International Responsibilities and State Interests
ISA-West Annual Meeting 2010
Los Angeles, CA, September 24-25, 2010
Caron Gentry, Abilene Christian University, President
Douglas Becker, University of Southern California, Program Chair

ISA-West 2010 Call For Papers

ISA-West 2010 will be held in Los Angeles, California on September 24-25, 2010. The 2010 conference will be co-sponsored by the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, and the Active Learning Section of the International Studies Association. It will also continue its collaboration with the International Ethics Section of the ISA and Women in International Security in its ever-expanding drive to provide increasing knowledge of the field of international studies. It will present cutting edge research, informative roundtables, fascinating and engaging speakers, informative pedagogical exercises, and practical applications of International Relations scholarship. ISA-West serves as an interdisciplinary forum in all areas within international politics, with a particular eye toward relations and comparative politics. ISA-West also welcomes pedagogical proposals, roundtables, and full panel proposals. Panel proposals should have 3-4 papers, a chair and a discussant. The 2010 conference will particularly examine issues of ethics, law, diplomacy, and cooperation in International Relations.

It is in that spirit that we introduce the ISA-West 2010 conference theme: “International Responsibilities and National Interests.” While still grounded in the basic principle of state interest, this theme explores how states are bounded by the international community. With an emphasis on state cooperation through international law, ethics, diplomacy (both public and private), and intergovernmental organizational cooperation, it seeks to understand how states frame their interests in the context of international responsibilities. It additionally seeks to understand how non-state actors, such as NGOs, corporations, and individual actors have a fundamental impact on state policy.
The theme also invites participants to reflect on the creation, implementation, and continuation of these international responsibilities. What constitutes an international responsibility? What role do international treaties and conventions, norms of behavior, the framing of a responsibility, and the state power to enforce these responsibilities play? What constitutes a just or unjust war? How do responsibilities embed themselves into state leaders’ perceptions of interests? Is normative absolutism in contrast with the cost/benefit analysis which seems to be indicated in the concept of state interest? What are the consequences of states which do not adhere to established international responsibilities?

Additionally, ISA-West will introduce two new programs this year. The first of these programs is a join ISA-West/ALIAS Teacher Training Program. We will help graduate students and junior faculty develop their courses from syllabus construction and book choices through the instructional techniques, and finally to the final examinations. Al all-day program the day before the conference, we will conduct this session just off-site at the University of Southern California.
The second of these programs is the Inaugural Undergraduate Research Symposium and Competition. Undergraduates (or first year graduate students who prepared their work as an undergraduate) are invited to submit their work (as well as an application for the competition) for consideration. The best of these will be invited to present their work at a special panel at ISA-West.
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 international responsibilities. 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 2011. Also, in 2010, 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 (which includes undergraduates selected for the conference through the competition. The deadline for the conference is May 1, 2010

Please submit your proposals, with full contact information and abstracts, to isawest@gmail.com.

We encourage everyone to stay at this beautiful downtown hotel. You can find information about the hotel at Westin Bonaventure Los Angeles. Rates are $154/singles and $214 for suites. Book early, as there are a limited number of rooms at this rate!

To see information about last year's conference, click this link.