We are pleased to announce the 2009 ISA-West Conference

The Human Consequences of State Political Action

ISA-West Annual Meeting 2009
San Francisco, CA, September 25-26, 2009

Laura Sjoberg, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, President
Caron Gentry, Abilene Christian University, Program Chair

ISA-West 2009 Call For Papers

ISA-West 2009 will be held in San Francisco, California on September 25-26, 2009. The 2009 conference will continue ISA-West’s work with the International Ethics Section of the ISA, the Active Learning in International Studies Section of the ISA, and Women in International Security to bring in exciting roundtables, knowledgeable speakers, and practical applications of International Relations scholarship. As always, ISA-West welcomes submissions from all areas within international relations and comparative politics across disciplines. ISA-West also welcomes pedagogical proposals, roundtables, and full panel proposals.  Panel proposals should have 3-4 papers, a chair and a discussant. The 2009 conference will also continue ISA-West’s scholarly and activist exploration of questions of ethics in International Relations.
 
It is in that spirit that we introduce the ISA-West 2009 conference theme: “The Human Consequences of State Political Action.” This theme calls for papers that deconstruct the abstraction of state-decision-making and asks scholars to discuss the realities and horrors resulting from state action in a number of areas:  from war, civil conflict, and state terrorism to the restriction of civil rights and liberties to economic issues such as debt forgiveness, foreign aid, and health policy.  Instead of engaging in the language of rationality and capability, collateral damage and strategic target, and market ebb and flow this theme invites contributors to write from ‘the other side’ and engage in what happens to people, not just ‘civilians’ or ‘citizens,’ or ‘consumers’ because of states’ decision-making in global politics.

The theme also invites participants to think about the ethical dimensions of policies across international relations as they relate to and impact people’s lives. How do we calculate the justice of a given international intervention? Does such a calculation necessarily involve weighing the impacts on the lives of people in the area of the intervention? What are the ethical concerns that should be dealt with when we see global politics as a forum not only for state interaction but for human interaction?

We invite proposals for papers and panels that seek both to shed light on the challenges and to explore just resolutions to them, and look forward to continuing ISA-West’s forum for discussions of ethics in global politics. We also look forward to ISA-West’s substantive and methodological diversity.  

Please email your proposals to isawest@gmail.com <mailto:isawest@gmail.com> . When you do, please include your name, contact information, institutional affiliation, a title, an abstract, and whether you are faculty, a graduate student, an undergraduate student, or none of the above. Faculty and persons with equivalent policy experience will be asked to serve as chairs and discussants. Further, if you submit a proposal to ISA-West, please be certain that you can attend if accepted. Participants dropping after September 1 in the absence of an emergency will not be invited to participate in ISA-West 2010. New in 2009, there will be a 5% registration fee discount for persons from universities bringing five or more persons to ISA-West, and a 10% discount for persons from universities bringing ten or more persons. Finally, you must register for the conference to be eligible to present. The deadline for the conference is May 1, 2009.

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