The Politics of International Relations
CEEISA had invited the North American ISA to join for hosting a convention together. It took place in Ljubljana at the Institute for International relations of the Faculty of Social Sciences from 23-25 June 2016. It is the second joint convention of this kind.
Welcome speeches were given by Rado Bohinc, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana, Stefano Guzzini, President of CEEISA, and Mark Boyer, Secretary General of ISA. Keynote speaker of the convention was Michael Zürn (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin) who spoke about ‘The Politicization of International Relations’.
The years’ theme ‘The Politics of International Relations’ was inspired by the program chairs Wolfgang Wagner and Glenn Palmer, which wanted to tackle the different understandings of politics when applied to the domestic or international realm. In their call for papers, they had underlined that the “inside/outside-divide” has been remarkably persistent in different notions of political contestation within states, on the one hand, and among states, on the other hand. Whereas domestic politics is widely understood as a struggle between competing political ideologies, often organized as political parties, students of international relations tend to assume a functionalist perspective that emphasizes the technical nature of collective action problems and reduces the political element in negotiations over institutional remedies to conflicts among states with different interests, rather than diverging visions of justice and political order.
The news of the Brexit vote reached the participants during the convention. A special public panel was convened to air some concerns and issues about the implications of the vote, which for quite some at the meeting may have direct personal consequences.
