Scholars confer on global governance

An international conference on global governance, held at UD last fall, is expected to produce a book next year.

Participants in the "Contending Perspectives on Global Governance" conference reunited during February to plan the publication. The book, Rule Systems and World Orders: Contending Perspectives on Global Governance, is scheduled to be published in 2004.

The October conference brought together scholars from a variety of analytical perspectives and disciplines in the United States and abroad. The goal was to discuss global governance as a concept and reflect on its usefulness for the study and practice of world politics.

Sponsored by the International Studies Association, the College of Arts and Science and the Department of Political Science and International Relations, the conference included a series of presentations and roundtable discussions. Topics ranged from macro-historical examinations of the global capitalist system to the impacts of the recent increase in transnational organizational activity and telecommunications breakthroughs.

Organizers were Matthew Hoffmann, Alice Ba and Daniel Green, all faculty members in the political science and international relations department.

Hoffmann describes the sessions as highly successful and says they opened significant discussions among participants and members of the audience, which included undergraduate and graduate students and faculty.

"It was one of the most collegial and stimulating experiences I've ever been to," Hoffmann says. "Everyone got along and had productive conversations."

He says the department is planning to create similar workshops in the future in conjunction with an annual speaker series.

--Melissa Berman, AS 2004