Call for Abstracts: Millennium Conference, 19-20 October, 2013

30 May 2013, 0907 EDT

Millennium. Journal of International Studies
Annual Conference
“Rethinking the Standard(s) of Civilisation(s) in International Relations”
19-20 October 2013
London School of Economics and Political Science
Deadline for abstracts: 7 June, 2013

The theme of this year’s conference will focus on the standard(s) of civilisation(s) in International Relations. In recent years, there has been a renewed scholarly interest in the concept of ‘the standard of civilisation’ in examining international norms, practices and policies entrenched in world politics, including international law, human rights, the status of women, good governance and globalisation, global markets, the EU policy of ‘membership conditionality’, and state-building. These are only some of the key aspects of international relations that illustrate the crucial relationship between civilisation and standards of conduct in global politics.

In addition to these topics, the conference will ask crucial questions about western modernity and Eurocentrisism in international relations, democracy promotion, civilisational discourses and identities, the rise of Asia, postcoloniality and globalisation, the eurozone crisis and market civilisation, war and genocide, and empire and civilisation.

In contrast to mainstream International Relations theories, the conference seeks to highlight the normative asymmetries of power and hierarchies embedded in ‘civilisational’ practices, norms and discourses of global politics. In doing so, the conference aims at critically engaging with the concept of the standard of civilisation and investigating further the ways in which it remains relevant to the study of international relations today.

Confirmed speakers:
Keynote Speaker: John Hobson (University of Sheffield)
Opening and Closing Panels:
Brett Bowden (University of Western Sydney)
Edward Keene (University of Oxford)
Shogo Suzuki (University of Copenhagen)

Individuals interested in presenting a paper are requested to submit a 300 word abstract to: millennium@lse.ac.uk by 7 June, 2013. Submissions for panels are also welcome. A selection of the conference papers will be published in Millennium: Journal of International Studies, volume 42, no. 3.

Image source.

Dan Nexon

Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.

He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.

He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.