Call for Papers: "Militarism: Political economy, security,
theory."
Conference at the Centre for Global Political Economy in the Department of
International Relations, University of Sussex
14-15 May 2009
Militarism and militarisation - the social processes associated with the production and valorisation of
organised violence - have long been central issues on the International Relations agenda. Cold War
concerns over arms races, military expenditure, vast numbers of people under arms, arms sales to the
Third World, and militaristic attitudes and practices that promote organised violence, were all topics
hotly debated in the literature. With the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the USSR, a drop in
military budgets, and the rise of discourses around human rights and humanitarian intervention,
concerns around militarisation were relegated to the sidelines. The militarised US-led response to 9/11,
characterised by the war in Iraq and rising military budgets around the world but especially in the USA,
has signalled a return to centre stage of military force as an arbiter of international relations and
prompted a resurgence in the literature on militarism and militarisation.
Associated with the broadening of the IR agenda in the post-Cold War era, there is growing recognition
that militarism and militarisation cannot only be thought of in terms of the traditional distinction
between internal and external security. They have spread into the internal realm through the
intensification of surveillance, the creation of new bodies of control, and the reform of the legal and
institutional context through which states administer their internal security affairs.. Feminist scholars are
examining masculinities and the role of gender relations in promoting militaristic attitudes, policies and
practices, and the racialised nature of coercion and control is increasingly being recognised. Cold War
concerns over the militarisation of civil institutions such as the university, fields such as space, and
various geographical regions, have returned, albeit in a seemingly radically new context. Along the way,
the literature from the 1980s seems to have been sidelined, cast aside as out of date, given its backdrop
of superpower competition and a bipolar world.
The Centre for Global Political Economy (CGPE) in the Department of International Relations at the
University of Sussex aims to bring together scholars, practitioners and activists working on militarism
and militarisation from a diverse range of theoretical approaches in a two-day conference. The guiding
ethos of the conference asks what the current state of play is in the literature on militarism, what we
can learn from old debates and what newer debates can contribute; how the phenomenon of militarism
can be theoretically, empirically and practically located at the crossroads between international political
economy, security studies and international relations; and how academics, practitioners and activists
can learn from each other. We welcome papers on themes including, but not limited to:

old and new theories of militarisation and militarism;

discourses and ideologies of militarisation;

class, arms production and the military-industrial complex;

gender dynamics and the (re)production of militarism;

the racialised nature and effects of militarism;

North-South relations, domination and resistance in processes of militarisation;

the militarisation of internal security practices;

regional, inter- and transnational institutions, agents, policies and mechanisms of militarisation;

the international relations of militarism;

the relationship between academic and practitioner research on militarism.
The organisers welcome the submission of proposals for both panels and papers. Please send a short
abstract (approx. 300 words per paper) to Dr. Anna Stavrianakis and Dr. Iraklis Oikonomou at
[email protected] by 23rd January 2009. A provisional conference programme will be
announced on 1st March 2009. Papers should be sent by 30th April 2009.