EISA’s Call for Sections: International Relations in World Society

Call for Section Proposals

7 – 10 September 2016, 

Yaşar University, Izmir, Turkey

International relations always take place in a dense social environment, and like this social environment they are the result of a complex historical evolution. Flourishing subfields such as international political sociology and the historical sociology of international relations bear witness to the increasing need to reflect on both the way in which international relations are linked to, and embedded in, a wider social environment, and on how contemporary international relations need to be reflected upon as an outcome of specific historical constellations.

The interest in historical international relations has motivated debates, among others, on international relations as being a decidedly modern phenomenon, on the ‘expansion’ of international society, on uneven and combined development’, etc. The link between international relations and their social environment has been discussed both in light of various concepts and theories of society (world society, international society), as well as in terms of  international relations constituting a form of social practice or practices.

We invite contributions that contribute to understanding the way in which contemporary international relations are embedded in world society and also welcome historically oriented explorations in this respect. In terms of discussions about International Relations as a discipline, the aim is to explore the grounds on which an independence of international relations as a specific form of social relations can be observed.

While participants are invited to respond to the conference theme in particular, proposals on all aspects of international relations will be considered. We accordingly invite contributions from all areas of international studies, and particularly encourage inter- and cross-disciplinary scholarship. The academic programme for the conference will be organized in the usual format of sections composed of panels. A section may consist of either five or ten 105-minute panel sessions during the conference.

The tasks for a section chair include:

• proposing a section around a theme; populating some preliminary panels at the proposal stage; maintaining a balance between established and emerging scholars, and postgraduate students;

• composing the rest of the section’s programme, by selecting papers that were proposed in response to the call for papers;

• identifying panel chairs and discussants;

• taking overall responsibility for the actual execution of their section’s contribution to the conference programme.

Proposals for sections should include:

1. Name, institutional affiliation, EISA membership number and email address of the proposed section chair(s) – maximum two chairs per section.

2. Proposed section title and summary of its theme(s) and rationale(s) (no more than 250 words). Please state here if your proposed section is to contain 5 or 10 panels.

3. Tentative indication of possible panels. We do not require a full list of panels, nor a list of paper titles or participants, but we would like at least 3 suggested themes for a 5-panel proposal and 6 suggested themes for a 10-panel proposal, which would show what the Section convenor(s) hope would be covered by the section at the conference.

Proposals must be submitted online via ConfTool: https://www.conftool.pro/paneuropean2016/.

The closing date for section proposals is midnight (24:00 CET) on 25 October 2015.