essential tools for educators and scholars to navigate the complexities of (counter)terrorism studies, bridging academic gaps and expanding the boundaries of how (counter)terrorism is taught and understood.

The Political Dimensions of Humanitarian Food Crises
The Political Dimensions of Humanitarian Food Crises (Global Politics and Development)
13:15 - 14:45
Despite their conventional framing as seemingly ‘natural’ disasters, food crises are driven and exacerbated by expressly political conditions. Today, violent conflict is believed to be the single greatest driver of food crises worldwide, while conflict-affected contexts are also host to the most severe food crises globally. Conflict, and the political dynamics that shape it, in turn, informs the parameters of humanitarian response, impedes effective aid delivery, and affects meaningful recovery. As a result, responses to food crises are not technical humanitarian endeavours alone. While there is growing recognition of the political drivers of food insecurity, and – separately – the political dimensions of humanitarian action, this panel brings the political dynamics of both drivers and responses into dialogue, exploring the relationship between political power, conflict, and food insecurity from onset to recovery. In doing so, we bring together papers that critically examine how political factors shape both food crises themselves and humanitarian responses to them. By bringing together diverse perspectives, this panel aims to foster critical discussion about how a more politically informed approach can improve understanding and anticipation of conflict-driven food crises, alongside effectiveness and long-term impact of humanitarian response.

The Politics of Antagonism - Populist Security Narratives and the Remaking of Poltiical Identity
The Politics of Antagonism - Populist Security Narratives and the Remaking of Poltiical Identity (US Foreign Policy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Participants of this roundtable will debate the identity performing role of nationalist populist security narratives and their impact on voter mobilization and policy legitimation in the USA and beyond, based on the recently published monograph 'The Politics of Antagonism'. The book argues that populist rhetoric primarily appeals to voters' insecurities and emotions, remaking the concepts of Us and Them in the process. Going beyond existing research on populism and security narratives, the book links insights from political psychology on collective narcissism, blame attribution and emotionalization with research in political communication on narrative and framing. Populist security narratives have labelled progressives, political opponents, immigrants, racial justice activists, and key institutions of liberal democracy collectively as ‘enemies of the people’. This security imaginary threatens the ideational and institutional foundations of democracy by reframing politics as an existential struggle and perpetual culture war against an internal Other. The political identity and legitimacy of democracy are simultaneously reframed and parochialized around the specific vulnerabilities, anxieties and insecurities of a core constituency of White working-class and non-college educated voters in the 'heartland'. A particular focus of the roundtable will be on the conceptual implications of these research findings for the study of identity in IR.

The Politics of UN Peacekeeping: Doing, Knowing, Speaking and Training for Peace Operations
The Politics of UN Peacekeeping: Doing, Knowing, Speaking and Training for Peace Operations (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel builds on research that has sought to bring the study of global politics back into United Nations (UN) peace operations scholarship. Viewing UN peacekeeping as a political project – as opposed to a bundle of universally beneficial policies to evaluate in terms of efficiency – we shift the focus to the normative, epistemic, material and discursive power struggles which make up interventions seeking to ensure peace including by force. While centring on different concepts – be it war, violence, race, gender, or protection – the papers explore how particular ways of doing, knowing, speaking and training for peacekeeping are shaping the political and social order within operations and beyond. These analyses reveal deep-seated tensions lying at the core of peacekeeping. While often framed as a departure from war, it is sustained by the militarized strategies of training, planning and deploying operations as well as often gendered and racialized hierarchies in the distribution of power in the global order. By questioning the common image of UN peace operations as robust and at the same time committed to gender mainstreaming and respect for diversity, this panel advances an understanding of peacekeeping as a practice that, paradoxically, can sustain the inequalities it seeks to address.

UK security policy: Refreshing or disintegrating reviews?
UK security policy: Refreshing or disintegrating reviews? (Security Policy and Practice)
13:15 - 14:45
Having inherited a national security and foreign policy framework set out in the 2021 Integrated Review undertaken under Boris Johnson, and Rishi Sunak’s Integrated Review Refresh in 2023, the past 12 months since the 2024 general election has seen a range of foreign and security policy reviews covering defence, development and international partnerships, plus conversations in the policy community about how to revive the UK's role in conflict prevention. Reflecting on these developments, this roundtable asks: - How much security policy rethinking has been undertaken in the Labour Party's first year back in government? - How well have perspectives from security scholars and practitioners been brought into these policy conversations and reflected in their outcomes? - And what perspectives need to come onto the table for the new Government to navigate potentially stormy seas ahead?

Ukraine Studies, War, and Beyond
Ukraine Studies, War, and Beyond (East Europe and Eurasian Security Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This roundtable brings together scholars to critically reflect on the state of research concerning the war in Ukraine, examining the quality, achievements, limitations, and challenges of scholarship both within and beyond International Relations (IR). The discussion will explore how the conflict has reshaped academic priorities, methodologies, and theoretical approaches. Participants will assess whether existing frameworks adequately capture the complexities of the war, the roles of national identity, geopolitical contestation, and the implications for regional and global security. By evaluating the evolving scholarly landscape, the roundtable seeks to identify gaps in understanding, potential biases, and the need for new conceptual tools that can better navigate the rapidly changing realities on the ground. This dialogue aims to not only critique existing literature but also to set the stage for future research directions that can more effectively engage with the nuances of the conflict and its far-reaching consequences for Ukraine and the broader international community.

What Should be Done? Who is to Blame? Navigating Individual, Collective, and Institutional Responsibility in War
What Should be Done? Who is to Blame? Navigating Individual, Collective, and Institutional Responsibility in War (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Attributions of moral and legal responsibility are invoked in both calls to action and charges of transgression in the context of war. International norms pertaining to armed conflict – prohibitions against waging wars of aggression, for example, and against conduct in which civilians are intentionally targeted, or force is used disproportionately – entail responsibilities to exercise restraint. Such responsibilities may be directed at states (the US or UK, Russia or Israel), soldiers on the battlefield, military and political leaders in the war-room, and citizens like you and me when it comes to voting for – and censuring, including protesting against – the states and leaders that act in our name. Moreover, judgements of blame and culpability are voiced when these responsibilities are abrogated. Such judgements are used to justify sanctions, charges of criminality, and coercive responses (sometimes, problematically, in the language of retribution). *Where* duty and blame are assigned – whether directed towards individual human actors, distributed amongst groups of individuals (like citizens), or judged to rest at the level of an institution (such as the state) – matters profoundly. This roundtable will explore problems of responsibility attribution (and misattribution) in the context of current crises, such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

14:45 Break
Break
14:45 - 15:00

15:00 After Invasion: Expressing Security and Foreign Policy in IR
After Invasion: Expressing Security and Foreign Policy in IR (European Security Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Capturing the political ramifications of the Ukraine war, the papers in this Panel examine the impact of international conflicts and alliances, focusing on how security, agency and political alignment is expressed and manifested. For decades, International Relations (IR) scholars have studied the process of security and foreign policy making. The literature on processual dimensions of foreign and security and foreign has focused on speech acts (Wæver 1992), party politics (Hoffmann and Martill; Tapio and Wagner 2020), or role conceptions (Thies 2012; Baciu and Wivel 2024). This Panel aims to unpack how security and foreign policy of states or international organizations is expressed and performed. The papers in this Panel discuss how states like Moldova navigate complexities between Russia, Romania, and the EU, highlighting the strategic balancing acts that small states perform for security and sovereignty. Further, the Panel explores Norway’s expressive aid to Ukraine, revealing discrepancies between symbolic gestures and practical support. Lastly, the Panel addresses the EU's sanctions on Russia, the politicization of the Ukraine war in European politics, and the role of party competition, each of which underscores how foreign and security policy manifests in the context of the Ukraine conflict.

Avoiding Armageddon: Coral Bell’s Contribution to International Relations
Avoiding Armageddon: Coral Bell’s Contribution to International Relations (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Co-convened by Professors Erskine (ANU) and Wheeler (University of Birmingham), ‘Avoiding Armageddon: Coral Bell’s Contribution to International Relations’ seeks to bring together leading and emerging scholars to reflect on Bell’s contribution to the discipline of international relations (IR) and our understanding of international politics. The roundtable is inspired by the co-convenors’ belief that Bell’s work has not achieved the recognition that is deserves. It is also motivated by the contention that her work on nuclear crises and great power relations speaks directly to current global security challenges and proposed existential threats, especially in the domains of nuclear weapons and AI. Moreover, how we locate Bell’s scholarship within the pantheon of IR theories, and Bell’s relationship to the English school, will also be focal points for the roundtable. In order to engage with these themes, we have invited panellists to address one or more of the following questions: What was Coral Bell’s contribution to the discipline of IR and/or our understanding of international politics? How is her work still relevant today? And, why has she not been given the recognition that one might argue she warrants as a central figure in IR given her contribution and on-going relevance?

Beyond Linear Time: Memory and Temporality in International Relations
Beyond Linear Time: Memory and Temporality in International Relations (Ethics and World Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This roundtable explores how non-linear conceptions of time reshape our understanding of power, memory, ethics, and identity in global politics. By critically examining the hegemony of linear temporal frameworks, the discussion seeks to uncover their limitations in IR theory and practices and explore how understanding alternative temporalities provides new insights on thinking ethics in world politics. Participants engage with diverse fields such as quantum science, memory studies, indigenous knowledge, and global ethics to examine the intersections between temporality and memory, ethics, and justice. This roundtable aims to foster innovative conversations about reinterpreting historical events, addressing memory disputes, and imagining new frameworks for interdisciplinary research in international studies. By doing so, it aligns with BISA 2025’s mission to promote interdisciplinary or 'un-disciplining' approaches to international relations. Key themes: • Is the concept of linear time inherently hegemonic? • What are the limitations of linear conceptions in IR theory? • What does non-linear time mean in reshaping the ground of ethical debate about world politics? • How can we critically assess the dominance of linear time and explore pathways to embrace plural temporalities? • How do different temporal frameworks reinforce or disrupt existing power structures? • What are the limitations of knowledge production on non-linear time and temporality and their normative implications? • What is the role of temporal othering in maintaining global hierarchies? • How does memory and trauma impact temporal understandings of world politics? • How can historical events be reinterpreted through non-linear temporalities? • What is the relationship between time, identity, and embodiment in political contexts? • How does the interplay between collective memory and temporal frameworks influence ontological security in international politics? Can embracing non-linear temporalities destabilise or reinforce this sense of security?

Genocide: Issues, Debates and Responses
Genocide: Issues, Debates and Responses (International Law and Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
The panel explores different aspects of discourse relating to genocide. It examines the question of genocide denial, radical responses to genocide in the form of remedial secession. issues of power in the handling of genocide and innovations in approaches to the content of genocidal acts.

Harnessing Indigenous Knowledge and Technology for Sustainable Maritime Security in the South Atlantic
Harnessing Indigenous Knowledge and Technology for Sustainable Maritime Security in the South Atlantic (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This roundtable explores the integration of indigenous knowledge within maritime governance and security frameworks across the South Atlantic and Caribbean, drawing from diverse case studies that illustrate broad regional experiences. The discussion highlights how traditional knowledge systems, combined with technical cooperation and technological innovations, contribute to resilient and sustainable security practices across the region. Interagency collaborations among South Atlantic and Caribbean nations, including recent contributions from Colombia, showcase efforts that leverage local expertise and technology to tackle complex challenges like smuggling, piracy and armed robbery at sea, human trafficking, and illegal fishing. Experiences from African, South American, and Caribbean contexts emphasize how indigenous and local insights and the deployment of technological tools can create effective, locally adapted security solutions. Indigenous and local knowledge in this context includes the deep understanding, practices, and cultural perspectives developed by communities closely connected to their environments over generations. These perspectives extend through coastal and riverine communities, bringing valuable insights into ocean currents, fishing areas, navigation techniques, and community-based security. The roundtable envisions a shift toward a security framework for the South Atlantic and Caribbean that respects local perspectives and fosters regional self-sufficiency. Exchanges of case-based insights aim to inspire a collaborative security paradigm rooted in indigenous and local knowledge and adaptable, technology-enhanced solutions across maritime security.

How peculiar is post-Brexit Northern Ireland?
How peculiar is post-Brexit Northern Ireland? (European Security Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Addressing the 'unique circumstances on the island of Ireland' was a joint UK and EU ambition which bedevilled the negotiations of the UK's withdrawal from the European Union. The resulting Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland included in the Withdrawal Agreement established conditions for the region's legal, governance and trading position that were unprecedented in international terms (Hayward, 2021; Whitten, 2023). It is perhaps unsurprising that the implementation of the Protocol has been fraught with political and practical difficulties. Such difficulties have been addressed through further 'flexible and imaginative solutions' from both the UK and EU. Some six years on from their conception, and over four years since coming into effect, this panel covers key aspects of the arrangements and their impact, including in the areas of human rights, trade, identity and governance. A second common theme in the papers will be an evaluation as to their significance for the UK, for the EU and for International Studies more broadly.

Integrity and Accountability in Feminist Protection Frameworks: Challenges and Opportunities for Quality of Governance
Integrity and Accountability in Feminist Protection Frameworks: Challenges and Opportunities for Quality of Governance (Orphan Papers track)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel reflects on the role of integrity and accountability in gender and protection frameworks and initiatives within humanitarian and security institutions. Gender and protection frameworks, such as the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), Protection of Civilians (PoC) and initiatives such as mainstreaming a gender equality, disability and social inclusion perspective, aim to safeguard the rights and well-being of vulnerable populations, particularly women and children, in conflict and post-conflict settings and address gender and other inequalities at the root of protection issues. However, there are ongoing struggles to translate ethical ideals into effective and accountable practices, particularly when it comes to addressing systemic issues underpinning gendered protection challenges. Integrity is concerned with the moral aspects of decision-making and quality of governance represented in the norms, laws, standards, systems and other mechanisms which are meant to promote accountability in institutions. This panel explores integrity challenges in existing protection frameworks and ways in which integrity approaches can intersect with feminist protection spaces in defence governance, peace and conflict, humanitarian operations and transnational governance spaces. It draws on macro, meso and micro perspectives to consider (in)consistencies, values, practices and potential associated with integrity of governance in feminist protection spaces and frameworks.

Middle East foreign policy and security
Middle East foreign policy and security (Foreign Policy Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Middle East foreign policy and security

Mundane Affects: making sense of banal, ordinary and non-spectacular lifeworlds
Mundane Affects: making sense of banal, ordinary and non-spectacular lifeworlds (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Working from flattened temporalities such as Berlant’s ‘crisis ordinary’ and Nixon’s ‘slow violence’, this panel explores the affective circulations that never quite intensify into a legible event, formation or spectacle. We are interested in the undiagnosed, under-the-radar, mundane practices that constitute the global order but do not reproduce Liberal norms of progress or recognized forms of dissent. From banal government bureaucracy to boring drone spectacles, from tasteless military rations to the empty hours of migrant life, this panel explores the habitual and routine affects that circulate underneath the lures of dominant global norms such as Justice, Inclusion, Citizenship and Humanitarianism. We are interested in the affective contours of the not-quite, the almost, the mediocre – the mundane life worlds that go unrecognized by IR’s dominant epistemological frames.

Nations, Borders, Security
Nations, Borders, Security (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel considers questions of borders, diplomacy, and nationhood in international politics.

New theoretical and methodological approaches to emotions
New theoretical and methodological approaches to emotions (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel discusses new theoretical and methodological approaches to emotions in IR

Perpetual Crisis, World (Re)Ordering and Peace: Perspectives from the Margins
Perpetual Crisis, World (Re)Ordering and Peace: Perspectives from the Margins (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
In this panel, we bring together contributions examining the recent crisis and critiques of the Liberal International Order in Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) and IR. Questioning conceptions of a ‘universal’ world order centered around geopolitics and ‘unitary’ conceptions of peace, we focus on processes and contestations emanating from the margins (e.g. from the Global South). We seek to (un-)cover critiques of and possible alternatives to existing conceptions of world order and peace emanating from groups, practices and discourses at the margins of the established world polity. These are often easily overlooked as colonial, imperial, patriarchal and heteronormative power structures have influenced academic knowledge production in PACS and IR. The papers focus on alternative perspectives from the ‘margins’ across North and South to facilitate a better understanding of the plurality of world orders and discourses on peace, examining how imaginations that emerge from the margins critically engage with the status quo. The panel brings together interdisciplinary views in PACS and IR to show how dialogic encounters between different epistemic spaces (North-South; disciplines; concepts and methods) enable us to find crucial perspectives in the face of the multiple crises that current imaginations of world order and peace seem unable to address.

Proximity and/or Distance: Navigating Ethics and Methodology when Researching Militarized Spaces, Subjects and Participants
Proximity and/or Distance: Navigating Ethics and Methodology when Researching Militarized Spaces, Subjects and Participants (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Research on military and militarized actors is a core aspect of Critical Military Studies (CMS), whether those actors are current or former military members, policy makers, part of irregular movements or those whose lives are entangled with military actors. Today, as some military and military-adjacent organizations are opening up to external scrutiny, others are becoming increasingly closed. This necessitates new techniques for accessing these organizations and their members in uncertain times. However, new challenges to access must also be balanced with ethical and methodological considerations. To tackle the coming challenges to International Relations (IR) and to CMS in particular, in times of crisis, this panel reflects on navigating proximity and distance to research participants in militarized spaces, and the productive and unproductive tensions which are created in our efforts to build trust in order to do our research. Building on the reflections by junior scholars who discuss ethics, trust, criticality and empathy in CMS, the panelists will explore how they navigate these tensions as early career researchers.
Publishing in War and Security Studies: Sponsored by War Studies - James Patton Rogers (Cornell) Michael Williams (University of Syracuse) Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (Loughborough University) Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham) Wooyun Jo (Loughborough University)
Publishing in War and Security Studies: Sponsored by War Studies
- James Patton Rogers (Cornell)
- Michael Williams (University of Syracuse)
- Caroline Kennedy-Pipe (Loughborough University)
- Andrew Mumford (University of Nottingham)
- Wooyun Jo (Loughborough University)
15:00 - 17:00
Reimagining Development Aid: Challenges and Alternatives in EU and UK International Development Assistance
Reimagining Development Aid: Challenges and Alternatives in EU and UK International Development Assistance (Global Politics and Development)
15:00 - 16:30
This roundtable critically examines evolving challenges and critiques of EU and UK international development aid, addressing key issues such as gendered impacts, nationalisation, populism, neoliberalism, financialisaton, aid as reparations, and the growing prioritisation of ‘security’ concerns, including migration. In line with BISA’s theme of exploring alternative visions of the global, this session problematises current aid approaches that often favour national and populist agendas and commercial interest over sustainable, equitable development. The panel features six experts with diverse perspectives, who will go beyond critiquing existing frameworks, to explore options for more inclusive, human-centred approaches. Furthermore, they aim to bridge academic insights with practitioner needs, examining the opportunities and challenges scholars face in engaging effectively with policymakers in today’s development landscape.

Secrecy and the (re)making of the global (dis)order
Secrecy and the (re)making of the global (dis)order (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Secrecy, and the perception of secrecy, has transformed the world in ways that have been radically overlooked and even consciously erased. From the Cold War to today, a period characterised by a significant expansion of government and corporate secrecy, the emergence of new global actors and new information technological developments, and now an era of mounting crisis and distrust in traditional knowledge and information centres, secrecy as political culture, sets of practices, and relational and organising force is far more pervasive and important for understanding (global) politics than currently examined. Understanding today’s global politics means understanding disinformation, gaslighting, and white ignorance as much as security classification, intelligence operations, and transparency. This panel therefore brings together papers that trace the multiplicity of ways in which secrecy, and associated ways of ‘unknowing’, have shaped the world around us, from everyday to planetary scales. Secrecies as we contend operate, for instance, beyond the narrow or ‘thin’ view of secrecy as ‘tool’ of statecraft. Instead, secrecies are entangled with ‘revelation’, transparency and openness. They shape identities, social relations, cultures, economies, political institutions, and security landscapes, all of which are essential for understanding global politics and its histories. Finally, as these papers contend secrecy is a governing feature of different political orders and reproduces structures of power and (dis)orders of inequity along racial, gendered, sexual, and class lines. To better understand our past, our current moment of ‘polycrisis’, and to better equip ourselves and our discipline for the future we therefore offer a number of ways to engage in a more nuanced and complex understanding of secrecy and its essential roles in reproducing global politics.

Securing the future? Environmental security in the 21st century
Securing the future? Environmental security in the 21st century (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Securing the future? Environmental security in the 21st century

Security governance in policy and practice
Security governance in policy and practice (Security Policy and Practice)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel examines the evolving landscape of security governance. It explores how global and regional frameworks adapt to contemporary security challenges, particularly in response to shifting power dynamics and emerging threats. In doing so, it draws attention to a range of governance challenges, and how state and non-state actors have sought to repsond to them. This panel critically explores how contemporary security governance adapts to complex, interrelated challenges, reshaping the roles of states, international organizations, and non-state actors in global security.

Solidarities and revolutions: Queer, feminist and other forms of resistance organising
Solidarities and revolutions: Queer, feminist and other forms of resistance organising (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Solidarities and revolutions: Queer, feminist and other forms of resistance organising

Spatialities and Relationalities of the International
Spatialities and Relationalities of the International (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Spatialities and Relationalities of the International

The IPE of global environmental governance
The IPE of global environmental governance (International Political Economy Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
IPE of environment. Panel put together by the IPEG WG. These descriptions are not included in the programme so I have included the minimum. If you need more please contact james.m.scott@kcl.ac.uk

Thinking about Gender, Security, and Foreign Policy in Contemporary Global Politics
Thinking about Gender, Security, and Foreign Policy in Contemporary Global Politics (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel maps and analyses the gendered labour, masculinities and femininities, power and colonisation across the domains of security and foreign policy making and practice. The authors explore the varied employing, reception of women within the armed security, interplay between gendered norms and structural incentives shaping militarisation, as well as gender hierarchies within foreign policy making and diplomatic quarters e in global North and South. It is crucially engaged with a combination of deep gender theory and contemporary global issues, sparking conversations about the past, present, and future of the field and of global politics itself.

Tools of Statecraft, Diplomacy, and Technology in US Foreign Policy
Tools of Statecraft, Diplomacy, and Technology in US Foreign Policy (US Foreign Policy Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This is a diverse panel that examines the diplomatic and technological resources of US foreign policy

Transnational Repression and Diaspora
Transnational Repression and Diaspora (Orphan Papers track)
15:00 - 16:30
This roundtable brings together a diverse range of scholars with multidisciplinary expertise to consider the contemporary state of discourse on different aspects of Transnational Repression and the impact on diaspora. Given the growing relevance of diaspora for transnational political dynamics, the roundtable participants will share insights from their work on what directions of scholarly enquiry and policy actions are necessary to address the threats posed by transnational repression to human rights, rule of law, and democracy. The participants in the panel have a record of work that engages with themes including the following: full spectrum of Transnational Repression tactics practised in different cases, links between global and domestic politics, authoritarian strategies and legitimacy, collective resistance against repression and injustice, rights of political exiles, human rights and mobility, contentious politics in the diaspora, identities across borders, and policies to counter Transnational Repression.

US-China Tech Race: Actors, Strategies and Outcomes
US-China Tech Race: Actors, Strategies and Outcomes (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel explores the evolving dynamics and strategies of both state and non-state actors within the realm of emerging technologies amid intensifying US-China competition. It brings together scholars investigating state policies, non-state interests, and strategic outcomes in distinct yet interconnected sectors, including artificial intelligence (AI), military technology, semiconductors, and health biotechnology. Adopting diverse theoretical approaches— including institutionalist explanations, comparative politics, applied economics, practice theory, securitization theory, and the advocacy coalition framework (ACF)—the panel sheds light on the complex interactions between states and between states and non-state actors. Through empirical data and theoretical contributions, the panel challenges prevailing understandings of the determinants of policy shifts and outcomes, raising important questions about the negotiation of interests, accumulation of capital, varying institutional contexts and advocacy coalitions that shape the landscape of US-China competition. Emphasising inclusivity and diversity, the panel accommodates scholars at various career stages and from different institutions, fostering a vibrant exchange of ideas that will not only enrich dialogue within the field but also set the stage for new research agendas and collaborative endeavors. Ultimately, the panel serves as a platform to facilitate discussions on the implications of these strategies and contexts for international relations, global governance, and the future of technological innovation and cooperation. It aims to steer conversations towards a deeper understanding of the evolving dynamics in the realm of emerging technologies within US-China rivalries. The panel consists of five papers. The first paper by To and Lee evaluates the outcomes of China’s push for talent in the semiconductor industry. The authors challenge the notion that Xi Jinping is the key architect of China’s semiconductor strategy, revealing that the focus on self-reliance in this sector predates his leadership. The paper explains how institutional barriers and misalignments between state policies and industry needs have hindered China’s efforts to cultivate and acquire high-end chip talent. The second paper by Yang explores China’s evolving AI policy, emphasising the interests and influence of domestic non-governmental stakeholders in shaping the national agenda prior to 2017. It traces the shift from a domestic-focused AI strategy to one that seeks to position China as a leader in global AI governance, driven by changing policy focus within dominant coalitions. The third paper by Zhang and Qiao-Franco investigates the continuity and change in China’s arms control diplomacy, particularly in the realms of nuclear weapons and military AI. Despite significant geopolitical shifts, China’s arms control strategies have remained remarkably consistent, guided by a realist worldview and a state-centric approach. The fourth paper by Wang examines the role of private firms in US-China technological competition. It navigates how Chinese and US technology companies navigate the regulatory and geopolitical pressures imposed by their respective governments, acting both as instruments of state policy and autonomous agents. This research underscores the strategic choices available to these firms and the influence of institutional differences on their responses. The final paper by Lo explains the securitization process of China’s health biotechnology by the US government. The paper introduces a revised securitization framework that incorporates insights from the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). The paper highlights that the US securitization of health biotechnology reflects a broader trend of techno-nationalism. It also posits that this securitization approach could potentially undermine biomedical advancement and health security at the global level.

Unravelling migration narratives: examining policy and legal structures globally
Unravelling migration narratives: examining policy and legal structures globally (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Unravelling migration narratives: examining policy and legal structures globally
War in the Middle East: Global and Regional Perspectives - Katerina Dalacoura (LSE) Andrew Payne (City St. George's, University of London) Juliet Dryden (BISA) Amnon Aran (City, University of London)
War in the Middle East: Global and Regional Perspectives (BISA)
- Katerina Dalacoura (LSE)
- Andrew Payne (City St. George's, University of London)
- Juliet Dryden (BISA)
- Amnon Aran (City, University of London)
15:00 - 16:30
Chair Juliet Dryden (BISA), Professor Amnon Aran (City), Professor Tarak Barkawi (JHU), Dr Katerina Dalacoura (LSE), Dr Andrew Payne (City)
“Dedicated to those friends with whom, out of a different loyalty, I must now openly disagree” – the political stakes of ‘beefs’
“Dedicated to those friends with whom, out of a different loyalty, I must now openly disagree” – the political stakes of ‘beefs’ (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
In 2024, Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ brought his 10 years of ‘beef’ with Drake into the spotlight. While pop culture pundits ruminated on years of coded exchanges (aka ‘subliminals’), a deeper engagement unravels a clash between a key voice of hip hop’s black empowerment project and the subsequent neoliberal incursion into the genre. Their ‘beef’ lays bare the multiple conjunctures between culture as emancipatory possibility and its counter-revolutionary cooptation. It also becomes our point of departure for a roundtable exploring the frayed junctures in/of movements, clashes between artists, organisers and writers, even splinters in intellectual traditions, as inherent in attempts to create, build and generate other radical possibilities, when these relationships are structured by violence. We trace the “beefs” between Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Buber, Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver, June Jordan and Adrienne Rich, among others, through anti-colonial and liberationist lenses, asking what the curious stories of broken alliances, friendships, solidarities and shared visions can tell us about the corrupting and coopting power of racial, capitalist, imperial and gendered relations. And, thus, what are the stakes of building movements that can contend with, learn from and perhaps 'trouble' the structures that shape beefs in the first place.

16:30 Break
Break
16:30 - 16:45
16:45 Keynote: Professor Roland Bleiker (Queensland) - Seeing and Sensing World Politics SPONSORED BY THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY - Roland Bleiker (University of Queensland)
Keynote: Professor Roland Bleiker (Queensland) - Seeing and Sensing World Politics SPONSORED BY THIRD WORLD QUARTERLY
- Roland Bleiker (University of Queensland)
16:45 - 18:15
18:30 Belfast Blitz History Talk by Scott Edgar, Editor of Wartime Northern Ireland
Belfast Blitz History Talk by Scott Edgar, Editor of Wartime Northern Ireland
18:30 - 19:30
Sponsor: War Studies Working Group

Contested Heritage: Curating conflict in and about Northern Ireland. The panel will be sponsored by the Journal of War and Culture Studies who will be funding an accompanying drinks reception. Although this is open to all conference delegates you need to register in advance to attend at https://indico.bisa.ac.uk/event/530/
Contested Heritage: Curating conflict in and about Northern Ireland. The panel will be sponsored by the Journal of War and Culture Studies who will be funding an accompanying drinks reception. Although this is open to all conference delegates you need to register in advance to attend at https://indico.bisa.ac.uk/event/530/
18:30 - 20:30
Speakers: Laura Patrick, Regimental Heritage Officer for The Royal Irish Regiment Karen Logan, Senior Curator of History, National Museums NI Representative (tbc), Museum of Free Derry Helen Bishop Stevens, Director and James Inglis, Assistant Curator, Bodmin Keep

19:00 Environment and Climate Politics on the Brink: social enterprise visit and working group reception
Environment and Climate Politics on the Brink: social enterprise visit and working group reception
19:00 - 20:00
Friday, 20 June 2025

09:00 AI and the Decision to Wage War: Identifying and Mitigating Risks
AI and the Decision to Wage War: Identifying and Mitigating Risks (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
What if intelligent machines determined whether states engaged in war? In one sense, this is merely the stuff of science fiction, or long-term speculation about how future technologies will evolve, surpass our capabilities, and take control. In another more nuanced sense, however, this is a highly plausible reality, compatible with the technologies that we have now, likely to be realized in some form in the near future (given observable developments in other spheres), and a prospect that we are willingly, incrementally bringing about. The participants in this panel will analyze the ethical, legal, political, and strategic implications of the eminently conceivable - yet largely neglected - prospect of AI intervening in decision making on the resort to force. They will identify risks that accompany this intervention and recommend means of mitigating them. In doing so, they will seek to redress our collective tendency to focus exclusively on the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the conduct of war (with our gaze fixed on the battlefield and jus in bello constraints) and demonstrate the need to interrogate the influence of AI on the resort to war (with our attention also directed to decision making in the war room and jus ad bellum considerations).

Accountability in Contemporary Conflict
Accountability in Contemporary Conflict (International Law and Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel reviews process and practice in seeking criminal and other forms of accountability for alleged war crimes in various contemporary conflict contexts including Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Carceral Presents and the Neoliberal University
Carceral Presents and the Neoliberal University (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Academic knowledge is produced within neoliberal comfort zones that demand increasingly surveilled, securitized, and commodified scholarship, cloaked in the language of engagement. In its neoliberal form, academic knowledge can sideline or serve carceral systems, obscuring the violence affecting the people and communities we – as differently positioned scholars working in the neoliberal university – collaborate with; from Afghanistan, Kurdistan and Palestine, to Germany, Switzerland and the United States. As such we ask: whom does our knowledge truly serve, when those we work alongside live in carceral presents where they are not only displaced but also labeled undocumented and rendered "illegal," or, if documented, forced into constant surveillance as they endure the violent journey toward formal residency or citizenship? This roundtable brings together interdisciplinary scholars in feminist, queer, trans, gender and sexuality studies, and grapples with the question of research methods and writing, centering how scholars, their co-travellers, and interlocutors experience and relate to border and deportation regimes. Underscoring the interplay between racialization, migration, intimacies, and ecology, under the policing eyes of institutions, agencies, and organizations, we pay attention to non-carceral methods. To do so, we reflect on the potentialities and strategies of organizing, as well as the challenges of rebuilding liberatory worlds alongside an academic praxis unbound from its carceral mode.

China in the international political economy
China in the international political economy (International Political Economy Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Five papers on emerging China-related IPE issues. Panel put together by the IPEG WG. These descriptions are not included in the programme so I have included the minimum. If you need more please contact james.m.scott@kcl.ac.uk

Comparative Perspectives on Conscientious Objection in Turkey, Ukraine and Russia
Comparative Perspectives on Conscientious Objection in Turkey, Ukraine and Russia (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Conscientious objection to military service has long been a critical site of resistance to state power, militarization, and gender norms, particularly in contexts of heightened national conflict and authoritarianism. This panel brings together contributions from Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine to examine how individuals resisting conscription navigate the legal, social, and personal dimensions of conscientious objection within contemporary political landscapes. By situating conscientious objection in the context of ongoing wars and militarization, this panel interrogates the ways in which state repression, shifting asylum frameworks, and social norms intersect to shape the experiences of conscientious objectors. The discussions also extend beyond the legal and political dimensions of objection, exploring how notions of masculinity and national identity are challenged and reconfigured in the face of compulsory military service. The contributions draw on interdisciplinary frameworks—spanning law, sociology, and feminist theory—to offer a nuanced understanding of how conscientious objection functions as both a personal act of resistance and a broader critique of militarism, state violence, and gendered power structures. Through a comparative lens, the panel sheds light on the transnational dynamics of conscientious objection, offering critical insights into the struggles of individuals who find themselves at the intersections of war, repression, and migration.

Critical and transformative pedagogies in IR
Critical and transformative pedagogies in IR (Learning and Teaching Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Critical and transformative pedagogies in IR

Critical research on the war in Syria
Critical research on the war in Syria (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
The uprising that started in Syria in early 2011 and the subsequent war brought about, among other topics, studies on sectarianism, various armed groups, and refugees. The failure of the peaceful uprising to bring about democracy have been used as a case for authoritarian adaptation and resilience. The military interventions of regional countries, notably of Saudi Arabia and Iran, have prompted new research on proxy wars. ISIS’ rise has inspired scholars of rebel governance to explain the organization’s brutal governance strategies and motives. While studies on the war abound, there are still aspect and topics left uncovered. This panel sheds light on these and takes a critical approach to the works published during the past decade. The papers discuss a wide range of topics beyond superficial and simple characterizations of the events. Instead of depicting the war merely as a sectarian conflict and treating identities as fixed, should the national identity be understood as a continual process of reconstruction? How is activists’ experiential knowledge of the revolution created in a context of violence and nonviolence? Further, how did these activists establish civil governance apart from rebels when violence increased and the uprising militarized? As the political process to end the war has not moved forward, how should we interpret the rewriting of the Syrian constitution?

European Security: National Foreign Policies in a Changing Context
European Security: National Foreign Policies in a Changing Context (European Security Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
In a rapidly changing and declining security environment, European nations are rethinking their approaches to foreign policy and security. At the same time, the political discourse around security is evolving. This panel puts in conversation various national perspectives, all of which analyse civil-society discourse around national foreign policy, as well as leadership strategies and rhetorics.

Facets of Friendship in International Politics
Facets of Friendship in International Politics (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
For the last two decades we have seen attempts to foster the study of friendship in international relations. Yet, it remains one of the most understudied dynamics, with both mainstream and critical approaches rarely integrating the concept into their analysis. Against this backdrop, this panel seeks to showcase some of the advantages of taking friendship as a political phenomenon seriously, beyond the romantic connotations it is often associated with. It brings together scholars approaching the topic from a variety of angles and reading friendship – its nature, dynamic, politics – through different theoretical lenses and in different empirical contexts. The contributions conceptualise notions of trust in international friendship and explore how it plays out in concrete ways; they explore discourses of friendship in the US media, in relations between China and Africa, and in India’s foreign policy towards Israel; and they look at how friendship language matches or is in tension with actual practices. In doing so, the panel demonstrates the value of 'friendship' as an analytical lens.

Feminist critical engagements with culture, art and world politics
Feminist critical engagements with culture, art and world politics (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Increasingly, international relations scholars have come to recognize that understandings, policy prioritizations and performed practices of world politics come about through a range of cultural expressions and artefacts, with many people gaining their insights into world events through TV, film, the arts and propaganda material. This panel brings together a range of feminist papers that all acknowledge the dynamics, performativity and constitutive power of culture in the construction of world politics, exploring such things as art, fashion, propaganda and TV. The authors specifically unpack the gendered, colonial and capitalist logics of cultural production and expression, which in turn produce constitutive effects on the actual conduct of world politics and foreign policy practice. There is also some attentiveness to the emancipatory and empowering properties of cultural production across the papers, for example in relation to curation and artistic production. By centring the investigation on culture the papers seek to contribute to new forms of knowledge production, taking issue with orthodox IR approaches and offering intersectional and cultural analysis of contemporary global issues.

Foreign affairs, theoretical perspectives, and the domestic domain
Foreign affairs, theoretical perspectives, and the domestic domain (Foreign Policy Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Foreign affairs, theoretical perspectives, and the domestic domain

Hidden Spaces of Gender, Peace and Security: Panel Two
Hidden Spaces of Gender, Peace and Security: Panel Two (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This is the second of two linked panels examining the hidden spaces of gender, peace and security. It draws on critical feminist theories of clandestinity, relationality, social reproduction, and feminist fieldwork methodologies to offer new insights into armed conflict and peacebuilding. The panel examines the complex ethical and methodological challenges of undertaking feminist research in contexts of conflict and peacebuilding. Reflecting on qualitative research conducted in Bosnia & Herzegovina, India, Liberia, Nepal and Sri Lanka, it offers suggestions for how to uncover hidden stories of war and peace, using maps, objects, photography and other innovative methods.

How fascism and whiteness encounter territory, property and land
How fascism and whiteness encounter territory, property and land (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
How fascism and whiteness encounter territory, property and land

Laboratories or worldmakers? What are the Balkans in and for International Studies?
Laboratories or worldmakers? What are the Balkans in and for International Studies? (South East Europe Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
The Balkan peninsula has long been of interest to International Relations scholars, perceived as turbulent, fragmented lands where some of the world’s most pressing problems can be observed; Europe’s ‘other’ (Todorova 1997); and an interesting case study through which different International Relations theories can be tested. At the level of international law and policy, the Balkans have for the longest time been ‘a site of experimentation’ (Tzouvala 2014) of new techniques, models and projects. To illustrate, the former Yugoslavia was the first one to be subject to an UN Security Council-established ad-hoc international criminal tribunal and has since become one of the main ‘recipients’ of the global transitional justice project; a justice ‘laboratory’. Yet, more recently, scholars from the Balkans have sought to amend some of these epistemic injustices and alleviate some of the epistemic violence by, among others, highlighting the agency of Balkan people as epistemic subjects and not merely epistemic objects, and the Balkans as a site of theory building and not merely theory testing in International Relations (Kušić 2021; Stavrevska et al. 2023). This roundtable gathers Balkan scholars across career stages, theoretical and methodological approaches, geographical locations and ethnicities, to reflect on the place and the role of the Balkans in the past 50 years of International Relations scholarship. The panellists will discuss what the Balkans have been in and for International Relations in the past decades, reflecting on major ‘trends’, ‘debates’ and ‘turns’ in the scholarship and drawing on examples, anecdotes and illustrations from their research and professional experiences. In line with the conference theme, the panellists will also discuss potential new and improved research avenues, imagining what the Balkans could be for International Relations of the future.

Local productions of security
Local productions of security (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel beings together papers that consider the local and community-based dimensions of counterterrorism and security.

Nuclear Weapons and Regional Security: Ideas and Challenges
Nuclear Weapons and Regional Security: Ideas and Challenges (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel examines contemporary regional dynamics in nuclear politics through case studies of India, Australia, the UK, and Germany. It highlighs their unique challenges and contributions to the global nuclear order.

On Decolonial IR: Perspectives from India
On Decolonial IR: Perspectives from India (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
The panel seeks to engage with the politics of decolonizing the discipline of International Relations building upon perspectives from India. Scholars within India, outside, and across the ideological spectrum have shown an interest in this endeavour. The contributions include interpreting Arthashashtra, Mahabharata and other texts in a new light, bringing Indian thinkers and placing them in the domain of IR, and introducing key concepts of Indian Knowledge System to reconfigure the discipline. The contributions have ranged from finding similarities between extant concepts and traditional Indian practices to positing the superior distinctiveness of Indian ideas. For the purpose of simplification, these works can broadly be categorized/labelled as Non-Western, Post-Western, Global, Nativistic, etc. The panel interrogates and problematizes these exercises that begin by either critiquing Eurocentrism and romanticizing Indian contributions, or presenting the Indian ideas as precursors of Western concepts. While attempting to uncover the perils of such attempts of decolonizing IR, the contributions in this panel align with the idea that Indian tradition(s) evolved while traversing through critical historical conjunctures and learning from internal contradictions.

Operationalising peace building and stabilisation
Operationalising peace building and stabilisation (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Papers examining the relationship between citizens and state institutions in a range of case study contexts

Participatory Action Research and the Future of IR
Participatory Action Research and the Future of IR (Orphan Papers track)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel examines how participatory action research (PAR) can address critical challenges in international studies by rethinking global power relations and re-envisioning the political dimensions of international relations (IR). As IR grapples with perpetual global crises and increasing calls to "undiscipline" the field, PAR offers a transformative methodological innovation that directly engages communities impacted by global policies. It grounds research in their experiences and agency and promotes a diverse, inclusive community that rethinks the boundaries of international studies. The panel contributions highlight how participatory, collaborative research reshapes IR by challenging entrenched assumptions about citizenship, sovereignty, and transnational identities, decentering traditional Western-centric perspectives, and elevating the voices of non-state and marginalized actors often excluded from academic and policy discourse. Panelists also discuss how far PAR allows IR to democratize the research process and reflect a broader range of perspectives, emphasizing experiential knowledge and co-creation as pathways toward a more equitable and contextually responsive discipline. In positioning PAR as a foundational approach for the next era of IR, this panel argues that PAR is innovative and essential for the discipline’s continued relevance and adaptability. We explore both the potential and limitations of PAR as a tool for advancing global scholarship, identifying the challenges that remain in incorporating these participatory approaches into IR and beyond.

Peace, Conflict, and Development
Peace, Conflict, and Development (Global Politics and Development)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel brings together research addressing issues of peace and conflict as they relate to development.

Power Shifts and their Implications
Power Shifts and their Implications (US Foreign Policy Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
This panel considers power shifts, particularly international decline and hegemonic change, and the implications thereof for order and conflict. The papers offer theoretically diverse perspectives on power shifts and decline, from realist to constructivist work on the topic. Some papers are more conceptual and theoretical while others are more empirically-focused. The panel will have wide appeal in the wake of debates over US-China relations and the return of Donald Trump to power.

Resisting Complicity with Genocide in Universities and Academic Spaces (Part 1): Activism and Pedagogy
Resisting Complicity with Genocide in Universities and Academic Spaces (Part 1): Activism and Pedagogy (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
In what ways are Western universities and academic spaces complicit in genocide, and how can we actively resist this complicity? This roundtable will critically explore how universities and academic forums in the Western world, including those within the field of international studies, contribute to or tacitly support genocidal violence—particularly in the context of Israel's prolonged and Western-backed assaults on Gaza and, since September, on Lebanon, alongside Israel’s long-term scholasticide against Palestinians. Building on existing calls to decolonise the university, as well as critiques of the neoliberal university, this session will examine how academic institutions’ structural and colonial biases and their material participation in the structures of racial capitalism perpetuate silence and complicity around issues of genocide, revealing deeper layers of structural violence within Western "liberal" academia. We will discuss ongoing efforts by university staff and students who are actively resisting this complicity, including divestment and boycott campaigns, on-campus student-led encampments, and teaching and academic events aimed at challenging these injustices. This roundtable brings together scholars who are directly engaged in movements to disrupt the status quo and advocate for institutional accountability. By providing a space to share experiences and strategies, this session will support the broader movement to end academic complicity in colonial violence. N.B. Part 2 of this roundtable is "Complicity with Genocide in Universities and Academic Spaces (Part 2): Silencing Palestine"

Russian foreign policy and regional influence
Russian foreign policy and regional influence (East Europe and Eurasian Security Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Russian foreign policy and regional influence

Security policy & practice: lessons from the Good Friday agreement
Security policy & practice: lessons from the Good Friday agreement (Security Policy and Practice)
09:00 - 10:30
A quarter century after the Good Friday Agreement, this panel asks: what can be learnt from the process of ending the conflict and consolidating peace in Northern Ireland about how security policy and practice can support peacemaking? And what further dialogue and reform is still needed to consolidate a peaceful future in this region? Suggested convenor: Larry Attree (Rethinking Security/BISA SPP co-convenor)

Technological Trends and Future War
Technological Trends and Future War (War Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
Technological Trends and Future War

The Troubles: A regional perspective
The Troubles: A regional perspective (War Studies Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
The enduring narrative of the Troubles in Northern Ireland (1968-1998) is one which is centred on Belfast. Recent years have seen increasing scholarship challenge this Belfast-centric narrative to consider how the conflict manifested amongst rural communities and indeed other regional towns and cities. Panellists will consider how political violence played out differently across urban centres drawing on less prominent bombing campaigns, how different regional actors employed ambiguity and confidentiality in peace talks and how policewomen’s experiences of operating across the Province diversify conflict narratives. They will further reflect on how regional legacies of the conflict have been sustained in relation to unit reputations and how cross-border cooperation has inculcated both boundlessness and boundaries. This panel foregrounds the regional nuances to the story of the Troubles and their implications for Northern Ireland today, by disrupting the dominance of the Belfast story and shedding new light on the narratives, narrators, hierarchies and legacies of this conflict.

War and Nature III: On the Eco-Social Costs of Warfare and Military Build-Up [Panel 3]
War and Nature III: On the Eco-Social Costs of Warfare and Military Build-Up [Panel 3] (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
09:00 - 10:30
How do war and military build-up wound socio-environmental relations and landscapes? What are the consequences of war – its making and preparation – for nature, ecologies, and environmental inequalities and vulnerabilities? What histories, memories and knowledges of environmental issues and changes are produced along the before- and aftermaths of armed violence? And what are the political implications thereof for seriously tackling contemporary ecological crises? For this session, split across three related panels, we hear from contributors that recognise and expand upon growing scholarly interest in these questions, exploring the multiple entanglements between militarisation, practices/ rationalities of warfare, and the environment. Special attention is dedicated to the multi-scalar politics of militarisation, extractivism and socio-environmental destruction, from local ecologies to global climate breakdown. The panels aim to explore how International Relations, and critical security/military studies in particular, can build on emerging studies in (geo)political ecology, environmental anthropology and critical geography addressing war and the Earth. We depart from a refutation of the tendency among scholars and practitioners to promote apolitical, atheoretical and non-empirically driven distinctions between war’s human and environmental costs, such as the ‘climate security’ and ‘threat multiplier’ narratives so favoured by contemporary policymakers and military actors. Further, the panels aim to expand critical scholarly knowledge of the emergence of ‘net zero militaries’, ‘green war’ and ‘sustainable arms’, inquiring into the socio-environmental wounds of military ‘greening’. Two closely linked sides of scholarly inquiry emerge here: on the one hand, the panels inquire into the socio-environmental costs of late-modern war, rising militarism and geopolitical contestation; on the other, they dig into the encroachment of military actors, infrastructures, technologies and interests into climate action spaces and green transition trajectories. What are the implications of a ‘military green transition’ for the pursuit of eco-socially just global futures? The panels approach the war and nature nexus through a great range of angles, including (not limited to): - Geographies and ecologies of war and militarism - Green war, green violence and the militarisation of conservation - Carbon footprint of war and militarism - The before- and aftermaths of technologies of violence (e.g. extractivism, environmental damage, public health etc.) - Green and military sacrifice zones - ‘Green Militarism’ and military responses to climate change - Climate securitisation and/or climate change and geopolitics - Militarisation of green transition supply chains and new extractive frontiers - Ecocide and/ as a weapon of war - Future war and the climate (AI, automation, digitalisation, human enhancement, etc.) - Socio-environmental struggles and resistance in the wake of/against militarism and extractivism - War, militarism and eco-social justice/just transitions - Organising, activism and art on the military-ecological nexus - Peace-making and anti-militarism for climate and eco-social justice

10:30 Break
Break
10:30 - 10:45
10:45 Academic standards in the time of ‘Fast Research’ (RIS sponsored) - Soumita Basu Monika Barthwal-Datta (UNSW Sydney/ International Studies Quarterly) Toni Erskine (Australian National University) David Mainwaring Lauren Rogers
Academic standards in the time of ‘Fast Research’ (RIS sponsored) (RIS)
- Soumita Basu
- Monika Barthwal-Datta (UNSW Sydney/ International Studies Quarterly)
- Toni Erskine (Australian National University)
- David Mainwaring
- Lauren Rogers
10:45 - 12:15
Monika Barthwal-Datta, UNSW Sydney/ International Studies Quarterly Toni Erskine, Australian National University David Mainwaring, Cambridge University Press Lauren Rogers, University of Edinburgh Soumita Basu, South Asian University/ Review of International Studies (Chair)
Civil Wars and Non-State Actors
Civil Wars and Non-State Actors (War Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Civil Wars and Non-State Actors

Complicity with Genocide in Universities and Academic Spaces (Part 2): Silencing Palestine
Complicity with Genocide in Universities and Academic Spaces (Part 2): Silencing Palestine (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Why are nominally “liberal spaces” of Western academia engaged in authoritarian practices of repressing freedom of expression and academic freedom? Since October 2023, we have witnessed a worrying trend of universities in several Western countries repressing, cancelling, surveilling and even punishing expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people and/or critical voices against Israel’s genocide. This silencing of anti-genocide voices could be considered a form of complicity with genocide. This roundtable will shine a light on the various ways in which universities and academic forums in the Western world, including those within the field of international studies, contribute to or tacitly support genocidal violence through their repression of staff and students speaking out against Israel's prolonged and Western-backed assaults on Gaza and, since September, on Lebanon, alongside Israel’s long-term scholasticide against Palestinians. We will discuss the types of measures and discursive practices deployed by university managers, academic leaders and other academic stakeholder to suppress opposition to genocide and solidarity with the Palestinian people. Building on existing calls to decolonise the university, as well as critiques of the neoliberal university, this session will examine how academic institutions’ structural and colonial biases and their material participation in the structures of racial capitalism perpetuate silence and complicity around issues of genocide, revealing deeper layers of structural violence within Western "liberal" academia. This roundtable brings together scholars who are directly engaged in movements to disrupt the status quo and advocate for institutional accountability. By providing a space to share experiences and strategies, this session will support the broader movement to end academic complicity in colonial violence and explore ways to counteract various forms of institutional repression by university administrations and other vested interests. N.B. Part 1 of this panel is entitled, "Resisting Complicity with Genocide in Universities and Academic Spaces (Part 1): Activism and Pedagogy"

Conflict-Related Gender and Sexualized Violence in a Diverse World: Seeing and Feeling
Conflict-Related Gender and Sexualized Violence in a Diverse World: Seeing and Feeling (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel delves into the theoretical frameworks surrounding conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence across diverse cultural and geopolitical landscapes. By examining varied contexts, different papers explore different underlying dynamics tin conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence, including but not limited to challenging what conflict is, what sexual and gender-based violence is, and the locations in which it can be expected.. The papers feature interdisciplinary approaches, integrating diverse perspectives to enhance understanding of SGBV’s complexity. The panel will highlight the importance of contextual specificity and the need for tailored interventions. Through critical discourse, the session seeks to advance theoretical models that inform policy and practice, emphasizing the transformative potential of inclusive and culturally sensitive strategies.

Creating Ontological Security in International Relations
Creating Ontological Security in International Relations (International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Ontological security studies as an approach to identity in International Relations, has long examined the ways in which insecurity is generated through the disruption of ontological security drives. A number of works have effectively characterized challenging situations and events through insecurity-understanding-concepts such as ruptures, critical situations, trauma, shame, embarrassment, and especially anxiety. In so doing, the more creative practices and processes for generating ontological security have been less of a focus. This is puzzling considering the ways in which ‘healthy’ modes of being were part of the first wave of ontological security studies in IR, and were always a goal for psychological and psychoanalytical approaches that introduced the concept. This Panel revisits and examines the creative processes through which ontological security can be regained or refashioned in global politics. To this end, it examines the following lines of inquiry: What uplifts agents and groups beyond or through challenging conditions and modes of being? What inspires, mobilizes, or transforms agents from being insecure to secure beings? Acknowledging that even creative processes may be unequally beneficial for groups, this Panel focuses on the creative ways in which agents, groups, and collectives rediscover ontological security in global politics.

Development in an altering environment: tensions and contradictions
Development in an altering environment: tensions and contradictions (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Development in an altering environment: tensions and contradictions

Gendering (counter)terrorism
Gendering (counter)terrorism (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel explores the gendered dynamics of terrorism and counterterrorism.

Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Kurdish Conflict: Insights, Lessons, and Broader Implications for Middle Eastern Conflicts
Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Kurdish Conflict: Insights, Lessons, and Broader Implications for Middle Eastern Conflicts (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Recent efforts by the Turkish government to address the Kurdish Conflict have emerged from an unexpected political figure—the leader of an ultra-nationalist coalition party. This move has generated significant public attention, but the attention has focused mostly on the complex regional developments (including Israeli military actions extending beyond Palestine into Lebanon, Iran, and potentially Syria), the leaders` motivations, and the conflicting parties' interests. These dynamics highlight the necessity for deeper engagement with the societal aspects of peace and reflection on national memories, the search for alternative narratives beyond borders, societal diversity, and the complex political agency in the Kurdish conflict. This roundtable brings together five scholars from different disciplines to discuss various methodological and theoretical approaches to Kurdish Studies, emphasizing the multifaceted nature and consequences of the protracted Kurdish conflict, within the broader Middle Eastern context. The discussion seeks to enhance our understanding of the conflict’s consequences and different forms of resistance shaped by the root causes of the conflict. Each participant will explore innovative strategies employed by Kurdish communities, such as memory work, peace and justice initiatives, film, and self-defence, to resist oppression, confront historical injustices, and promote emancipatory politics. Central questions to be addressed include: How do varied methodological and theoretical approaches enhance our understanding of conflict and resistance? What kind of insights can be helpful to put the Kurdish conflict into dialog with other ongoing regional conflicts, such as those in Syria and Palestine? The roundtable will evaluate the contributions and limitations of these approaches within politically repressive contexts. By exploring the gains, challenges, and limitations of interdisciplinary engagement, the discussion aims to create a space for reflecting on the potential for innovative strategies for societies affected by war and conflict in Middle East.

New actors and issues in global finance and fintech
New actors and issues in global finance and fintech (International Political Economy Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
5 papers on finance and fintech. Panel put together by the IPEG WG. These descriptions are not included in the programme so I have included the minimum. If you need more please contact james.m.scott@kcl.ac.uk

New methods of migration control
New methods of migration control (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
New methods of migration control

New perspectives on transitional justice
New perspectives on transitional justice (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Papers examine norm contestation, postcolonial perspectives, invisibility, and land rights.

Norms, Politics and Law: Processes, Intentions and Impacts
Norms, Politics and Law: Processes, Intentions and Impacts (International Law and Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The panel reviews the formation and transmission of norms relations to human rights, armed conflict and international law and standards. It examines the patterns and processes by which norms are transmitted and the ways in which they make a difference, considering intentions, at one end of the process, and impacts, at the other.

Nuclear Deterrence and Coercion in the era of strategic competition
Nuclear Deterrence and Coercion in the era of strategic competition (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel examines the evolving dynamics of nuclear deterrence and coercion in the context of strategic competition and rising global tensions. Through analyses of nuclear facility security, state-sponsored coercion, great power rivalry, and the emerging arms race, the panel offers critical insights into the challenges and implications of maintaining nuclear stability in a rapidly changing security environment.

Pop culture and IR: violence and/in popular culture
Pop culture and IR: violence and/in popular culture (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
What does Charli XCX’s music album ‘Brat’ have to do with militarism or international politics? How may we understand militarisation as a process by considering the aesthetics of Swedish military reality TV or Lord of the Rings’ influence on military technology moguls and Silicon Valley? In which ways could women’s funk music challenge colonial and capitalist aspects of militarisation in Brazil? The panel brings together scholars interested in exploring pop culture representations – music, memes, reality shows and films – as important sites of military power and/or militarism. This is key since public audiences increasingly relate to domestic and international security politics through mediatized or visualized stories of war and military service. As Jutta Weldes (1999, p.119) makes clear, “Popular culture […] helps to construct the reality of international politics for officials and non-officials alike and, to the extent that it reproduces the content and structure of the dominant foreign policy discourse, it helps to produce consent for foreign policy and state action”. The panelists engage with the intersection of pop culture and politics of representation, identities and audiences – considering how (military) violence manifests in pop culture or how it may be harnessed to contest violent and gendered forms of militarisation.

Problems without Passports: Transnational Threats and Security Challenges
Problems without Passports: Transnational Threats and Security Challenges (Security Policy and Practice)
10:45 - 12:15
This roundtable will explore the national security implications of "problems without passports" – former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s term for transnational challenges that evade traditional boundaries and defy simple policy solutions. Focusing on issues like climate change, pandemics, transnational economic crime, disinformation, and threats in space and cyberspace, the discussion will examine how these complex, interconnected risks disrupt the conventional frameworks of national security. Panellists will analyse the limitations of existing security architectures in addressing such pervasive threats, highlight the need for a more adaptive and inclusive policy approach, and debate innovative, cross-sectoral strategies that draw from environmental, health, finance, psychology, and technology disciplines. In doing so, the roundtable will consider how broadening the national security agenda to integrate global and human security concerns might redefine and strengthen the UK’s approach to these pressing issues. By facilitating dialogue across academic disciplines, policy sectors and perspectives, this roundtable seeks to promote a more resilient, policy-engaged understanding of security challenges that extend beyond borders, better equipping the UK to respond to an era of shared, borderless threats

Reflections on training military personnel for peace operations
Reflections on training military personnel for peace operations (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
It is thirty years since the UN General Assembly first recognised the importance of training military personnel for peacekeeping activities. Since then a considerable architecture has been created which seeks to provide some sense of standardisation and transfer of key norms which are valued by the UN to military personnel. This roundtable will reflect on the challenges of training peacekeepers for peace operations. In particular it will ask the extent to which those aspects which are fundamental to peace operations are transferred in the training context to soldiers from national militaries, what are the key challenges associated with this, and what this may tell us about the future direction of peace operations, and those militaries who are asked to undertake them. Panellists on the roundtable will reflect on their experiences of researching training as well as participation as trainers of military personnel for peace operations. They will be asked the extent to which the training system as we know it is sustainable, and whether we should look anew at undertaking training for peacekeeping.

Reinventing the West through the Balkans: Balkanization, Euro-Atlantic Policies, and the (Western) Balkans
Reinventing the West through the Balkans: Balkanization, Euro-Atlantic Policies, and the (Western) Balkans (South East Europe Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This roundtable explores the complex discourse of 'balkanization' and its profound impact on Euro-Atlantic policies toward the Western Balkans. Based on Liridona Veliu Ashiku's recent book, "'Balkanization' and the Euro-Atlantic Processes of the (Western) Balkans: Back to the Future," participants will discuss how the concept of 'balkanization' has been used as a strategic framework by the EU and NATO to assert Western unity and identity. Through a genealogical analysis spanning from the Balkan Wars to North Macedonia’s name change in 2018, this work reveals how the EU and NATO have consistently employed 'balkanization' to define the Western Balkans as 'other,' enabling political elites to advance unity within the West. This roundtable brings together scholars and students of Southeast Europe, International Relations, Political Science, Peace and Conflict Studies, and History, aiming to deepen our understanding of how historical narratives and contemporary policies intertwine. By examining these dynamics, participants will consider the ongoing relevance of 'balkanization' and explore pathways for redefining relationships in the region, especially as global power structures shift in an increasingly multipolar world.

Religion meets Time: Colonial and decolonial hi/stories
Religion meets Time: Colonial and decolonial hi/stories (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Religion meets Time: Colonial and decolonial hi/stories

Societal resilience and challenging power
Societal resilience and challenging power (East Europe and Eurasian Security Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Societal resilience and challenging power

Southern Strategies: Foreign Policy Perspectives of Global South States
Southern Strategies: Foreign Policy Perspectives of Global South States (Foreign Policy Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The global order is undergoing significant shifts—variously described as "post-hegemonic," "multipolar," or "multiplex". 50 years after the founding of BISA, and 60 years after the founding of the Group of 77, the foreign policy strategies of Global South states are increasingly central to these global dynamics. This panel will explore the distinctive foreign policy perspectives, discourses, and practices of selected Global South states and their growing influence on both international relations and studies. By examining the foreign policies of emerging powers across the Global South, this panel will explore both the commonalities and the distinct approaches these states take in navigating the shifting global order. It seeks to reveal how historical legacies, economic realities, and geopolitical contexts shape the way different states engage with global power relations and assert their roles in the global order. The contributions of this panel to International Studies are twofold. First, it adds a comparative dimension to the study of foreign policy by focusing on the Global South, a region often underrepresented in mainstream international relations scholarship. Second, it challenges conventional perspectives by showcasing how diverse foreign policy strategies from the Global South are reshaping global power dynamics and contributing to new discourses in the field. Key questions guiding this panel include: What sets the foreign policy perspectives and implementations of Global South states apart? To what extent do these states share common concerns, and how do their views on their roles within the international order differ? Through comparative analysis of case studies and broader regional trends, this panel will contribute a critical perspective on the evolving role of Global South states in shaping global politics. The discussions will enhance our understanding of the diversity within the Global South and its growing influence on global governance and foreign policy practices.

Splintered Realities and Digital War: Infrastructures of Conflict and Community
Splintered Realities and Digital War: Infrastructures of Conflict and Community (War Studies Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has been the most recorded war in history. Through smartphones, social media, and other digital networks, civilians and soldiers across the globe have (in)tangibly experienced the war as an event that has both shattered and reformed individual, political, and social realities. This roundtable brings together a group of scholars from media, war, and political studies to discuss how these processes are manifested across the globe - and how they are profoundly reshaping our understanding of how 21st century war is being fought and experienced.

Teaching emotions in Politics and IR
Teaching emotions in Politics and IR (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This roundtable explores innovative approaches to incorporating emotions into the teaching of politics and International Relations. Panelists will discuss strategies for engaging with complex political concepts and global issues through affect and emotions. It aims to spark a broader conversation about the role of emotions in politics and IR pedagogy, encouraging researchers to reflect on their own teaching practices and consider innovative and critical approaches to bringing emotions into IR. Panelists will share concrete examples from their teaching experiences, demonstrating how teaching emotions can deepen ways of learning IR. The roundtable will also discuss potential challenges and ethical considerations when bringing emotions into the classroom. We will explore the following themes: -Designing syllabi, assignments, and tutorial exercises to engage with the emotional dynamics of global politics -Ways to incorporate emotion/affect and embodiment into general IR modules -Guiding students to engage with different methodologies in researching emotions -Reflecting on emotions of instructors and students in classroom settings, and dealing with emotionally sensitive topics such as war and trauma -Exploring reflexivity and ethics of discussing emotions in classrooms by building on critical pedagogies (e.g., feminist, decolonial approaches)"

The Future of the ‘English School’ Approach to International Studies: Continuity, Adaptation, and Transformation in a Global World.
The Future of the ‘English School’ Approach to International Studies: Continuity, Adaptation, and Transformation in a Global World. (Contemporary Research on International Political Theory Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
As BISA marks its 50th anniversary, it is opportune to reflect on the past half-century of International Studies and its key theoretical approaches. Closely tied to BISA’s development, for over sixty years the 'English School' (ES) approach has significantly contributed to our grasp of the normative foundations underpinning International Society. However, as International Studies grows increasingly pluralistic, global and interdisciplinary, reassessing the relevance of this approach is crucial. Faced with evolving challenges outside of its initial horizons - from environmental crises to transnational cyber politics - questions about the applicability of the ES framework are more urgent than ever. What can this approach offer today? This roundtable examines the future of the ES approach, examining whether its foundational assumptions sufficiently meet contemporary needs. Established scholars and early-career researchers of varied backgrounds, genders and ethnicities will critically evaluate its limitations and identify developmental pathways. They will seek to rearticulate the conceptual framework of international and world society so to better address global normative challenges, incorporating neglected perspectives. Through dynamic, multi-faceted dialogue, this roundtable will equip International Studies with a refined conceptual toolkit that can firmly articulate the pressing challenges facing global international society, overcoming past theoretical limitations and strengthening our field for the future.

The Myths of Certainty: Myth, Magic, and Uncertainty in International Relations
The Myths of Certainty: Myth, Magic, and Uncertainty in International Relations (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
This panel seeks to discuss the layers of myths, narratives, and tales that are written onto our understandings of complex, nuanced, and messy events, issues, and bodies, both past and present. We hope to spark a conversation around how the (sometimes desperate) search for a singular and cohesive narrative within and across the diversity of IR can be seen as a way of attempting to write certainty onto uncertainty. As we grapple with increasingly uncertain times – from witnessing genocide to the ever-present climate crisis – this panel seeks to uncover the ways in which states and societies attempt to mediate this fear of the unknown through the reliance on simplistic and cohesive narratives. Whether through falling back on tried and tested binaries such as good versus evil or civilian versus terrorist, or weaponising gendered stereotypes, the panel troubles the comforting tales that IR tells itself as a way of dealing with such a vast, and often contradictory, discipline.

The politics of diasporas and and diasporas within global politics
The politics of diasporas and and diasporas within global politics (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
The politics of diasporas and and diasporas within global politics.

Transatlantic Security Challenges during Trump's Second Mandate
Transatlantic Security Challenges during Trump's Second Mandate (European Security Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
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World order and collective organic intellectuals
World order and collective organic intellectuals (International Political Economy Working Group)
10:45 - 12:15
If there is an overarching feature of the contemporary global political economy it is the phenomenon of multiple simultaneous crises. Is this an indication of an emergent form of world order, a potential shift from US hegemony to whatever follows? With Covid-19, energy price hikes, climate change, conflict, a turn to authoritarianism and extreme poverty how can solutions be developed in an era potentially facing such change? The panel turns to the Gramscian notion of the collective organic intellectual to explore how approaches to the changing global political economy might be organised to gauge how collective organic intellectuals are responding to and preparing for these crises in an increasingly complex world order. The collective organic intellectual framework foregrounds institutions as producers of knowledge. Contributors to the panel explore a number of related issues as to how collective organic intellectuals develop and disseminate appropriate knowledge how the global political economy should be structured. This includes collective organic intellectuals reorganising what constitutes policy common sense in a time of rapid change and diverse new challenges to attempt to secure hegemony. The papers render a set of assessments of how consensus building research is disseminated at different scales and spaces.

12:15 Lunch
Lunch
12:15 - 13:15

13:15 Anti-militarism in a time of genocide
Anti-militarism in a time of genocide (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Over recent decades International Relations scholarship has fostered important contributions to the study of anti-militarism (Stavrianakis, 2010; Cockburn, 2012; Rossdale, 2019). This has charted the ways in which NGOs, social movements, and ordinary people across the world have resisted militarism, including through campaigning for arms controls, direct action, protest, education, and more. Since October 7th and the commencement of the genocide in Gaza, these practices have garnered new momentum, witnessing unprecedented protests, blockades, labour struggles, lobbying, legal challenges and awareness raising aimed at disrupting the flow of arms to Israel. Anti-militarism has been thrown into the spotlight as never before, revealing both its importance but also some limitations of existing approaches. This roundtable brings together scholars of anti-militarism in its various guises to consider what anti-militarism means in this time of genocide, what we can learn from recent developments, and what IR scholarship can (and perhaps cannot) tell us about these movements.

Beyond Postcolonial Critique: Theoretical and and Political Alliances between Hindutva and Zionism
Beyond Postcolonial Critique: Theoretical and and Political Alliances between Hindutva and Zionism (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
The recent book Unacknowledged Kinships: Postcolonial Studies and the Historiography of Zionism published in 2023 closes with a conversation between the professor of Jewish Studies, Stefan Vogt, and the Indian historian and scholar of postcolonial theory, Dipesh Chakrabarty. The dialogue, which queries how amenable Jewish history is to postcolonial studies as well as considers similarities between Indian anti-/postcolonial nationalism and the history of Zionism and Israel, reflects key developments this roundtable seeks to address. These include: widening conversations about the contemporary state and boundaries of postcolonial theory; and a seemingly emergent dialogue between segments of South Asian postcolonial studies and Jewish studies which contemplates the resuscitation of Zionism as a project of ‘self-empowerment’ and ‘liberation’. The roundtable will speak to these developments within academia, while also considering the wider backdrop within which they take place. Indeed, invoking notions of victimhood, Zionism and, in particular, Hindutva, have been championed as postcolonial/decolonial political projects by their proponents with growing regularity. Such claims occur alongside mounting documentation of the increasingly close alliance between Israel and India, and Hindutva and Zionism, in recent years, enabling the settler colonial projects in each country to flourish. These connections also transcend the boundaries of the nation-state, reflected by affinities between segments of the Jewish and (Hindu, upper caste) Indian diaspora. This roundtable takes these wide-ranging developments as a starting point to assess the state of postcolonialism and Jewish studies in the current conjuncture with attention to the distinct, but connected, projects of Zionism and Hindutva.

Change and stagnation in the politics of extractivism
Change and stagnation in the politics of extractivism (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Change and stagnation in the politics of extractivism
Colonial Postcolonial Decolonial Working Group -Early Career Paper Prize 2025 - Asad Zaidi (Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster and member of the Colonial/Postcolonial/Decolonial Working Group)
Colonial Postcolonial Decolonial Working Group -Early Career Paper Prize 2025
- Asad Zaidi (Visiting Lecturer at the University of Westminster and member of the Colonial/Postcolonial/Decolonial Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Winner: Asad Ziadi, University of Westminster Runner up: Lucy Mooring, Warwick
Criminalising Ecocide: The Rome Statute and Beyond
Criminalising Ecocide: The Rome Statute and Beyond (International Law and Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
In September 2024, Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa formally introduced an amendment to the Rome Statute, aimed at adding ecocide to the list of international crimes falling under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The submission marks a new high point in the history of efforts to establish a new international crime of ecocide; one, which, over the last few years, has gained prominence in diverse contexts such as the Association of Small Island States, the Russia-Ukraine war, the European Union, and the Council of Europe. This raises a range of questions, not least how diplomatic negotiations on ecocide will unfold, and its relationship to broader issues of global environmental politics. In addition to potentially being the first new crime to be added to the Rome Statute since the founding of the ICC, its ongoing process of international criminalization is also notable for being driven by a global social movement, Stop Ecocide International. This roundtable draws together scholars with an interest in ecocide from both international relations and international law to reflect on these developments, examine the consequences of ecocide’s unique path to international criminalization, and to situate this within wider global relations of power.

Critical perspectives on contemporary capitalist accumulation
Critical perspectives on contemporary capitalist accumulation (International Political Economy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
5 neo-Marxist IPE papers. Panel put together by the IPEG WG. These descriptions are not included in the programme so I have included the minimum. If you need more please contact james.m.scott@kcl.ac.uk

Culture, Politics, and Identity in the ‘Celtic Fringe’
Culture, Politics, and Identity in the ‘Celtic Fringe’ (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Our panel brings together scholars from England, Wales, Scotland, the Netherlands, and the USA, several with ties to the island of Ireland, to interrogate questions of culture, politics, and identity in the so-called ‘Celtic Fringe’. By placing the notion of the periphery at the centre of our collective analysis, we aim to raise the importance of areas outside the purported ‘core’ of British politics at the 50th convocation of BISA. Three of the presentations focus on politics in Northern Ireland (including issues of gender, language, and identity), with the fourth paper employing Irish postcoloniality as a comparative tool for discussing the case of contemporary Welsh subalternity within Great Britain. In response to the CFP which seeks ways for IR to be ‘undisciplined’, we aim to employ methods and approaches from outside traditional forms IR analysis to highlight blind spots in the field, particularly around those people, places, and politics that are perceived to be at the fringes.

Effects of humanitarianism in action – from top down to grassroots approaches
Effects of humanitarianism in action – from top down to grassroots approaches (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Effects of humanitarianism in action – from top down to grassroots approaches

Feminist approaches to visual and technological world politics,
Feminist approaches to visual and technological world politics, (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel offers a range of feminist reflections on the role of visuals and technology in constituting world politics. Notably, the authors recognise that visual projections evoke emotional responses and interest amongst vast audiences, bringing attention to injustices and violences throughout the world. Visuals, not least in the digital sphere articulate and explain conflict, war, violence, diplomatic practices and poverty in more accessible and visible ways to audiences than official documents and texts. Thus, visuals and technology enhance the visibility and reach of global storytelling and politics. The papers then recognise that visuals and technology are important sites of scholarly enquiry, adding new insights into our understandings of world politics. However, neither visuals nor technological innovations are neutral phenomena, objectively capturing a distinct moment in time or incident, rather they are gendered and often located within intersecting hierarchies, power dynamics and silences. Some oppressions and injustices are projected in visual representation while others remain unseen. The papers on this panel provide a fruitful platform for feminist dialogue on visuals in an increasingly technologically networked and visualised world.

Foreign policy, identity, and domestic actors
Foreign policy, identity, and domestic actors (Foreign Policy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Foreign policy, identity, and domestic actors

Future Peace: Peacemaking in an era of multipolar geopolitics, authoritarianism, and “new” actors
Future Peace: Peacemaking in an era of multipolar geopolitics, authoritarianism, and “new” actors (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This roundtable seeks to discuss the prospects for peace and peacemaking amid the collapse of the Liberal International Order. The current peacemaking landscape lies somewhere been the fragmentation of the existing system, the remnants of that system (e.g., the UN Permanent 5) and emergence of apparently new peacemaking actors and modalities. The roundtable discussion will revolve around where to place the BRICS, authoritarian peacemakers, regional organisations and others in a changing peacemaking landscape in which ideas and practices of international cooperation, democracy, rights and civil society seem under threat. Practical, conceptual and ethical concerns attend the decline of liberal internationalism and the rise of alternative forms of peacemaking. These real world changes also pose questions for Peace and Conflict Studies – especially its critical branches – and how issues of sustainability, redistributive justice, and rights can fit within emerging paradigms for peace. The Roundtable will be structured via a set of questions from the chair and involves a mix of established and early career scholars as well as scholars originating from the global north and the global south.

German foreign policy
German foreign policy (Foreign Policy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
German foreign policy

Narratives and the Making of US Foreign Policy and National Security
Narratives and the Making of US Foreign Policy and National Security (US Foreign Policy Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel brings together researchers working on the role of narratives and US foreign policy

Narratives, Ideologies and Discourses in a Time of Crisis
Narratives, Ideologies and Discourses in a Time of Crisis (European Security Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
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New challenges and approaches in global IR pedagogy
New challenges and approaches in global IR pedagogy (Learning and Teaching Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
New challenges and approaches in global IR pedagogy

Partisans and Rebels
Partisans and Rebels (War Studies Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Partisans and Rebels

Peace and Conflict on the African Continent
Peace and Conflict on the African Continent (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Papers discuss range of interventions from regional and international actors as well as issues of post-conflict reintegration of ex-combatants.

Politics of the Mediterranean: Maritime security, political space and colonialism
Politics of the Mediterranean: Maritime security, political space and colonialism (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Papers examine the politics of the Mediterranean from contrasting perspectives, looking at maritime security, weak political space, and colonial legacies.

Power, alliance and security in Asia
Power, alliance and security in Asia (Orphan Papers track)
13:15 - 14:45
Power, alliance and security in Asia

Reflecting on 50 years of security scholarship
Reflecting on 50 years of security scholarship (Security Policy and Practice)
13:15 - 14:45
The 50 years since BISAs inauguration have seen significant changes in the security landscape. In some ways, approaches to ‘national security’ have remained consistent. In other ways, conceptualisations of, and approaches to, security have evolved significantly. Security strategies, concepts and frameworks have adapted to keep pace with an era of health emergencies, climate breakdown and geopolitical confrontation. Over the past decades, security studies has developed into a bustling disciplinary space, where new approaches, such as human security, securitisation, vernacular security and intersectionality sit alongside more conventional understandings of conflict and defence. This roundtable invites a reflection on the evolution of security studies across the last 50 years, and asks: • How has security studies changed since the inauguration of BISA 50 years ago? • Are the concepts and insights of security studies capable of addressing the social, political and ecological challenges of the present time? • How can security studies scholarship facilitate better policymaking going forward? (And is this something to which it should be concerned?)

Spaces of refuge in the corridors of Higher Education
Spaces of refuge in the corridors of Higher Education (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
How do spaces of refuge come into being? This roundtable attends to the challenges and possibilities facing those who travel through the corridors of Higher Education. Our conversation is necessarily global and acknowledges the intersections and divergences of colleagues throughout the world as they seek to balance the challenges of research, teaching, and administration. We pay particular attention to the invisible labor that all too often contributes to periods of fatigue, uncertainty, and burn out. To develop this conversation more robustly this roundtable wonders at spaces of welcome and unwelcome within the discipline of International Relations. It invites colleagues to reflect on the journeys towards welcome, and the interruptions and easings that this journey has prompted. We invite colleagues to bring tacit embodied knowledge alongside more objective forms of being and knowing. The invitation is cast widely in the hopes of better understanding diverse forms of unwelcome, and the move to collective forms of welcome and how those spaces might be supported into the future. The roundtable draws from ongoing discussions in Feminist International Relations, Pedagogical discourses, Political Theory and Disability Studies provoking discussions of care, failure, and support that push back against the very structures that inspire this conversation.

Stigma and Discourse in Nuclear Politics
Stigma and Discourse in Nuclear Politics (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel explores the interplay of stigma, discourse, and strategic behavior in nuclear politics, examining how states navigate nuclear norms and perceptions. Through case studies ranging from India, Germany, and Iran to US nuclear policy under Trump, the panel investigates themes of deterrence, corrective behavior, the absence of apology, and the balance between principle and pragmatism in nuclear diplomacy

The state, politics and governance of political violence
The state, politics and governance of political violence (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel engages with state-led, political and governmental dimensions of counterterrorism

Transnational governance from metropoles to diaspora and back
Transnational governance from metropoles to diaspora and back (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
Transnational governance from metropoles to diaspora and back

War, civilizational narratives and international order
War, civilizational narratives and international order (East Europe and Eurasian Security Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
War, civilizational narratives and international order

What next for Lebanon?
What next for Lebanon? (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
The conflict taking place in and around Lebanon is just the most recent crisis to hit a country that, not so long ago, was hailed as a model of pluralism and power-sharing within a turbulent environment. As the Lebanese people figure out a way to navigate more instability, the country's elites - ever central to the resilience of a flawed consociationalism - are also undergoing violent change, not least with the recent death of long-time Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. This roundtable looks at what these recent and ongoing changes mean to the country which seems immune to change, both for the better and the worse. Questions discussed would include: - Is there a way the Lebanese state survives through these crises? - Are we likely to see a change in Lebanese elite-society relations? - Is Lebanon's fate tied to that of regional and international power brokers? - Is it time to abandon traditional methods of state-building in Lebanon? P.S. Participant list includes those that have been contacted and their confirmation is pending

What's wrong with IR Theory...and how to fix it
What's wrong with IR Theory...and how to fix it (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
13:15 - 14:45
This panel discusses new directions for making sense of global politics.

14:45 Break
Break
14:45 - 15:00

15:00 Beyond the liberal international order
Beyond the liberal international order (Orphan Papers track)
15:00 - 16:30
Beyond the liberal international order

Bordering and migration control
Bordering and migration control (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Bordering and migration control

Colonialism, counterterrorism and the emergency
Colonialism, counterterrorism and the emergency (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel bring together papers that interrogate the connections between counterterrorism and colonial and racialised forms of violence.

Connectivity and collaboration: potential avenues for the future of WPS
Connectivity and collaboration: potential avenues for the future of WPS (Security Policy and Practice)
15:00 - 16:30
As the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda approaches its 25th Anniversary in October 2025, this panel focuses on the future of WPS in the context of perpetual political crisis (rise of populism, climate emergency, increasing disaster risks, lack of investment, disappearing interest and enthusiasm) and uncertainty. Here, the roundtable will focus on the potential and impact of connectivity and collaboration at both the conceptual and practical levels. It will ask if theorising and working from a holistic and interconnected perspective can support responses to the current and future crisis and uncertainty, how to work effectively across silos and boundaries, how to support connections between academia, CSOs and policymakers, and how WPS can learn from and connect to other movements. Together we will also explore the value (and limitation) of having the anniversary effect.

Decolonial, anti-racist and abolitionist pedagogies in International Relations Part I: Experiences, Experiments and Responses
Decolonial, anti-racist and abolitionist pedagogies in International Relations Part I: Experiences, Experiments and Responses (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
As institutions embedded in the structures of racial capitalism (Gerrard, Sriprakash and Rudolph 2022), universities contribute to colonial and racial systems of oppression. Although resistance to this has always been a reality, the last few years have witnessed social movements across the world calling for the decolonisation of the university. Decolonisation of research and disciplines and decolonisation of curriculum and pedagogy are the most obvious paths upon which to embark towards decolonisation and perhaps the routes in which educators have more impact. In the discipline of International Relations (IR), post and decolonial perspectives have always been present (Henderson 2017; Vitalis 2015), although marginalised for a long time in a discipline characterized by eurocentrism (Hobson 2012) and whiteness (Sabaratnam 2020). Nevertheless, decolonial and postcolonial scholarship in IR has progressively evolved over the past 25 years as illustrated by an abundance of literature. The emergence of new epistemological communities within Western academic institutions in the late 20th century led to changing understandings of what constitutes knowledge and its purposes (Bhambra 2016). Scholars and practitioners from post-colonial and marginalised communities have foregrounded voices and perspectives that have previously been erased or silenced. Decolonial and abolitionist theories and debates have challenged mainstream knowledge, its hierarchies and its pedagogical operations, as well as the very function of education as an emancipatory and liberatory process vis-à-vis inequity-reproducing institutions that have played a leading role in marginalising indigenous knowledge systems and maintaining racialized hierarchies. These developments have also shown how the language of decolonising the university, as well as the language of anti-racism, are increasingly being coopted by many institutions in a neo-liberal take on diversity. Convenors of this roundtable therefore stand with Tuck and Yang (2012) when they remind us that decolonisation is not a metaphor and with Sara Ahmed (2006) when she warns us about the harmful effects of such co-optation. In this context, the literature on abolition in education constitutes a valuable reflection on the possibilities of countering this co-optation process (Abolitionist university studies 2023; Neal and Dunn 2020; Love and Muhammad 2020; Dunn, Chisholm, Spaulding and Love 2021). In the light of the above, this roundtable gathers interventions bringing empirical reflection, based on specific pedagogical experiments/experiences in the classroom, using critical, radical, decolonial, abolitionist or anti-racist pedagogies in conversation with IR and institutional responses to these. Interventions will focus more specifically on: - The development of a decolonial praxis in the naming of race and racism in the French context, with Tal Dor, Manel Ben Boubaker and Christine Mussard. - The possibilities brought by student-staff network with an experience at The University of Manchester, with Luke Bhatia. - The prospects and challenges of anti-racist and decolonial pedagogies in De Montfort University (Leicester), with Amina Easat-Daas and Pinar Donmez. - The inputs of indigenous knowledge in IR education through cartography, with an experience in Brasil by Marcia F Camargo. Speakers are Tal Dor, Luke Bhatia, Amina Easat-Daas, Pinar Donmez and Marcia F. Camargo. Convenors of the roundtable are Leila Mouhib (chair) and Heba Youssef.

Doctrine & Strategy
Doctrine & Strategy (War Studies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Doctrine & Strategy

Emerging Military Technologies in Theory and Practice: Critical Approaches to Knowledge and Governance
Emerging Military Technologies in Theory and Practice: Critical Approaches to Knowledge and Governance (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
The development and use of autonomous weapons systems and related technologies in warfare present new challenges to thinking about and governing contemporary international affairs. This panel considers, in the first place, the epistemological, theoretical, and ontological underpinnings that inform how emerging technologies are understood in the context of state and non-state armed violence. Secondly, the panel then unpacks the realities of the use (and understanding) of autonomous systems in warfare. As such, the papers that make up this panel provide a rich source for developing critical approaches to understanding emerging technologies of war, going beyond traditional International Affairs theories to consider (1) subversive thinking about power and arms development and control, (2) non-human actors in warfare and their conceptualisation, and (3) (dis)continuities with older concepts of military innovation. In addition, the panel situates these arguments in practice, analysing the use of unmanned systems in Ukraine; AI Decision-Support Systems, the operation of medical triage drones; and how anthropomorphism of ‘killer robots’ plays out in Ibero-American social networks. Covering a detailed breath of the theory and practice of emerging-tech-mediated violence, this panel evolves the current debates on the understanding of algorithmic warfare in International Relations.

European Security and the War in Ukraine
European Security and the War in Ukraine (European Security Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
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Global Vulnerabilities and Challenges to Orders
Global Vulnerabilities and Challenges to Orders (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel comprises case studies of vulnerable orders.

Infrastructural violence and settler spaces of control, Palestine and beyond
Infrastructural violence and settler spaces of control, Palestine and beyond (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Infrastructural violence and settler spaces of control, Palestine and beyond

Innovations and Puzzles in Queer International Relations
Innovations and Puzzles in Queer International Relations (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel explores cutting-edge innovations within the field of queer international relations, examining how queer theory and activism challenge traditional paradigms of global politics. Participants will discuss the integration of queer perspectives into international relations, highlighting how issues of gender and sexuality intersect with diplomacy, security, and human rights. Through case studies from diverse geopolitical contexts, the session will showcase novel approaches to understanding state behavior, transnational movements, and the impact of queer identities on global policy-making. By fostering a dialogue around queer epistemologies, the panel aims to inspire a rethinking of power dynamics and social justice in international relations, emphasizing the importance of inclusivity and representation in shaping a more equitable world.

Kurdish Activisms: Art, Memory, and Self-Defence in the Struggle Against Oppression
Kurdish Activisms: Art, Memory, and Self-Defence in the Struggle Against Oppression (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel examines how Kurdish activisms across Turkey and the diaspora employ memory, art, and film as powerful tools for confronting historical injustices, resisting colonial violence, and be parts of emancipatory politics. Starting with Kurdish activists’ efforts towards transitional justice, the discussion reveals the challenges faced by initiatives for accountability and remembrance face under political constraints. By looking into participatory art practices, the panel highlights the role of relational art in amplifying the experiences of women ex-prisoners, fostering spaces for critical memory that challenge gendered silences. The panel then shifts to Kurdish LGBTI+ mobilisation, highlighting how concepts of non-violent self-defense can be adapted as a means of social movement organising. The panel presents Kurdish documentary cinema as a decolonial form of memory activism, using film to construct narratives of resilience that challenge erasure and provide a platform for marginalised voices. Finally, the Berlin Kurdish Film Festival illustrates how a diasporic cinema space sustains and legitimises Kurdish cultural expression, offering a site for representation and activism. Together, these perspectives reveal the diverse ways Kurdish activisms create spaces for art, cinema, memory, and non-violence to resist and challenge longstanding oppression of the Kurdish people.

Maritime Governance and Security: Zones, Hotspots, and Practices
Maritime Governance and Security: Zones, Hotspots, and Practices (Orphan Papers track)
15:00 - 16:30
Maritime governance is a unique governance zone. Although traditionally maritime spaces are demarcated into zones in reference to the proximity to a land feature, and viewed as being ‘global commons’, increasingly the governance of maritime spaces are seen as having different and divergent governance challenges to terra-centric models. International relations, international law, and international ethics scholarship has increasingly engaged with the maritime as presenting security and governance challenges and the concept of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ as a new political and fundamentally maritime region underscores this global shift in how we view the maritime. This panel explores the evolving dynamics of maritime governance and security, focusing on the ontological and practical elements of governance and security at sea. Overall, the papers in the panel engage with aspects of the following questions: • What differentiates oceanic and sea space governance from land-based governance? • How are state and non-state actor disputes and territorial clashes shaped in this arena? • How do maritime security practices evolve to adapt to the ever-changing complexities of this domain? • Is maritime security a divergent or ancillary objective to governance? • Can the approach of ‘global commons’ endure as a foundational principle of governance in maritime domains? In engaging with different aspects of these questions this panel covers a range of key areas of interest and hotspots of focus addressed here include contestation and geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea, South Atlantic considerations of ocean governance and the role of Brazil, maritime cooperation and the role of Africa in the Indo-Pacific region, and migration security in the Central Mediterranean.

New advances in theoretical and historical IR
New advances in theoretical and historical IR (Orphan Papers track)
15:00 - 16:30
New advances in theoretical and historical IR

Policy, Politics, and Development
Policy, Politics, and Development (Global Politics and Development)
15:00 - 16:30
This panels brings together research that examines the political and policy aspects of development.

Producing enemies
Producing enemies (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel considers how enemies are conceptualised and produced through counterterrorism technologies.

RUSSIA AND THE WEST: identity construction; disinformation and Western policy dilemmas.
RUSSIA AND THE WEST: identity construction; disinformation and Western policy dilemmas. (East Europe and Eurasian Security Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel brings together a range of perspectives on Russian foreign policy, including Western reactions to different dimensions of Russian policies. From the role of state recognition discourse and narratives at the United Nations in constructing Russian identity, to an examination of the ways in which UK narratives around countering Russian disinformation contribute to UK foreign policy roles. Further, two papers focus on UK policy dilemmas, one on the neglect of the UK-Russia relationship in UK public discourse(including in academia and policy circles) and the consequences thereof, and the other on the dilemma posed by the Russia-China partnership: how the UK security is framed by its desire to work with the US, and the challenge of balancing between a perceived need for a tilt to the Indo-Pacific and the need to maintain security in Europe.

Reform, feminism and radical critical thinking: Affective identity of female veteran scholars re-encountering the military institution
Reform, feminism and radical critical thinking: Affective identity of female veteran scholars re-encountering the military institution (Critical Military Studies Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This roundtable seeks to explore the affective identity of a growing community of female veterans turning to the academy to understand their gendered experience of military service, asking what motivates them to want to potentially reshape the narrative on military service and what this means for their attempts to bring about reform to the institution. Speakers will consider the encounters we have in feminist spaces and with the military, exploring what we can learn about opening up spaces for radical critical thinking. The roundtable will be informed by the following questions: What does it mean to attempt to bring about reform to the military institution? What are the possibilities and limits of this reform? What is it about our particular identity as ex-servicewomen that contributes to opening avenues for reform? How does the history of feminism and pacifism influence our encounters with feminist scholars and feminist service personnel? What hope is there for feminist anti-militarism to bring about radical decolonial reform to the military institution? How does our complicity with hegemonic institutional behaviours when serving influence our responsibility to effect change? How do we navigate the tension between advocating for research that foregrounds contemporary servicewomen’s voices when we feel that our critical distance from the military is what has been pivotal to how we now see our military service and the institution? Can we engender an emancipatory research agenda and what does it look like?

Rethinking Ontological (In)Security: Towards New Theoretical Horizons
Rethinking Ontological (In)Security: Towards New Theoretical Horizons (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Scholarship on ontological security in International Relations (IR) predominantly relies on Anthony Giddens’ sociological theories, often equating ontological (in)security with identity stability. This focus can overlook broader existential, relational, and affective dimensions of security. Responding to calls within IR for a “return to the roots” of ontological security, this panel re-engages and expands the concept’s theoretical foundations to enhance its explanatory power across diverse contexts. What is ontological (in)security beyond identity stability? How should we conceptualise and operationalise it to reflect a more comprehensive understanding of security? This interdisciplinary panel offers fresh perspectives and empirical insights to challenge conventional boundaries of ontological (in)security. Drawing on Melanie Klein’s psychoanalytic theories, Stuart Hall’s work on representation and cultural production, Judith Butler’s insights on gender performativity, Cynthia Weber’s concept of the “perverse homosexual,” and Lea Ypi’s idea of “non-ideal theorising,” the panel’s contributions explore global cases from the US, Britain, Turkey, and Japan to reveal the complexities of ontological security.

The European Union and its foreign relations
The European Union and its foreign relations (International Political Economy Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
5 papers on the EU and its foreign relations. Panel put together by the IPEG WG. These descriptions are not included in the programme so I have included the minimum. If you need more please contact james.m.scott@kcl.ac.uk

The Global Politics of Tourism: Contemporary Reflections
The Global Politics of Tourism: Contemporary Reflections (Post-Structural Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Since Cynthia Enloe’s powerful analysis of the global politics of tourism in her book Bananas, Beaches and Bases (1989), tourism has slowly gained scholarly attention as a crucial international phenomenon. Tourism is a powerful global system and an immense form of cross-border mobility. It governs a complex array of people and places, categorising, ordering and (de)prioritising them in complex ways. Tourism is also shaped by and (re)shapes diverse forms of power and relations globally, in the context of modern colonial capitalism. This panel takes the opportunity to look back at the scholarship on and developments in tourism since 1989. It examines how tourism currently enacts power in the world, and (re)shapes (among other things) spaces, (in)securities, economies, identities, policies, and relations at various scales. It asks the following questions: (1) How does tourism shape our day-to-day lives? (2) How has tourism transformed our world? (3) How has tourism become a globally powerful phenomenon? This roundtable addresses these questions and identifies also the opportunities to challenge the underlying global (im)mobility regime which (re)produces different privileged/marginalised modes and figures of human spatial mobility – such as ‘tourism/migration’ and ‘the tourist/the migrant’ – in the hope of a world with greater social and ‘mobility justice’.

The Politics of Speaking and Thinking Climate Change: Who, What and How?
The Politics of Speaking and Thinking Climate Change: Who, What and How? (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
The Politics of Speaking and Thinking Climate Change: Who, What and How?

The Third Nuclear Age: Understanding and Addressing Contemporary Nuclear Challenges
The Third Nuclear Age: Understanding and Addressing Contemporary Nuclear Challenges (Global Nuclear Order Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
The world has recently entered a dangerous new era of nuclear politics. Longstanding arms control treaties have collapsed, and every nuclear weapon state is modernising or increasing their nuclear arsenal. Relations between these states are at an all time low as great power competition returns to the fore of international affairs, and protracted conflicts involving nuclear weapon states continue to rage. In this context, this roundtable seeks to make sense of the Third Nuclear Age by outlining its contours and key issues, whilst also exploring potential pathways for addressing current challenges in order to revitalise stability and encourage peace. This roundtable brings together the authors of two recent books on the Third Nuclear Age with several emerging scholars working on a diverse range of issues shaping contemporary nuclear politics. From the rituals of contemporary deterrence practice, to the politics of arms control and disarmament, via the rise of Artificial Intelligence, regional dynamics, and the significance of gender, this roundtable explores the complex milieu of issues facing today’s global nuclear order in the Third Nuclear Age.

Understanding peacekeeping operations
Understanding peacekeeping operations (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Papers interrogate operational dilemmas, the implementation of norms, and the preparedness of peacekeepers

Visual Iconicity, Methodology, and Interdisciplinary Approaches
Visual Iconicity, Methodology, and Interdisciplinary Approaches (International Relations as a Social Science Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
This panel focuses on more theoretical and methodological aspects of visual research, including the concept of visual iconicity, the use of interdisciplinary approaches and visual methods, and the analysis of visual materials in various contexts, such as news photography, political murals, and international reports. The papers in this panel explore how visual representations can be studied and theorised, and how different disciplinary perspectives and methodological approaches can contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of visuality in various social and political domains. The panel aims to combine formal presentations of the papers and subsequently engage in a discussion following the World Café method, led by Léa Lamotte (chair). Lamotte, PhD in Geography, has conducted extensive research utilising creative and visual methods, such as collage and body mapping, to explore everyday practices in South America and Spain, employing interdisciplinary approaches. The objective is to initiate a discussion on the development of visual research methods that can be implemented with minimal resources in pursuit of degrowth and sustainability principles, as well as for research projects with constrained financial resources. The outcomes of the discussion could be presented in the form of a comic strip (or another visual medium).

We walk through gardens: 'rooting' IR scholarship in caring ecologies
We walk through gardens: 'rooting' IR scholarship in caring ecologies (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
In the last BISA conference, scholars of international feminist policymaking, conflict, and peace walked through the Birmingham Botanic Gardens. In the butterfly house, we stood still as some settled on us and we waited patiently till they had their stay and departed only when they left us. How do our walks, our local ecologies of care, and our presence amongst one another warp our practice of International Relations? In this roundtable, we explore relational autonomy, care, agency in and beyond our distinct local ecologies -- we ask how spaces shape our relation to each other, create distinct genealogies of scholarship, and motivations for pursuing IR scholarship beyond politics and policy. Do we do this for scholarship, or do we do it for each other?

Women, Agency and the Dynamics of Civilian Protection
Women, Agency and the Dynamics of Civilian Protection (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
15:00 - 16:30
Papers highlight questions of agency, resistance and resilience from different conflict contexts

16:30 Break
Break
16:30 - 16:45

16:45 Border Struggles: Criminalisation, Mobility and Solidarity
Border Struggles: Criminalisation, Mobility and Solidarity (Orphan Papers track)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel brings together scholars working in and around the Mediterranean. Here we connect the spectacular border struggles occurring at sea with those that are (made) less visible, on land and at sea. How do mobility struggles at sea connect to legal, political, economic, and social struggles on land? How do political and other actors make some of these struggles more or less visible? Through this analysis, we demonstrate how people on the move, people newly arrived, and their allies have responded to and resisted criminalisation and exclusion, despite shrinking civic spaces.

Colonial Violence and the African Renaissance
Colonial Violence and the African Renaissance (Africa and International Studies Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Colonial Violence and the African Renaissance

Connections and Disconnections between Migration and Violence
Connections and Disconnections between Migration and Violence (International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
There has been a rapid rise in migration from South Asia to Europe and North America in the past decade. While these migrant groups have been the subject of policies, political debates, and scholarly research, not much has been written about the transnational bonds that remain between migrants and their families back home. In addition, attention must also be drawn to the interpersonal relationships between the migrants in the host country, both within the family units and outside. Existing scholarships on intimacy and violence that migrants experience with reference to domestic relationships could direct us to explore how these scapes pan out for the South Asians moving to the “west”. This also invites us to understand the link between affect and migration, return and settlements. In the light of such observations, this workshop will look at how transnational bonds between migrants and their anchor families continue to have a gendered impact on migrants. For understanding the process and consequences of gendering intimacy and violence in migration studies, this workshop engages with the practices that often mimic the gendered relations back home reproduced in the host countries among the migrants. In particular, through cases of women migrants, we will demonstrate how interpersonal forms of violence not only continue but are often exacerbated by the transnational networks of kinship control exercised by those who remain in their home countries; for example, cultural and religious markers are often employed to exercise coercive control on women while the lack of transnational laws and contradictory national laws deem any relief impossible.

Cultures of Representation
Cultures of Representation (Interpretivism in International Relations Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Contributions to this panel analyse constructions of threats, sovereignty, and space.

Decolonial, anti-racist and abolitionist pedagogies in International Relations Part II: Frameworks and theories
Decolonial, anti-racist and abolitionist pedagogies in International Relations Part II: Frameworks and theories (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Despite bell hooks’s assertion, in 1994, that “the classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy”, the development of such a radical space within IR appears to remain limited on many levels (Sen 2022; Sondarjee 2023); resources on teaching practice in IR from a decolonial, abolitionist and/or anti-racist perspectives do not necessarily abound. Nevertheless, this roundtable seeks to demonstrate that many educators in IR are implementing these liberationist practices in and through their teaching. The RT brings a few of them together offering a space to collaborate and think about the articulation between theories and practices, with the objective of collectively developing abolitionist, decolonial and anti-racist praxis in IR pedagogies. We hope that our RT will serve to light a flame that can be carried forward in academic spaces. Roundtable speakers: Alyssa Claire Arends on “Queer decolonial approaches to IR pedagogy”, Amira Abdelhamid and Marianela Barrios Aquino on “Ethical pedagogies based on the approaches of bell hooks, Cusicanqui and Freire, Althea Rivas will be looking at the relationship between politics, scholarship and practice in relation to race and racism in IR and the everyday realities of the academy, and Jenna Marshall and Sharri Plonski will be bringing together legacies and realities of liberationist movements from the plantations to Palestine into the teaching of IR, and weaving this with the everyday battles of marginalisation and silencing in academic spaces. Covenors: Heba Youssef and Leila Mohieb

Emotional Hierarchies in International Relations
Emotional Hierarchies in International Relations (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel explores emotional hierarchies within International Relations (IR) and addresses how they influence and affect different actors, states, institutions, as well as practices of governance in times of crisis and beyond. We seek to understand how political, social, legal, and strategic processes take advantage of or produce specific affect and/or emotions, as well as emotional subject positions which are embedded in history, culture, society, politics, and/or geography. In other words, how do emotions which are embedded in a social (and political) order lead to tensions between values, ideologies, traditions and/or relationships? Moreover, the papers in the panel investigate the dynamics between affect and/or emotions and power – whose emotions matter, how do structures of power trigger, repress, or support certain affects and/or emotions, and how are emotional hierarchies established, reinforced, mediated, or fought against. In so doing, we ask the following questions: 1) How are affects and/or emotions shaped, experienced, performed, regulated, or spread in contexts of IR, and specifically in situations where power hierarchies become visible. 2) How do these hierarchies reflect in what way emotions are gendered, classed, or racialised in social and/or political contexts. 3) How are emotions mediated and/or contested and what are the strategies used in doing so. 4) How are certain ways of feeling dis- or encouraged and what are the consequences of that. The papers included in this panel consider emotions within discourse, performances, as well as affective encounters of individuals or groups with governmental structures and law, identifying the consequences of these encounters on the right to certain feelings, on how emotions are expressed and embodied.

Framing domination and narratives of colonial control
Framing domination and narratives of colonial control (Colonial, Postcolonial and Decolonial Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Framing domination and narratives of colonial control

IPE of Finance
IPE of Finance (International Political Economy Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
The proposed panel will bring together leading scholars in the field of the IPE of finance. The five papers will be presented by a mix of established and junior scholars with a particular focus on explaining how financial governance is constituted by a range of public (central banks and regulatory agencies) and private actors (organised financial interests), and the key developments, challenges and boundaries they confront. The papers will provide analysis across a range of major jurisdictions (US, Eurozone, UK, Japan), different time periods (1960s/70s, global financial crisis, Covid pandemic, and 2022 gilt crisis), and will showcase a range of methods (archival, interviews, discourse analysis).

Interrogating security from a relational standpoint: perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE)
Interrogating security from a relational standpoint: perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (East Europe and Eurasian Security Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has brought security back on the political agenda of most Europeans and highlighted the fragility and deep inequality of the international order. Even though research on security has widened, military security and knowledge from the West still dominates the field because it plays into the hands of the elites of the world. This panel aims to amplify the diverse voices of Central and Eastern Europeans, especially when it comes to their security. We want to make a case not for one single conceptualisation of security but instead stress that we need contextualized and relational conceptualisations of security. Similarly, we see relational approaches on the rise in IR and beyond and see a need to explicitly link them to (critical) security studies. Therefore, to design a truly anti-colonial security architecture, we need to critically and relationally bring together the different (in)securities of a wide-range of regional actors and contexts, and consider the full spectrum of human security (physical, economic, social, and environmental).

Interrogating the 'wisdom' of counterterrorism methodologies
Interrogating the 'wisdom' of counterterrorism methodologies (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This set of panels critically engages with theories and methods that guide counterterrorism work.

Masculinities in Conflict and Peacebuilding
Masculinities in Conflict and Peacebuilding (Gendering International Relations Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
While research on the roles of militarised masculinities as well as on the impacts of armed conflict and peacebuilding on women and girls have attracted growing interest in the past decades, civilian masculinities in conflict and peace have been few and far between. Bringing together authors of a recent (March 2025) publication on the impacts of conflict, displacement and peacebuilding on civilian masculinities, the roundtable will discuss how masculinities are both shaped by and shape these processes. The contributions underscore the need to examine these masculinities by going beyond simplistic narratives, as well as recognise the continuing global reverberations of racialised colonial structures, of militarism and occupation, and of heteronormative patriarchy.

Military Assistance and Alliance Building
Military Assistance and Alliance Building (War Studies Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Military Assistance and Alliance Building

New Directions in Development
New Directions in Development (Global Politics and Development)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel brings together research on new directions within development studies.

Ordinary Affects of Global Reactionary Politics
Ordinary Affects of Global Reactionary Politics (Emotions in Politics and International Relations Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Emotions and affect have long been a topic of interest to those studying the global circulations of reactionary, far-right and/or fascist politics and political sensibilities. Studies that focus on how political parties, organisations, institutions, and media bodies constitute and articulate these politics by mobilising emotions such as fear, anxiety, and resentment are plenty. However, there is still too little attention paid to the ways in which micro, banal and ordinary processes produce attachments to reactionary politics at the molecular level (Bratich 2022). These attachments may involve under-the-radar affective experiences that reach beyond conventional loci of research on reactionary politics and can manifest through enjoyment, humour, laughter, play, disgust, envy, amongst others. Moreover, they may circulate outside of traditional media and political realms to shape reactionary political subjectivity through everyday encounters such as digital media, pop culture, literature, food, domesticity, etc. These circulations can find their way outside bounded national sites and can produce transversal and global networks of reaction and reactionary subjectivity. We take Kathleen Stewart’s work on “ordinary affect” (2007) as our starting point to conceptualise the role of affect in shaping global reactionary politics and to interrogate the emergence of reaction beyond the institutional, the national, and that which has been labeled the “extreme”. To do so, this panel brings together papers that look at diverse cases such as the weaponisation of affect as gendered punishment in the case of Shamima Begum; the everyday attachments to the White-Hetero Patriarchy in Hallmark movies; desire and enjoyment in far-right video game modding communities; reactionary politics of vulgarity in contemporary Britain; and the satirical humour of migrant communities in Germany.

Regulating Threats through Artificial Intelligence: Transformations in Governance and Security
Regulating Threats through Artificial Intelligence: Transformations in Governance and Security (International Studies and Emerging Technologies Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel explores the expanding role of AI and other advanced technologies in managing insecurities across diverse domains, from health and migration to finance and social services. As states and institutions increasingly rely on algorithms to address issues like antimicrobial resistance, border control, policing, and economic risk, these technologies have the potential to (re)shape governance architectures. On the one hand, AI tools promise increased efficiency and scope in the analysis of large datasets and various administrative tasks. On the other hand, widely debated risks related to accuracy, bias, and transparency, as well as implications for privileging logics of classification and quantification in contexts shaped by deep (racialized) hierarchy, cast doubt on the (ethical) use of these tools. Panelists will discuss whether algorithmic governance inadvertently produces new forms of insecurity, as AI systems privilege certain data sources and reinforce systemic inequities under the guise of neutrality. At the same time, the panel considers how algorithms affect political agency and how algorithms and AI create new sites of contestation and resistance. By examining AI-driven practices across multiple domains, the panel critically assesses how these technological solutions shape governance and security practices, globally and locally.

Representation, Legitimacy, and The Future of the International System
Representation, Legitimacy, and The Future of the International System (International Law and Politics Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
It is clear from ongoing global challenges, including climate change, continuing conflicts, and the numerous other threats to a sustainable and more peaceful future, that the international institutions and structures we have are not suitable for purpose. The anxiety we are seeing within the international system can be directly connected to structural inequalities, and a historical lack of justice. The limited nature of representation, and the inherent inequalities this causes, has led to growing calls for reform. The question is how do we reform current institutions? Or do we need to start anew? What comes first, do we have to change the way we think about the world in order to change the structures within it, or alternatively do we have to change the structures in order to change the way we think about the world? This roundtable brings together a collection of scholars to start a conversation about how we can challenge the current international and global structures, and whether we need to change the current institutions or replace them with something new. Can we imagine an alternative future or futures where the chances of peace are increased? Roundtable Questions 1. How do current approaches to understanding international institutions and structures limit the possibilities for change or reform? 2. What changes would you make to current institutions and why? 3. Do we need to think about replacing current institutions? 4. What possibilities are there for the creation of new international institutions? 5. What are the risks and rewards of reimagining international institutions? 6. Where should we start in our reimagining of international institutions?

Researching in a world on fire: What are we doing?
Researching in a world on fire: What are we doing? (Environment and Climate Politics Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel is a reflection on the role of academics in a world that is facing multiple crises. Participants share an interest in rethinking research and teaching to overcome the multiple, overlapping harms that academia perpetuates. To that end, papers accept that the current research model is harmful, and look to explore alternative ways of teaching, researching, engaging with people, and travelling in the context of climate change and global injustices.

Rethinking war knowledges: Weapons, practices, peacekeepers
Rethinking war knowledges: Weapons, practices, peacekeepers (Orphan Papers track)
16:45 - 18:15
Rethinking war knowledges: Weapons, practices, peacekeepers

Shaping International Order? Opportunities and challenges to the EU’s global influence
Shaping International Order? Opportunities and challenges to the EU’s global influence (European Security Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel will examine the European Union’s role in influencing debates about the future shape of international order by comparing how the EU and actors in other regions narrate, negotiate, and put into practice ordering processes and systems. Contributors analyse responses across multiple live issues from actors in multiple regions. They explore how actors understand and use configurations of history, memory, and identity, alongside interest-based and transactional logics, when advancing arguments about how order should be organised. They illuminate whether concepts used in EU narrative, such as sustainability or development, have any meaning in other regions where alternative concepts are routinely used. If the EU is to play a central role in the shaping of order in the coming decades, this panel provides explanations of what perspectives and claims actors inside and outside the EU must negotiate and form dialogue around.

Simulation in IR pedagogy: Promises and perils
Simulation in IR pedagogy: Promises and perils (Learning and Teaching Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Simulation in IR pedagogy: Promises and perils

Sovereignty, democracy and protest movements in global politics
Sovereignty, democracy and protest movements in global politics (Orphan Papers track)
16:45 - 18:15
Sovereignty, democracy and protest movements in global politics

The Politics and Practice of Human Rights and Humanitarianism
The Politics and Practice of Human Rights and Humanitarianism (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Papers engage with operational and conceptual challenges to efforts to implement human rights

The global dynamics of counterterrorism
The global dynamics of counterterrorism (Critical Studies on Terrorism Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
This panel brings together papers that analyse and interrogate the global dynamics of counterterrorism.

Theoretical approaches to peacebuilding
Theoretical approaches to peacebuilding (Peacekeeping, Peacebuilding and Human Rights Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Examining non-western models of peace building, approaches to the Liberal peace, illiberal peace, and the relations between cultural heritage and peace building efforts

UK Defence at a Crossroads: Place, Policy, and Global Influence in the Strategic Defence Review
UK Defence at a Crossroads: Place, Policy, and Global Influence in the Strategic Defence Review (Security Policy and Practice)
16:45 - 18:15
The UK Strategic Defence Review (SDR) is scheduled for publication in the first half of 2025. The Review received over 3,000 responses from across the Ministry of Defence, services, academia, think tanks, and the public. It is the first defence review of its scale in the new security environment, reflecting likewise the significant progress Defence has made in adopting human-centred approaches to security. It also comes within the broader policy context of a Labour government focused on devolution and regional approaches. This panel examines the SDR to understand what it reveals about the future of UK Defence, Britain’s role globally, and its impact on the UK itself. Key questions include: What role does place-based decision-making have in UK Defence? How should the UK respond to the current security environment? How far can the UK spread itself globally and what should be prioritised? What are the implications of a second term President Trump for UK Defence and NATO? In what ways does Human Security enhance the UK’s defence posture, and how can it be better prioritised going forward?

Understanding Identities in the Middle East: The Role of Structure and Agency
Understanding Identities in the Middle East: The Role of Structure and Agency (International Studies of the Mediterranean, Middle East & Asia Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Western perspectives on identities in the Middle East often lack nuance. Much academic research and media frame these identities as victims of authoritarianism, with limited or no agency. This roundtable brings together the voices of five researchers from the region to offer a more sophisticated view. It explores how identities have evolved under colonial and authoritarian structures and how they have been shaped and reshaped by local and regional media, social movements, and neoliberal development paradigms. Using various epistemological approaches, the speakers unpack the evolution and formation of identities while accounting for the structure and/or agency in their assertion. By situating their analyses within historical and social contexts, they demonstrate how identities have evolved and what acts people have taken to reclaim them in Iraq, Syria, and Palestine. Their contributions challenge the reductionist views prevalent in academia and media, offering complex insights about identities in the Middle East.

Why Wars Occur and How They End?
Why Wars Occur and How They End? (War Studies Working Group)
16:45 - 18:15
Why Wars Occur and How They End?