Conflict Research Society Annual Conference, Kent, 14-15 September 2015
Peace and Violence Explained? Assessing John Burton’s Legacy
To mark the centenary of John Burton’s birth, the Conflict Research Society conference this year returns to some of the enduring questions and issues that defined his work. Burton was a pioneer of peace and conflict research and integral to the establishment of the Conflict Research Society. He led the scholarly challenge to realist understandings of power within international relations and developed new ways of thinking about conflict and conflict management. He was also a conflict management practitioner, bringing his scholarly work into the ‘real’ world. To honour his legacy, we invite you to submit panel and individual proposals bridging theory, empirics and practise in peace and conflict research that engage with these themes.
The conference seeks to generate debate and ongoing relationships between scholars and practitioners interested in key issues surrounding the dynamics of violent political conflict, dialogue, diplomacy and peacebuilding. We hope that this year’s CRS conference will have a strong policy/practitioner voice in terms of the range of participants, papers and invited keynote contributions. It is also intended that the conference will continue its tradition of being multi-disciplinary and being open to the full range of quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches to the subject.
We invite paper and panel submissions in the following sections:
1. Conference Theme: Is Violence Explained?
2. Scientific Study of Conflict and Cooperation
3. Peace and Conflict Studies
4. Connecting research and practice.
The Conference will be hosted by the Conflict Analysis Research Centre (CARC) and the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent. John Burton helped establish CARC at University College London when it was known as the Centre for the Analysis of Conflict in the early 1970s. It is fitting therefore that the CRS and CARC, both of which Burton was instrumental in establishing, come together at Kent for the celebration of his Centenary.
A key feature of the conference will be the delivery of the John Burton Centenary Lecture.
It is also envisaged that selected papers from the conference will be published as a special issue of a leading conflict studies journal on the theme of Violence Explained – Assessing Burton’s Legacy 100 years on and further details of this will be announced in due course.
Individual and panel proposals should be submitted online at conflictresearchsociety.org.uk by May 31 2015.
Panel proposals should include a title (less than 50words) an abstract (less than 200 words) and a list of four papers. Individual proposals should likewise include a title (less than 50 words) and an abstract (less than 200 words).