Source: Millennium, Deadline: 15.04.2007.

The annual conference of Millennium: Journal of International Studies will take
place on 20-21 October 2007 at the London School of Economics and Political
Science (LSE). The conference will explore the concept of peace in
International Relations (IR). 

The formative purpose of IR was not simply to understand the problem of war and
prevent its reoccurrence, but to cultivate the conditions for peace. Over time
this concern has been lost. The field of peace studies flourishes, but is
somewhat detached from the core of IR theory. Consequently, peace has become
under-theorised within IR, and is addressed only tangentially in mainstream IR
debates. The most prominent engagement with the concept of peace in recent IR
scholarship, Democratic Peace Theory, simply defines peace as the absence of
intentions for war. This conference aims to bring peace back in to the
discipline, while providing a more sophisticated conceptualisation of what
peace might mean beyond the absence of interstate war. Yet the relationship
between war and peace must not be ignored. An expanded notion of peace cannot
lose sight of the paradoxical notion of making peace through war, a feature of
international politics from the Pax Romana to wars of humanitarian
intervention. The purpose of the conference is to provoke discussion and debate
with a view to arriving at a richer understanding of peace and, in the process,
to recapture a concept once at the heart of IR.

Key questions to consider are:

· What does peace mean today?

· How has the concept of peace developed over time?

· Who can make peace?

· Should peace be the ultimate aim of IR?

A selection of the conference papers will be published in Millennium: Journal
of
International Studies, vol. 36, no. 3.

Deadline for abstracts 15 April 2007

For submissions details contact:
The Editors, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, LSE, Houghton
Street,
London WC2A 2AE, UK; Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6232; Fax: +44 (0)20 7955 7438
Email: millennium@lse.ac.uk
Website: www.e-millennium.ac