ISA's 42nd Annual Convention - Chicago 2001
Theme: International Relations and the New Inequality: Power, Wealth and the Transformation of Global Society at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century
February 20th-24th, 2001, at the Chicago Hilton & Towers; Chicago, Illinois, USA
CRAIG MURPHY, President -
MUSTAPHA PASHA & DAVID BLANEY, Program Chairs
International Relations and the New Inequality: Power, Wealth and the Transformation of Global Society at the Beginning of the Twenty-First Century
Democratization, the empowerment of women, and the emergence of global civil society have all been aspects of the last decades of the twentieth century. Yet, at the same time, inequalities of wealth and power across occupational classes and across the world's regions may have grown more rapidly than ever before. While, at times, superimposed upon earlier North-South patterns, the new inequality involves both old and new agents, structures, and institutions. Statistics on health, literacy, employment, internet access, and patterns of material consumption tell us something about the nature and consequences of the new inequality. Equally, however, many observers see connections between new patterns of regional and group inequality and the many kinds of instability, conflict, and insecurity of special concern at the beginning of the twenty-first century: civil war, ethnic conflict, population displacement, pandemic, intercivilizational violence and terror, neighborhood crime and fear.
The new patterns of inequality pose both analytical and moral challenges to the international relations community. Do they merely reflect a continuation of past trends or are we facing inequalities of new kinds and degrees? If the current context offers us features that are new, are our analytical tools adequate? Can we capture the multiple dimensions and implications of this new inequality? If we can come to grasp the consequences of the new inequality, how are we to respond? What institutional forms and resources are appropriate? What political and ethical re-thinking is required? Thus, the 2001 ISA theme focuses our attention first and foremost on substantive questions of classification, theoretical understanding, and policy response.
This theme also challenges us to reflect seriously on the state of international studies and the many disciplines represented there. Many scholars have commented on the degree to which the new inequality has come as a surprise to scholars whose intellectual tools were honed in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Why were we so relatively unprepared? What are the implications of constituting the new inequality as an object of knowledge? What is the relationship of inequalities in knowledge production and inequalities across region, ethnic group, culture, gender and class? Do we have the tools to understand whether the new inequality is irreversible?
We ask ISA members to reflect on the new patterns of inequality within all of our current research programs. The issue should lead us to reflection on such perennial topics as the nation-state and the state system, modes of international organization, the causes and consequences of organized and disorganized violence, and the character of the world economy. It also raises newer issues: migration, transnational epidemics, humanitarian intervention, international communication and information technology, and problems of post-development, to name a few. We imagine responses from the empirical and the policy analytical to the theological, the philosophical, and the critical. Further, we hope the conference will bring together a wide group of social scientists and natural scientists, and orthodox and heterodox practitioners, to further expand the ISA's interdisciplinary range.
Finally, we hope to give special attention to issues of higher education, issues directly connected to the central professional responsibilities of so most ISA members: How do the new patterns of inequality affect educational institutions in different parts of the world serving different groups of students? Do these patterns affect what we can teach and what we can study? What obligations do we have to help students understand this aspect of their world?
