BISA “US Foreign Policy Working Group” Annual Conference
20th -21st September 2007
Venue: Chancellors Conference Centre, University of Manchester
The Conference will meet at an important time in regard to United States foreign and security policy: one year after the mid-term election defeats for President George W. Bush’s Republican Party and one year before the presidential election of 2008. By next September, a clearer idea will have emerged about the uses of new congressional majorities by the Democrats and their impacts on US foreign and security policy as well as on the hawks in the Bush administration. The names of the strongest Democratic and Republican presidential nominees will also be clearer. Consideration of the legacies of Bush’s national security and foreign policy agendas will also intensify. In addition, the rise of India and China, the fall-out from the Iraq War, Christian America’s relations with the Islamic world, and the issue of North Korean nuclear ambitions will continue to vex policymakers, diplomatic correspondents, scholars and citizens alike. Next year’s Conference, therefore, aims to place such matters at the centre of its agenda and try and make a genuine contribution to a better understanding of the aims, motivations, interests and roles of the United States – the administration, main political parties, think tanks, non-state actors and citizen groups - in those areas of foreign policy. The Conference aims to be a gathering of a range of specialists that includes policymakers/practitioners, leading academic scholars, emerging postgraduate research students, and journalists. Anyone – regardless of political perspective or national origin - who has a reasoned, research- and study-based analysis of key issues in US foreign policy is more than welcome to participate in all aspects of the Conference.
The Working Group has a ‘broad-church’ value system and a strong commitment to genuine debate and discussion, especially between a range of knowledgeable and experienced experts.
We are committed to encouraging postgraduate students to attend and have applied to the ESRC for funding for bursaries to that end.
This is just our second annual meeting and a successful Conference over two days would significantly strengthen and cohere the Group’s core membership, increase its membership, and consolidate its position as a key BISA Group. Attracting top quality British and US scholars to the Conference will be strengthened by the list of speakers who have already accepted our invitation. The event, therefore, signals a higher national and international profile for the Group, especially in the United States.
Please contact charlotte.jackson@manchester.ac.uk for registration details and conference information
Draft programme [.doc]