Section News
FPA Looking Forward to San Francisco
Program Notes: April 3-6, 2013 are the dates of our upcoming ISA Convention in San Francisco. VP/Program Chair Steve Saideman has worked hard to assemble the FPA contributions to the program, which include 94 Panels and Roundtables that we either sponsor or co-sponsor, and a poster session in conjunction with our reception. The Section is also involved—thanks to the leadership of Jim Scott and Klaus Brummer—with an innovative panel (“Why Theories of International Relations Need Theories of Foreign Policy”).
Business Meeting: Our annual business meeting will be held Friday April 5 at 12:30pm in “Imperial B” at the Hilton. Among other items of business at our meeting will be elections for next year’s Executive Council. Steve Saideman will become Section President; we will elect a Vice President/Program Chair for the 2014 convention in Toronto, and three at-large members.
Call For Nominations: If you are interested in serving as an officer, or know of someone who would be willing to serve, please email this information to Steve right away (SteveSaideman@cunet.carleton.ca). Nominations will be accepted for the three at-large officer positions and vice president/program chair. In order to be an officer, an individual must be a member of the FPA section in good standing. Self-nominations are welcome. If you decide to nominate someone else, please speak with the individual prior to the nomination to get his or her agreement. Nominations must be received no later than Monday, February 25, 2013.
Distinguished Scholar Award and Reception: We will honor Professor Janice Gross Stein as our Distinguished Scholar with a special roundtable on Friday, April 5 at 4pm in “Continental 4” at the Hilton. Participants in the Roundtable will include Michael Barnett, , James Davis, Fen Hampson, Jack Levy and Andrea Paras. A reception in her honor will follow at 7:00 p.m. in “Continental 4.” We will co-sponsor this reception with our colleagues in the Scientific Study of International Process (SSIP) and Political Demography sections. Last year’s inaugural reception with these two sections proved to be quite a success, so we are excited to continue this new tradition to honor Professor Stein and thank our many friends who help underwrite the event. The reception will also feature a poster session, and the usual eats and drinks. Please plan on joining us!
Call For Nominations: We are soliciting nominations for our Distinguished Scholar Award to be given at the annual convention in Toronto in 2014. Self-nominations are welcome. Nominations should include a letter of support and the nominee's C.V. As a general guideline, nominees should have a substantial record of publishing in the field and service to the section. Please send nominations via email to Steve Saideman (SteveSaideman@cunet.carleton.ca) by no later than Monday, April 1, 2013. The recipient will be selected by the section's six-member Executive Council. A panel highlighting the distinguished scholar's contributions to the field of foreign policy analysis and the broader profession will be organized for the meeting in Toronto. In addition, the distinguished scholar will be honored at a reception where he or she will be presented with a plaque.
Alexander George Award: The winner of the 2013 Alexander George Graduate Student paper award is Sibel Oktay for "Unpacking Coalitions: Extreme Foreign Policy by Coalition Governments in Europe Between 1994 and 2004,” which was delivered at the San Diego convention. The George Award will be presented at the business meeting. The George Award committee is composed of the at-large members of the Executive Council: Jarrod Hayes (committee chair), Klaus Brummer and Jim Scott.
Message from Klaus Brummer and James M. Scott, Officers-at-Large and Co-Coordinators for Innovative Panels and Working Groups
FPA is soliciting ideas for innovative panels and working groups on either purely FPA themes or in conjunction with another section. Ideas can relate to the conference theme or any other pertinent and thought-provoking topic. One example and possible topic for an Innovative Panel that was discussed in FPA is a panel on the topic “Why theories of IR need theories of foreign policy,” which might involve scholars from each area of focus in a discussion of the relative merits, synergies, and tensions between more systemic approaches and more actor-centric approaches. For Working Groups, one example and possible topic that was discussed in FPA is to engage foreign policy scholars from all over the globe in an exchange on the possible “boundedness”, and hence restricted applicability and explanatory power, of mainstream (American) FPA theories (e.g., with respect to the political system or culture), thereby catalyzing theoretical innovation in the field of FPA.
Please send your ideas for Innovative Panels to James (j.scott@tcu.edu) and for Working Groups to Klaus (Klaus.Brummer@polwiss.phil.uni-erlangen.de). Include your name, contact information, the title of your proposed panel/workshop and a brief description. We are ready to help you develop your ideas and facilitate participation by others. In order to enable us to assist you, please submit your idea two weeks prior to the deadlines posted below.
ISA provides the following information on working groups and innovative panels:
Innovative panels may include a debate format or a "town hall" meeting. An innovative panel could involve short panel presentations and audience discussions about a particularly timely or controversial subject with a moderator to facilitate the dialogue. Other possibilities may involve the use of technologies to broadcast to a greater audience or involve panelists from distant locales in the discussion. Ultimately, this is an opportunity for a little creativity and experimentation -- to push beyond the traditional panel format. Innovative panels are also available on a competitive basis. In addition to the quality of the panel proposal itself, we will consider diversity in section representation and costs associated with the panel. ISA will designate a special room in a high-traffic area at the conference site for the innovative panels and provide good promotion of the panels -- both in advance of the meeting and at the conference. We offer basic technology services and special room set-ups for these panels and facilitate these panels on your behalf with ISA's program chairs. Any equipment or technical support required above and beyond what ISA provides, including adapters or equipment that is not compliant with U.S. electrical standards or formats, will be the sole financial responsibility of the Panel Chair and/or Section. We encourage you to share your suggestions and ideas with us as you develop your panel proposal. Final innovative panel proposals must be submitted by May 15, 2012.
Working Groups are organized so that participants meet at three times during the conference: (1) for a full day on the Tuesday before traditional panels begin, (2) midway through the conference for a briefer 1-2 hour meeting, and (3) a final 1-2 hour meeting toward the end of the conference. ISA Headquarters assists with the room arrangements, technology needs, lunch/coffee breaks for the Tuesday all-day meeting, and the facilitation of a blog for the WG in advance of the meeting.
Working Groups are available on a competitive basis. In addition to the quality of the proposal itself, we will consider diversity of section representation, thematic integration across sections, and linkages to the program theme. We encourage you to share your suggestions and ideas with us as you develop your Working Group proposal. Final Working Groups proposals must be submitted by June 15, 2012.
To learn more about innovative panels and working groups, please see http://www.isanet.org/annualconvention/specialty.html#innovative.
Message about FPA @ ISA-Midwest from James M. Scott, ISA-Midwest Liaison
This year, FPA will again co-sponsor the ISA-Midwest meeting in St. Louis (November 1-4, 2012). I would like to encourage you to submit paper proposals directly to the Program Chair, Dr. Sara Mitchell of the University of Iowa (sara-mitchell@uiowa.edu). The call for papers is available at ISA-MW website: http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=ISAMW&p=/Callforpaper/
ISA-Midwest is a thriving ISA regional conference with more than 200 participants annually, held in downtown St. Louis in the shadow of the Gateway Arch. The conference has a nice blend of faculty and graduate student participation. It features presentations by the ISA President, a luncheon honoring the winner of the ISA-Midwest Quincy Wright Distinguished Scholar Award, several paper award competitions, professional development panels, and a diverse array of panels and papers. If you have ideas for panels or roundtables, please contact me at j.scott@tcu.edu and I will make every effort to facilitate your proposal.
We also want to draw your attention to a couple additional pieces of information. First, the ISA-Midwest offers a significant subsidy for graduate students who participate in the conference and stay at the conference hotel. These subsidies are awarded by application following the conference. Second, papers presented by graduate students at the ISA-MW are eligible for the FPA section’s Alexander George Graduate Student Paper Competition. These opportunities make ISA-MW is an excellent avenue for graduate student conference participation, engagement in our profession, and source of good feedback on and attention to scholarly work.
Message from 2013 Program Chair Stephen Saideman
The deadline for submitting paper and panel proposals for the San Francisco meeting is June 1, 2012. The call for papers and a description of the conference theme is posted at http://www.isanet.org/annual_convention/call-for-papers.html. You should submit proposals via myISA.
In addition to encouraging submissions for workshops and innovate panels, I'd also like to encourage paper, poster, panel, and roundtable submissions for San Francisco. I especially want to encourage graduate students to submit proposals so that they can be considered for the Alexander George Award after presenting the paper in San Francisco. Graduate students, in particular, may want to apply for the poster session associated with the FPA reception as a way to increase the visibility of their work.
Just a couple of reminders about the process of building the program: (1) Submitting fully-formed panels is a great way to go. The phrase "fully-formed" is key here; five papers plus a discussant and chair, and please make sure that the panel members are fully committed to attending the conference. Piecing panels back together that fall apart as the conference approaches can be extremely challenging. (2) I want to strongly encourage individual paper proposals, and also urge you to "check" a second section for your paper proposal as this makes it far more likely we can find a home for your paper. Co-sponsoring panels with other sections is a way to increase our footprint at the convention, and when you check a second and even third section for your proposal this helps in the process. (3) Please be generous with me in your willingness to serve as a panel chair and/or discussant. These are central roles at the convention, we always need people to help out in this capacity, and very much appreciate your willingness to perform this professional activity along with everything else you do. Keep in mind that graduate students can serve as chairs but not as discussants.
FPA @ 2012 San Diego Conference
The Foreign Policy Analysis Section was busy as ever at the San Diego annual convention. Once again FPA is the second largest section of ISA, with a gain of 50 members over last year to a current total of 826 members. The section sponsored or co-sponsored 96 panels, 2 poster sessions, 1 innovative panel and 1 working group at this year’s conference, representing a wide range of research and inquiry. Thank you to all of the panelists, chairs, and discussants who helped make the conference such a great success.
The section held its annual business meeting at the convention as well. The new slate of officers for the 2012-2013 cycle is listed below. Our special thanks to Past President Laura Neack, who rotates off the Council, and to Pat Haney for his excellent work as Section Chair. We also thank this past year’s Officers-at-Large, Amy Below, Jarrod Hayes and Trevor Rubenzer for all of their hard work, as well as Cameron Thies for his work as Vice-President and Program Chair for the San Diego conference.
The section recognized Professor Yaacov Vertzberger as its Distinguished Scholar for 2012. A panel of friends and colleagues led the audience in recognizing and thanking Professor Vertzberger for his contributions to the field and to the Academy. We then joined with our colleagues from the SSIP and Political Demography sections for a joint reception to honor Professor Vertzberger.
This year was our first reception held in partnership with SSIP and Political Demography. We would like to thank Brandon Prins (SSIP) and Jacek Kugler (Political Demography) for being excellent new partners. We continued SSIP’s practice of incorporating a poster session into the reception, which gives great visibility to those who present. We had over 300 people in attendance at the new joint reception, which was a great success by all accounts. In addition to SSIP and Political Demography, make sure to thank our sponsors for continuing to support us!
- Keesing’s World News Archives (Jonathan Hixon)
- Center for the Study of Civil War, PRIO (Scott Gates)
- Rowman and Littlefield (Susan McEachern)
- Routledge/Taylor and Francis (Michael King)
- Congressional Quarterly (Jonathan Mason)
- University of Iowa Department of Political Science (Cameron Thies)
- University of Tennessee Department of Political Science (Brandon Prins)
- University of Tennessee Howard H. Baker Jr. Center (Brandon Prins)
We look forward to continuing our partnership with SSIP and Political Demography as we plan for next year’s reception in San Francisco.
