International Political Sociology

Published on behalf of the International Studies Association

Edited by:
Didier Bigo, R.B.J. Walker

International Political Sociology (IPS), responds to the need for more productive collaboration among political sociologists, international relations specialists and sociopolitical theorists. It is especially concerned with challenges arising from contemporary transformations of social, political, and global orders given the statist forms of traditional sociologies and the marginalization of social processes in many approaches to international relations. IPS is committed to theoretical innovation, new modes of empirical research and the geographical and cultural diversification of research beyond the usual circuits of European and North-American scholarship.

TopNews and Announcements

CALL FOR PAPERS - 2010-2011

International Political Sociology is the fifth journal supported by the International Studies Association and its inception responds to the need for more productive collaboration among political sociologists, international relations specialists and sociopolitical theorists. Its uniqueness lies in the combined initiative of researchers from Europe, Canada, the USA and Australia to make this journal a new venue for theoretical and empirical innovation in the field of international relations. IPS strongly encourages transdisciplinary analysis of contemporary world phenomena by offering a meeting space for scholars from all over the world. Issues of special concern are the challenges arising from contemporary transformations of social, political, and global orders given the statist forms of traditional sociologies and the marginalization of social processes in many approaches to international relations. IPS draws especially on traditions of historical, legal, economic and political sociology, as well as on the burgeoning literature on socio-political theory. It is committed to theoretical innovation, new modes of empirical research and the geographical and cultural diversification of research beyond the usual circuits of European and North-American scholarship.

Topics for special issue or running themes

To specify some of the interests of the IPS board, we have set up a forum in which new topics can be suggested and in addition we currently welcome both theoretical and empirical explorations of the following issues:

IR Theory and the sociology of the discipline

We are especially interested in proposals that consider the sociology of the discipline of international relations, its institutionalization, its tradition of "great names" and the classification of traditional "schools". The aim is to reach a better understanding of the discipline's development in some part of the world and not in others, of the link between subjective ideas, values, behaviors and objective professional positions within academic institutions, of the relation between academics and political professionals, and furthermore why the self-understanding of the discipline seems to be in perpetual debate and crisis. Of particular interest is the analysis of the institutionalization of the concept of IR as a form of specific recruitment in a discipline or as a discipline, and/or from the spread of some 'schools of thought' and the specific curricula required for courses, in each case trying not to limit the study to one national tradition. We may accept manuscripts focusing on the sociology of the discipline of IR through the strategies of one of the founding fathers, but only if avoiding re-producing a general history of ideas and only if the argument includes a consideration of the texts' social capital and their own trajectory as well as their links with broader social structures and institutions in economy, law or security.

Major works of various sociologists and their impact on the study of IR

We welcome articles offering reflections upon major works of various sociologists, for example Bauman, Beck, Bourdieu, Foucault, Luhmann and Tilly, and of their impact on society beyond the state, globalization and other processes of social change. Within this framework, we also accept proposals dealing with issues of methods and methodology employed within the field of international relations and political sociology, and reflections on the sociology of knowledge and reflexivity of the discipline (sociology of sociology).

Critical discussion of the notions of frontiers, boundaries and limits

We are interested in theoretical reflections on the notions of limits, lines, frontiers, boundaries, either through a geographical vision of state and society, analyzing the relation to networks and mobility, and/or through a theoretical approach of the notion of classification, knowledge, and discipline.

International Political Anthropology of mobility, globalization and confinement zones

We want to promote detailed articles looking into transit-places: for example airports, ports, train station and their related confinement zones. In this respect, a particular focus on places of detention and practices of secrecy would be welcome. Encouraged topics are analyses of transit-places/traveling places as relevant sites for assessing freedom of movement, capitalist economies, security technologies and detention of foreigners. Of further interest are also airports and passengers, as viewed from a global society perspective, and also from a governmentality viewpoint; or from an international political economy or empirical sociology viewpoint; or from a sociology of migration or of policing viewpoint.

Prevention and precaution: securization/desecurization, emancipation, resistance and freedom practices

We want to encourage further debate concerning the deployment of scientific knowledge in an international context and its supporting claims about "new emergencies" and "new certainties" in the face of potential "catastrophes". For example, how are the notions of prevention and precaution used in this context? How far is it possible to monitor perceived futures through simulation? Is it coherent to apply the same reasoning in relation to claims about the environment and to claims about defense issues? We would like to see further analysis comparing arguments concerning prevention, prediction, precaution, risk and so on.

We are also interested in theoretical analysis of sites of resistance, emancipation or desecuritization, and we are interested in cases where these forms of resistance have been exercised, either through laws or arts or counter technologies and not only through mass mobilization.

Implementation of international law in a comparative perspective and impact of international law on the claims of sovereignty or primacy of national interests

We want strengthen the analysis of contemporary status of claims about states of emergency and states of exception, derogatory measures, and routinized technologies of surveillance and control. How great is the compliance of various states to international law and Human Rights norms? What are the relations between international, regional and national laws and courts? Do we have specific transnational actors structuring the reasoning within the field? We are interested also in the impact of international norms and practices into specific national or regional areas, and vice versa, and we are especially interested into the sociology of the emergent agencies and authorities which are giving voice to these claims.

Religion and secularism: the vision of the Enlightenment. The post-colonial discussion and religious beliefs

We are interested in research on xenophobia, discrimination, exclusion and/or profiling of groups by governments or other groups, and how religion is framed as an argument for or against these practices. We are also interested in the debates on secularism, multiculturalism, and postcolonial discussions concerning enlightenment.

Migration, Diaspora and Transnational Politics

We invite papers that explore the various ways in which political dynamics around the globe have been transformed by globalization, new patterns of human mobility, and the development of innovative transnational social networks. While these new political processes are often rooted in communities and networks unrestricted by geographic location, the politics they entail frequently remain local in orientation. These patterns may be seen in the new roles of diasporas in politics, where accelerating and expanding patterns of human mobility have resulted in significant populations that identify with a particular community and remain politically engaged in issues related to that group but are not resident in the "homeland" of that community at any given time. The question of how politics has been transformed by new forms of participation by increasingly mobile, transnational populations; however, has received little scholarly attention. This running theme in IPS will fill that gap and round out the field of globalization and migration studies by systematically investigating the links between politics and human mobility. We welcome submissions that explore both the theoretical and empirical dimensions of global migration and transnational politics.

These themes are not exclusive and other possibilities include works on global patterns of urbanization, international policing, military sociology, political opinion and communication, the sociology of culture, the sociology of political movements, and the transnational effects of the reshaping of national, cultural and religious identities.

Beyond these suggestions IPS is open to receive any manuscript of quality, original, theoretically provocative and grounded in specific fieldwork. The style may be different from the traditional US academic approach, but has to be in a scholarly format.

Books and Journals Reviews

Aims and Scope of Review Essays
International Political Sociology now seeks to publish a review essay section to enable focused discussion of important literature in the field. It especially seeks to offer a guide to work that is relatively unfamiliar to international relations scholars. Consequently, we seek essays that highlight the innovative aspects of the literatures examined, evaluate it in some detail, contextualize its relation to other literatures and consider its implications for international relations/ international political sociology. Three kinds of review essays are of particular interest to the journal: 1) essays discussing a specific author and particularly authors situated outside the better known approaches to international relations; 2) essays covering specific approaches and/or concepts of direct relevance to themes being explored in IPS; 3) essays focusing on recently published work of interest to an IPS audience. The IPS call for papers (available at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1749-5679&site=1) and the articles already published in the journal may serve as an indication of areas of specific interest, but submissions are strongly encouraged on any author, topic and publication likely to be of broad interest to the IPS readership.

Formal requirements
Review essays should cover at least three books or relevant articles. They should relate these explicitly to the field of international political sociology. Review essays should be substantial pieces of work ranging between 6000 and 8000 words. They should be formatted according to the overall IPS guidelines regarding referencing and style. These are available at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/submit.asp?ref=1749-5679&site=1 . Proposals which would not meet the requirements would not be taken into consideration.

Publication procedure
Review essays should be submitted both to ips_review_l@samizdat.net and to ips@ceri-sciences-po.org. The essays will be subjected to a double-blind peer-review before publication.

Short Submission Guidelines

IPS is published quarterly in March, June, September, and December.

Manuscripts will be accepted for review on the understanding that their content is original and that the manuscript has not been accepted for publication or review elsewhere. Manuscripts that fall within the aims and scope of IPS or clearly related to international political sociology must be sent electronically to both didier.bigo.conflits@gmail.com and ips@ceri-sciences-po.org. They should not exceed 10,000 words and should be sent in two files (preferably Word of PDF files): one file should be sent ready for double blind peer review: author shall have removed all self-references and all characteristic that may identify him or her (name, affiliation, title of conference if paper presented in a conference…). The other one should contain the manuscript with all necessary information. Both files should contain a short abstract of the article and keywords. Once received, the article will be sent to relevant outside experts and scholars for a double anonymous peer review. All new items are published on a space available basis and decisions made on publication are the discretion of the editors of IPS.

In order to help broaden the community engaging in international studies, the journal will facilitate the submission of articles in languages other than English. The possibilities currently under consideration are French, Spanish, Italian and German. Translation into English of the final version of the article should be taken care of by the author.

NIH Public Access Mandate
For those interested in the Wiley-Blackwell policy on the NIH Public Access Mandate, please visit our policy statement.

TopHighlights

Editorial
Didier Bigo, R.B.J. Walker

Governing Terror: The State of Emergency of Biopolitical Emergence
Michael Dillon

Victims or Madmen? Diagnostic Competition over 'Terrorist' Detainees at Guantánamo Bay
Alison Howell

Governmentalities of an Airport: Heterotopia and Confession
Mark B. Salter

Michel Foucault's Analytics of War: The Social, the International, and the Racial
Vivienne Jabri

Rocky Bottoms: Techno-Fallacies of an Age of Information
Gary T. Marx