Network of Activist Scholars of Politics and International Relations (NASPIR)

Overview

NASPIR was launched in December 2002 at the BISA annual conference at the LSE. Its stated purpose is ‘to promote British politics and international relations scholarship which supports non-violent action against oppression.’  NASPIR is modelled explicitly on APSA's very large and successful Caucus for a New Political Science which says on its website http://www.apsanet.org/about/sections/section27.cfm that 'The purpose of this section is to help make the study of politics relevant to the struggle for a better world.' It also drew on the statement of purpose of the rather less successful Post-Structuralism and Radical Politics Specialist Group of the PSA states: this states that 'Post-Structuralists may not necessarily be left-of-centre politically but this group is. We are interested in understanding and advancing the aims of social movements that also want to broaden the conception of politics and identity that underpin Western democracies.'

In 2003, we applied to establish a BISA Working Group. Due to concerns expressed on the BISA executive about possible negative implications for BISA’s charitable status, we accepted a BISA recommendation that the statement of purpose for our BISA Working Group should read: ‘The purpose of the Working Group is to promote British politics and international relations scholarship concerning non-violent action against oppression.’  In 2003, we also applied to establish a PSA Specialist Group. Due to concerns expressed on the PSA executive about possible negative implications for the PSA’s charitable status, we accepted a PSA recommendation that the our PSA Specialist Group be called the Specialist Group on Political Activism. PSA did not request a change in statement of purpose.

Due to these restrictions on purpose and name, most of our activities (summarised later in this report for information) take place outwith the auspices of our BISA Working Group and PSA Specialist Group.

Membership and activities of the BISA NASPIR Working Group

The Working Group has not submitted any bids for BISA funding. The Working Group has no formal membership. Instead, its membership is ad hoc, consisting of whichever BISA members participate in its panels at BISA annual conferences.

Activities carried out under the auspices of our Working Group have been restricted to organising panels at the BISA annual conference. Our three panels for BISA 2004 at Warwick are:
Panel One: Conflict, Violence and Non-Violence                                                                                                              • Eric Herring (University of Bristol) (Convenor, Chair)
• Doug Stokes (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), ‘The Heart of Empire? Theorizing US Imperialism in an Era of Transnational Capitalism’
• Ruth Blakeley (University of Bristol) 'From School of Assassins to Showcase of Best Practice? The Transition from SOA to WHINSEC'
• Veronique Dudouet (University of Bradford) 'Expanding the Boundaries of Conflict Resolution in Asymmetric Disputes: The Case for Non-Violent. Resistance in the Palestinian Intifada'
NASPIR Panel Two: Democracies and Global Governance                                                                                              • Eric Herring (University of Bristol) (Convenor)
• Ruth Blakeley (University of Bristol) (Chair)
• Dibyesh Anand (University of Bath) and Nitasha Kaul (University of the West of England) ‘War of the Wor(l)ds: Democracies winning Hearts and Minds?’
• Eric Herring (University of Bristol) and Glen Rangwala (University of Cambridge) ‘Iraq, Imperialism and Global Governance'
• Anna Stavrianakis (University of Bristol) ‘Too Close for Comfort? NGO Strategies for Change in British Arms Export Policy’
NASPIR Panel Three: Resistance Through Re-Thinking
• Alex Prichard (University of Wales, Aberystwyth) (Convenor)
• Eric Herring (University of Bristol) (Chair)
• Suzanne Kempe (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), ‘The Delusion of Freedom: The E.U., its Borders and Discursive Web Theory’
• Adriana Sinclair (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), ‘An Empirical Analysis of the Law/Politics Nexus: Trident Ploughshares vs. The British State’
• Alex Prichard (University of Wales, Aberystwyth), ‘”Order in Anarchy”: Anarchism and Governance in IR Theory’
Membership and activities of the PSA Specialist Group on Political Activism
The Working Group has not submitted any bids for PSA funding. The Specialist Group has no formal membership. Instead, its membership is ad hoc, consisting of whichever members participate in its panels at PSA annual conferences. We did not organise any panels for the PSA annual conference in 2004, but there is one in the pipeline for th3 2005 conference.
Overview of NASPIR activities

The following is a summary of our activities in 2004 outwith the auspices of the BISA Working Group and PSA Specialist Group.

The most important benefit has been the intangible one of fostering a sense of community among broadly like-minded people so that research which assists non-violent action against oppression is fostered. It is particularly gratifying that younger scholars and in particular PhD candidate are playing leading roles. NASPIR’s Steering Group consists of Ruth Blakeley (Bristol), Eric Herring (Bristol), Tony McKeown (Bristol), Piers Robinson (Liverpool), Christina Rowley (Bristol), Anna Stavrianakis (Bristol), Doug Stokes (Aberystwyth).  We have 269 members, and our email list had 869 messages posted to it in 2004. See http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naspir/  Members can opt for individual messages, daily digests, special notices or no email (and read email on the website). Our members are academics, students, activists and interested members of the public more generally. A substantial number of NASPIR members are outside the UK.

Anna Stavrianakis and Ruth Blakeley contacted every member of NASPIR and wrote to them asking them about themselves and what they would like from NASPIR. You can read this at http://www.naspir.org/notices/feedback310304.htm.

Other than the fee for webspace (paid for by the Department of Politics, University of Bristol), NASPIR has zero running costs and hence no budget at present.

Some members of the Steering Group presented papers (but not on NASPIR panels) at the March 2004 International Studies Association conference in Quebec and met with the Convenor of APSA’s Caucus for a New Political Science. There would seem to be much potential for developing links.

Books published by members in 2004 include Doug Stokes America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia (Zed), David Miller (ed.) Tell Me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack on Iraq (Pluto) and Mark Curtis Unpeople: Britain’s Secret Human Rights Abuses (Vintage).
 
Our website http://www.naspir.org is growing steadily in sophistication and content. The site is maintained with great efficiency on a volunteer basis by Tony McKeown (Bristol). It has What’s New, About Us, Contact Us, Notices, Annual Reports, Research, Teaching, NASPIR in BISA, NASPIR in PSA, Members Only, Members Pages, Current Projects, Email List, Forum, Join Us, Links, Books By Members and Electronic Newsfeeds sections. Our webmaster now maintains 21 member pages free of charge.

In 2004 we launched the Consortium for Research on Terrorology and Political Violence jointly with the Public Interest Research Network. The result was a set of papers delivered at the ‘Error in “Terrorism”? Political Violence and the Media’ conference at Southampton Institute in November. It is anticipated that publications will flow from this.

The website and discussion list provide a focal point for many of the campaigning activities of NASPIR members, including involvement with Iraq Body Count, the Count the Casualties Campaign and Campaign Against the Arms Trade. We have developed a seven day no objection convention, in which we endorse campaigns provided no member posts an objection within seven days.

We have been supporting a group of critical criminologists (calling themselves CritiCrim) in UK academia to set up their own equivalent of NASPIR. We have also written in support of Colombian academics who had been subjected to death threats; Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan denied entry to the United States; and University of Michigan Iraq specialist Juan Cole who has come under pressure from a right wing US think tank.

Eric Herring (Convenor)
10 December 2004