Part 1 - Business meeting
Agenda Item: Fourth Pan-European Conference, Canterbury 2001
	Conference Budget
	The budget negotiated between representatives of the ECPR Executive and the Standing Group was accepted by the Steering Committee with the suggestion that there should be a special Student Rate, and taking into consideration that ECPR is expected to sponsor young scholars from Central and Eastern Europe.
	Papers
	There will be no 'paper sales', since practice has shown that this is hardly cost-efficient. Conference papers will be on the internet and participants will be requested to bring in their own set of copies.
	Programme
		The ECPR will organise some 14 sections. SGIR will organise about 30 sections: 21 five-panel sections and 9 ten-panel sections, which boils down to 210 panels and about 600 papers.
		Marie-Claude Smouts is praised for raising a large number of high-level French sections.
		Despite the large number of sections, there are still some lacunas: there are not yet any sections on the UN-system, gender studies, International Law, and Latin America, while the EU has only one 10 panel section run by Flavio Attina. Moreover Eastern Europe is only covered by a section on the EU eastern expansion.
		The Call for Papers and for additional panels will be announced shortly, i.a. on the ECPR-website.
Agenda Item: Appointment of nomination committee for 2001 Steering Committee election
	The nomination committee will consist of Brigitte Vassort, Helge Hveem and Mervyn Frost.
Agenda Item : Summer School
	The prospects for the Second SGIR Summer School in Grenoble 2001 look good. The Steering Committee appoints Yves Schemeil to chair the Grenoble Summer School. Professor Schemeil works in political science and economics, and is a specialist on the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
	The theme of the Grenoble Summer School will be "Reply to Globalisation in Regional Settings: the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and Central Asia".
	The Third Summer School will probably take place in Jena.
Agenda Item: EJIR: Editor's Report
	The EJIR's reception at the ISA Conference was a success.
	James Davis reports that EJIR has received 71 submissions for articles so far.
	The first issue of 2000 is out; the second one is on the shelf; Nr.3 is set, and Nr.4 looks good.
	For 2001 five issues are scheduled. Nr.5 will be a special issue about theories of World Society, based on a proposal by Matthias Albert.
Agenda Item: Newsletter
	Nicola Phillips has decided to step down as editor of the Newsletter. The Steering Committee regrets her decision not least because of the excellent job she did.
	The SGIR, in recognition of the need to simplify its newsletter production and distribution, decides to switch to an e-mail version of the newsletter, which will be linked to the ECPR/SGIR-website.
	Christopher Jones, a British project researcher working for Olav Knudsen in Stockholm, is chosen by the Steering Committee to be the new editor of the Newsletter. Chris Jones also has the skills required to maintain the webpage. The national distributors of the Newsletter will be asked to hand in lists of e-mail addresses to help in the distribution.
Agenda Item: Inter-organisational relations
	Lewis Fry Richardson Award Proposal
	Gerald Schneider of Konstanz University and Nils Petter Gleditsch, Editor of the Journal of Peace Research, have launched a proposal for a Lewis Fry Richardson Lifetime Achievement Award in Peace and Conflict Research. Before a more formal proposal is conceived, they have asked the two most directly concerned Standing Groups to endorse the proposal: The Standing Group of Analytical Politics and Public Choice and the Standing Group on International Relations. The former Standing Group has already accepted. The Steering Committee decided to endorse the proposal.
	International Studies Coordination Committee (ISCC)
	This informal group (the ISCC) aims to become a member of the International Social Science Council (ISSC) in order to ensure representation of our discipline at the global level. For that purpose it needs to upgrade its formal status, including the introduction of membership for the organizations currently participating in it. In the Steering Committee opinions about this proposal are divided. A decision is postponed to the next meeting.
	The Participation of Central and Eastern Europe in SGIR
	The purpose of this agenda item was to have an open-ended discussion about improvements of the relations between research communities in CEE-countries and SGIR. The item was introduced by Brigitte Vassort and Bojko Bucar. The discussion is briefly summarized here. (Views cited below are not SGIR decisions and may not necessarily ave been shared by all present.) The discussion centred on institutional and academic functions as perceived by the CEE-members and 'Western'-members of the SGIR. Institutionally, the SGIR has to perform clearing house functions, making use of its members as national coordinators, who should try to cover the entire research community in their country. These functions could be enhanced by publishing (translations of) annual reports of relevant institutions, and lists of contents of local journals on a ECPR/SGIR-website. The national coordinators should facilitate two-way traffic: reporting local developments to SGIR and distributing SGIR-information at home. Some in the 'West' expect the SGIR to counterbalance American dominance in European IR, but in CEE other functions have higher priority: in particular to stimulate IR-research and IR-teaching. CEE-members hope to increase options for publishing their work both in English and in their mother tongues - which is a costly affair. Perhaps the SGIR can be helpful in fundraising for research projects, the set-up of courses and the formation of international networks. The organisation of small thematic workshops should be taken into consideration. It was concluded that this discussion will be continued at the next (Ljubljana) meeting. Vassort and Bucar are requested to work out a paper with proposals.
Next meeting
	The coming meeting will take place in Ljubljana on October 14th, 2000, and will be hosted by Bojko Bucar. The meeting thereafter will take place in Oslo on May 5th, 2001, hosted by Helge Hveem.
Part 2
Special Session at the Institute for Social and Political Studies (ISPS) in Sofia: "The Future of South-East Europe"
Present in addition to the members of the Steering Committee: Dr. Miroslav Darmov (ISPS); Dr. Dinko Dinkov (Economic University); Prof. Tilcho Ivanov (Department International Security); Dr. George Mihailov (Academy of Sciences); Dr. Milan Milanov (Blagoevgrad University); Dr. Ognian Mintchev (Institute for Regional Studies); General, Prof. T. Pehlivanov (ISPS); Dr. Miroslav Pentchev (ISPS); Dr. Enjo Savov (ISPS); Prof. Peter Shopov (Sofia University). In his excellent introduction Dr. Ognian Mintchev (Institute for Regional Studies) sketched out the negative effects of the Kosovo war including the boycott of the Yugoslav Republic. The NATO actions have split the region into two distinct zones of conflict, each with its own dynamics. A Yugoslav theatre is set apart from a Kosovo theatre. The first may escalate in Montenegro and Vojvodina; the latter in Macedonia, involving Albania. The overall result has been the isolation of the entire region: states like Bulgaria have been turned into a cordon sanitaire - a situation far away from the original prospects for European integration. The economic consequences of the Yugoslav boycott are substantial: Bulgaria lost its trade routes (40% of its trade is with the EU) and lost also its attractiveness for foreign investors. Strategically there is a serious risk of further Balkanisation (scattered by passionate young nationalists and mafia controlled markets), while the West is divided (EU vs US) and the Russian Federation may be eager to attempt to extend its sphere of influence. Mintchev provoked a lively debate, proving that the initiative to combine the meetings of the Steering Committee with a topical debate deserves continuation.

Jaap de Wilde	Olav F. Knudsen
Utrecht, 10 April 2000	Huddinge, 28 April 2000

		The competition is open to students of all nationalities.
		Whatever his or her specialty, the candidate must meet the conditions laid down by his or her own University for acceptance as a thesis candidate.
		Subjects suggested by candidates must be approved by a local course director and accompanied by a short note setting out the broad lines of the intended research.
		Candidatures have to be received by UIA before the 14th October 2000
		The UIA Council reserves its right to accept only the more interesting or the more original subjects for competition. It will inform the candidate of its decision in due time.
		The thesis has to be upheld in 1999 or, at the latest, before the 1st November 2000.
		Manuscripts must be written in English or French and sent to the UIA secretariat in triplicate before 1 January 2001. Electronic submissions are also welcome via email (please use RTF or Word 6.0 format).
		The UIA Council will proceed to set up a jury of qualified persons who will have full discretion in awarding, or if necessary, dividing the prize (or withholding any award).

The official award of the prize will take place during the UIA General Assembly 2001.

All additional information may be obtained from :

Secretariat of UIA
40 rue Washington
B-1050 Brussels
Belgium
Tel (32 2)640 18 08  Fax (32 2)643 61 99  E-mail: thesis@uia.be  Website http://www.uia.org

An EU-funded project on European defence and security policy will be recruiting post-doctoral and pre-doctoral researchers from September 2000. The research programme will run for four years, and formal appointment procedures will begin on 1 September 2000. Expressions of interest registered prior to that date will ensure that full information is received on each post as it becomes available. In the first instance, the project directors especially wish to recruit two high-calibre post-doctoral research fellows, with expertise in Democratic Theory and Peacekeeping respectively.

The Project
The project will engage practitioners and young researchers from EU and Associated States, building on existing expertise and networks, to study and make recommendations on new forms of democratic accountability for the emerging defence and security capability of the European Union.

This is a cross-disciplinary study that will bring together political scientists with those concerned with European integration and civil-military relations. It will be conducted by a consortium of research partners located in the following institutions:

The Post-Doctoral Positions 
Starting from September 2000 we are looking to make two 3-year post-doctoral appointments:

Senior Research Fellow in Peacekeeping
This post will be based at the University of Bradford in the UK and will include a final year of research in Hungary. The research fellow will develop a research programme on the ways in which peacekeeping doctrines are being developed within the main national militaries in Europe; whether there is convergence of doctrine and policy in transnational and regional organisations such as NATO, WEU, and OSCE; military-civilian relations in the response to complex emergencies; the capacity for a standard European response within CFSP; and the NGO-military interface in conflict zones. This work involves co-operation with the other post-doctoral researchers on the theoretical framework of the programme, and the organisation of common workshops.

Senior Research Fellow in Democratic Theory
This post will be based at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI) in Oslo, and will include a final year of research in Berlin and Prague. The researcher will be incorporated into an existing working group within the institute which works on issues of European security concepts and theory and has recently focused on theory and practice behind the democratic control of peacekeeping. The researcher will draw upon this expertise and liaise with the other post-doctoral fellows in developing the theoretical framework for the major themes of the project and ensuring attention to the theoretical underpinning of each joint workshop and publication.

A further two 3-year post-doctoral appointments will be made in September 2001:

Senior Research Fellow in EU Institutions
This post will be based at the University of Sunderland in the UK and will include a final year of research in Spain. The researcher will work on EU institutions in relation to new developments in European defence and security policy. This work will combine practical knowledge of the EU institutions and relevant military organisations with the application of European integration theory and international relations theory to this area. The research fellow will contribute to developing the theoretical framework for the project in close co-operation with the other post-doctoral fellows, and will also be responsible for organising common workshops and publications.

Senior Research Fellow in European Arms Control
This post will be based at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) in Germany, with a final year of research at the Université libre (ULB) in Brussels. The researcher will develop work on the defence industry, arms transfers, military expenditure, and surplus weapons, within the overall framework of democratic accountability. Specific studies will be conducted on transparency in arms exports in Europe and the treatment of surplus weapons, involving research on small arms and the EU Code of Conduct.

All researchers will be expected to contribute to joint publications and the common project database.

The Pre-Doctoral Positions 
A variety of posts, full- and part-time, from six months to two years duration, will be available across all the partner institutions between 2000 and 2004.They will vary from support functions to research work compatible with doctoral programmes, and all will include a research training element. Full details will be circulated to all those who have expressed interest.

Candidates for both post-doctoral and pre-doctoral posts will need to be employed in countries other than their country of nationality or residence, and must be prepared to travel according to the requirements of the research programme. Salaries are commensurate with EU guidelines for the states concerned.

Expressions of interest, together with CV, should be sent to the Project Co-ordinator:

Professor Patricia Chilton,
School of Humanities and Social Sciences,
University of Sunderland,
Priestman Building,
Green Terrace,
Sunderland SR1 3PZ.

Tel +44 (0)191 515 2150  E-mail pat.chilton@sunderland.ac.uk

SEMINARS

A workshop on the 'Baltic Rim in Transition: New Ways of Co-operation' is to be organised in Tartu by the University of Tampere and the University of Tartu, 11-13 August, 2000. The workshop is part of the European International Relations Summer School that will have its inaugural session at the University of Tampere in August 2000.

Baltic Rim in Transition: New Ways of Co-operation Workshop in Tartu 11 - 13 August, 2000 organised by the University of Tampere and the University of Tartu supported by NorFA. Chair - Professor A.J.R Groom, (University of Kent at Canterbury) 12 August 2000 9 -12 a.m. The EU's Enlargement: the Baltic Dimension. - Kristiina Ojuland (President of the LDR Group, The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) - Prof. Helmut Hubel (Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany) 2 -5 p.m. Post-communist Ethnic State: Soft and Hard Security in the Baltic States. - Prof. Rein Ruutsoo, (University of Tartu) and Baltic Security and the Twin Enlargements: Changing Geopolitics in Europe. - Atis Lejins, (Director of Latvian Institute of International Affairs). 13 August 2000 9 - 12 a.m. After the Cold War: Prospects of the Baltic-Nordic Relations. - Prof. Olav Knudsen, (Chairman of the Standing Group on International Relations, ECPR) and Geopolitical Reasoning and Discourse in Post-Soviet Estonia. - Dr. Eiki Berg, (Director of the Department of Political Science, University of Tartu)

The Tartu workshop will be a round-table meeting where the attending students may attend lectures and participate in discussions. The workshop teachers will be available for research consultations during the workshop or in Tampere. Scandinavian students attending the Tartu workshop may get a grant to cover the costs of their travel and housing in Tartu. They may also apply for admission to a course package consisting of the Tartu workshop and optional courses in Tampere either before the Tartu workshop ('The EU's Enlargement and Relations towards the East: the Baltic Sea Dimension, Course Director Prof.Dr. Helmut Hubel) or during the following week ('Interpreting European Security', Course Director Dr. Jef Huysmans). There will be a charter bus to take the EIRSS students to Tartu and back to Tampere. The workshop grant may be extended to cover the additional days in Tampere of those Scandinavian students who want to apply for a course package. However, there are only a few vacant seats open in Tampere so we may not be able to accept all new applicants. In applying for admission the students should present their supervisor's statement that their EIRSS studies will be part of their doctoral programme.

For further information and instructions, please contact:

Ms. Outi Suominen
Dept. of Political Science and International Relations
FIN-33014 University of Tampere, Finland.

Tel +358 (0)3 215 8922  Fax +358 (0)3 215 6552  Email outi.suominen@uta.fi  Website Tampere EIRSS

List of (scheduled) Conferences for 2000 at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations - MGIMO-University (Russia)

		June: Scientific and Methodological Conference of the Departments of Language Studies of MGIMO (Moscow, MGIMO)
		June 1: Russian - German Seminar "Development of Political and Strategic Situation in the Caspian Region" together with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (Moscow, MGIMO)
		June 7-11: International Conference "The New History of the Cold War: Historiography, Theory, Methodology" with the Institute of General History (Moscow, MGIMO)
		June: Conference "Diplomat, Foreign Language and Modernity". (Moscow, MGIMO)
		June: Conference: "Traditional and New Concepts of Education". (Moscow, MGIMO)
		September: Conference of the Russian Association of International Studies: International Relations: challenges of the 21th century". (Nishniy Novgorod)
		October 23-24: Alfred Nobel and His Values in the New Century (Moscow, MGIMO)

Further details can be obtained from Roman Kotov, Assistant to the Vice-Rector of MGIMO-University, or check the website

PUBLICATIONS

European Journal of International Relations
Volume 06 Issue 02 - Publication Date: 1 June 2000

A Reconstruction of Constructivism in International Relations Stefano Guzzini The Central European University, Budapest		Democratic Governance Beyond the Nation-State: The EU and Other International Institutions Michael Zürn Institute for Intercultural and International Studies, University of Bremen
In order to avoid both theoretically eclectic and redundant approaches to constructivism, this article proposes one possible and coherent reconstruction of constructivism understood as a reflexive meta-theory. This reconstruction starts by taking seriously the double sociological and interpretivist turn of the social sciences. Based on 'double hermeneutics', constructivism is perhaps best understood by distinguishing its position on the level of observation, the level of action proper, and the relationship between these two levels. On the basis of this distinction, the article argues that constructivism is epistemologically about the social construction of knowledge and ontologically about the construction of social reality. It furthermore asks us to combine a social theory of knowledge with an intersubjective, not an individualist, theory of action. Finally, the analysis of power is central to understanding the reflexive link between the two levels of observation and action. The argument is embedded in a contextualization where constructivism is seen as inspired by 'reflexive modernity', as well as more directly by the end of the Cold War.		International institutions not only increase system effectiveness or output legitimacy, but are also a normatively plausible response to the problems for democracy that are caused by globalization. In this way, international institutions also increase input legitimacy. It is therefore a false approach to pin down the problem of democracy beyond the nation-state as a choice between 'effective problem-solving through international institutions' and 'democratic political processes'. At the same time, it is indisputable that the actual functioning of these international institutions does not meet democratic standards. By correctly pointing to the deficits of current international institutions, sceptics too quickly conclude that most deficits in the working of international institutions cannot be remedied. The sceptical argument is founded on two more or less explicit background hypotheses that can be empirically challenged. The first background hypothesis states that a demos cannot exist at the transnational level. I will modify this statement in theoretical terms and offer some conceptual distinctions that may prepare the ground for further empirical investigation. The second background hypothesis of the sceptics postulates a zero-sum relationship between national sovereignty and supranationality. I will put forward some concrete institutional proposals that undermine the zero-sum logic of the sceptics, concluding that in a denationalized society, democratic legitimacy can only be achieved by a mixed constitution comprising majority procedures and negotiation mechanisms.
From 'Real' to 'Virtual' States?: Integration of the World Economy and its Effects on Government Activity Thomas Bernauer and Christoph Achini Swiss Federal Institute of Technology		Popular Sovereignty or Cosmopolitan Democracy?: Liberalism, Kant and International Reform Antonio Franceschet University of Alberta
This analysis shows that claims about the coming of the 'virtual' state, a popular proposition in the globalization debate, have no empirical foundation. Our findings, based on more comprehensive testing than in most previous studies, support a proposition originally put forward by Cameron - countries more open to international trade have a larger public sector. We also show that economic globalization has not led to convergence of public sector size across countries. Nevertheless, sweeping claims that economic integration leads to bigger government are premature, and perhaps wrong. Rodrik, Garrett and others have argued that a risk-reduction logic causes the positive trade-public sector relationship. We did not find empirical evidence for this assertion. In contrast to Rodrik, Quinn and Garrett we show that growing capital mobility has no impact on the size of government. Also, capital mobility has not undermined the fact that bigger traders have larger public sectors. We outline some arguments for the different impact of trade and financial integration.		Liberals have long disagreed about the nature and purposes of international reform. This article juxtaposes two recent research programmes that are premised on typically liberal assumptions and goals - democratic peace theory and the cosmopolitan democracy model. Two central claims are advanced. First, both of these liberal approaches are premised upon radically different depictions of Immanuel Kant's legacy - or at least what his legacy ought to mean to us today. These different conceptions of Kant's relevance suggest that his ambiguous status as a so-called 'liberal' supports remarkably different forms of this ideology. Thus, Kant's legacy is not a neutral ground, but is rather a way in which older conflicts within liberalism are becoming reproduced in the post-Cold War era. The second argument is that the cosmopolitan democracy model is a superior vision of international reform because it transcends an anachronistic conception of 'popular sovereignty' as the sole liberal means through which to produce freedom and peace.

National and International Conflicts, 1945-1995
New Empirical and Theoretical Approaches
Routledge Advances in International Relations & Politics 11

Frank R. Pfetsch, University of Heidelberg and Christoph Rohloff, University of Duisburg. Published by Routledge. 296 pages. ISBN/ISSN: 0-415-22344-X

The information flow about crises and conflicts is highly selective. The media can only focus on a few major conflicts at a time. Many conflicts are neglected, others soon forgotten after the fighting ends. This book fills the gaps and offers a systematic overview of all crises and conflicts in and among states since 1945 and traces the global trends of conflict development. This book contains descriptive generalisations, hypotheses on trends and patterns of conflictsand discussions of current conflict theories - all based on the broad empirical basis of the Conflict Simulation Model KOSIMO - a databank which contains 661 conflicts, both peaceful and violent as well as internal and international. Where ordinary conflict research has a bias towards violent international conflicts, this book, on the other hand, uses an integrated approach to cover many other forms and types of political conflicts. The KOSIMO approach reveals new insights into the trends, both nationally and internationally, of conflicts since 1945. Its major diachronic findings include for example the fact that domestic, ethnopolitical and religious conflicts were on the rise long before the end of the EastWest conflict, and democracies may not be as peaceful as Kants theorem on democratic peace might suggest... With conflict studies being a growing field of interest in international relations, this book will represent solid empirical and theoretical research for scholars and researchers in political theory, political science, international relations, peace and conflict studies, and modern history.

Table of Contents
Preface
1. Introduction 1.1.Global changes since 1945 1.2.Towards a new conflict resolution cure? 1.3.Challenges to theories and future conflict analysis 1.4.Consequences for conflict research
2. Methodology 2.1.Quantitative research 2.2.Definitions 2.3.Variables 2.4.Description of Variables
3. Global Trends 3.1.States, Non-state Actors and Conflict 3.2.Basic conflicts 3.3.Partial conflicts 3.4.War 3.5.Duration of conflicts 3.6.Regions of conflict 3.7.Issues of conflicts 3.8.Victims of violent conflicts
4. Conflict Structures 4.1.Political systems of states 4.2.East-West conflict 4.3.Spheres of interest and conflict frequencies 4.4.Military interventions by the US and the USSR 4.5.Intra-block conflict 4.6.Conflicts between North and South 4.7.Conflicts in developing countries 4.8.Neighbors and great powers 4.9.Post-Cold War trends
5. Conflict Management 5.1.Mediation 5.2.Actors in conflict management 5.3.Modalities of conflict resolution 5.4.Outcomes of conflicts 5.5.Treaties
6. Empirical Findings: Summary and Outlook 6.1.Descriptive findings 6.2.Generating hypotheses 6.3.The testing of theories 6.4.Predicting future conflicts 6.5.Need for further research
7. Appendix 7.1.Sub-Saharan Africa 7.2.Middle East and Maghreb 7.3.Asia and Oceania 7.4.Europe 7.5. The Americas
8. Bibliography 8.1.Publications related to the KOSIMO data bank 8.2.References

EDITOR

As the new Editor (and 'webmaster') of International Studies in Europe, I'd like to wish all readers well, and hope that this issue provides you with the content you have come to expect from the Newsletter. I'd like to thank the previous editor, Dr. Nicola Phillips, for her help in introducing me to this work. I only hope I can reach her high standard. I look forward to working with you to publish your information and news here. Should you have anything of note, please pass it on to me at the address below.

Direct all enquiries to: Christopher Jones, Södertörns Högskola - University College, Box 4101, 141 04 Huddinge, Sweden. Tel: +46 (0)8 5858 8441 Fax: +46 (0)8 5858 8080 Email: chris.jones@sh.se

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