The setting were changed and all users can now add new posts  (after login)! 🙂 Lena

Hi all,
Kathi Glaab and Lena Partzsch are happy to report that we have just successfully submitted a RC36 panel to the ISA (International Studies Association) Annual Convention in Toronto, March 27-30, 2019. We have quite a dream team covering seven different countries with various perspectives, and we are very much looking forward to seeing hopefully many of you in Toronto next year!

Panel Title: Writing environmental norms: scholarship and progress in global environmental politics
Organizers: Katharina Glaab and Lena Partzsch
Chair: Giulio Gallarotti
Discussant: Thomas Princen, University of Michigan

Abstract:
When discussing solutions towards more sustainable worlds, scholarship in global environmental politics (GEP) engages with normative questions. Although not many scholars explicitly acknowledge this underlying normativity, our choice of concepts and issues defines the direction of our research. On the one hand, sustainable development, accountability, or transparency have become near-universal norms that pre-define our understanding of progress in terms of sustainability. On the other hand, the thematic bundling of research around climate politics or Sustainable Development Goals marginalizes competing issues and perspectives. This normativity is nothing special to GEP, moreover, the reference to universal norms provides GEP research with policy relevance and enables a fruitful exchange with stakeholders. However, there is hardly any reflection about norms underlying GEP research. As a scholarly perspective inherently oriented towards normative goals, it is thus important to reflect how progress is defined and practiced within our academic work.
This panel aims to address how environmental scholars are ‘writing norms’ and normalise knowledge. What forms of normativity underly our research and which ideas of academic and political progress are discussed at the expense of which others? The panel will bring together scholars that critically reflect on research practices and the notion of progress in scholarship.

Papers:
Author: Katharina Glaab (Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway) and Lena Partzsch (University of Freiburg, Germany)
Title: Beyond progress and gridlock: Norms and normativity in global environmental politics research

Author: Susan Park (University of Sydney, Australia)
Title: A Genealogy: The Multilateral Development Banks and the Accountability as Justice Norm

Authors: Maria Jernnäs and Eva Lövbrand (Department of Thematic Studies: Environmental Change, Linköping University, Sweden)
Title: Non-State Action in the Paris Climate Regime: Depoliticizing a Depoliticized Story?

Author: Philipp Altmann (Central University of Ecuador)
Title: Translating norms – the long trip of Buen Vivir from a local political concept to a global discursive field

Author: Basil Bornemann (University of Basel)
Title: Reflecting the co-production of orientation knowledge in global environmental politics

The final panels are set for RC 36 Power Studies Group. We have seven very interesting and diverse panels on power.

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Lena Partzsch has an article out in the current issue of Global Goverance, a top journal in the field of international organization. It was designated as the best article in the journal in 2018. Congrats to Lena.

Take Action Now: The Legitimacy of Celebrity Power in International Relations

Global Governance 24 (2018), 229–248

by Lena Partzsch

Celebrities are able to mobilize a wide range of people on a global scale. In his Oscar acceptance speech, Leonardo DiCaprio urged his international audience to work collectively to combat climate change. Another example of celebrity activism is Daryl Hannah’s support for biofuels and the campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline. In this article, I analyze the legitimacy of such celebrity power in international relations along three criteria (political impact, broad participation, and control and accountability). I argue that, as long as celebrities’ claims are vague and do not go further than UN consensus, celebrity power can be considered legitimate through the political impact. In addition, DiCaprio and Hannah contribute civil society perspectives to the international agenda while, however, not necessarily voicing the most marginalized positions. Finally, by urging governments to comply to international agreements, as DiCaprio does, he holds governments accountable on behalf of the public. However, both DiCaprio and Hannah claim to speak on behalf of affected people who cannot hold the celebrities themselves accountable for their political action. This lack of control is problematic if celebrities convey more radical positions that are not generally endorsed by the international community, as Hannah does when protesting against Keystone XL and promoting biofuels. KEYWORDS: celebrity, climate change, legitimacy.

Freedom? by Two Fuse (Cork University Press, 2018)

In this contribution to the Síreacht series, the collaborative platform Two Fuse (Kevin Ryan, NUIG & Fiona Whelan, NCAD) examine the practice of freedom in the context of neoliberal enterprise culture, focusing specifically on how this is shaped by power relations that sustain social suffering by generating an equality of inequality. Responding to this situation, Two Fuse look to socially-engaged art with a view to exploring possibilities to reimagine the practice of freedom, paying particular attention to the 2016 performance Natural History of Hope by Fiona Whelan, Rialto Youth Project and Brokentalkers.

CALL FOR PAPERS
XXXVIII Sunbelt Conference
Session “Power, Influence and Network Structures”
June 26-July 1, 2018 | Utrecht, Netherlands
Deadline for Abstracts: February 1, 2018 (23.59 hrs. CET time)

Dear IPSA RC36 members and friends,

Please, consider submitting your abstract to the Sunbelt 2018 session “Power, Influence and Network Structures” organized by our research committee.

This session is organized in collaboration with IPSA Research Committee on Political Power (IPSA RC36) to provide a room for a broad discussion on opportunities and challenges of network analysis methods for political power scholars. We encourage potential participants to introduce papers that link theory to practice, propose systematic testing of theoretical models with network data and demonstrate original network approaches to analysis of diverse forms of power in changing conditions of domestic and international politics. We aim to attract empirical papers that based on different theoretical backgrounds (network-as-structure, networks-as-actors) and concepts of power (power-as-control and power-as-access, networking power, network power, networked power and network-making power). We are especially interested in papers covering topics connected to conceptualization and measures of power in networks, to analysis of nodal positions and to different issues associated with creation of indexes.

Submission Link: https://sunbelt.sites.uu.nl/abstract-submission/

Looking forward to your contributions!