ISA Compendium, ES Section Topics

As you may know, the International Studies Association is producing what has been called the ISA Compendium Project, an encyclopedia for international studies to be published by Blackwell, in both print and electronic form. All written pieces will be peer-reviewed. The process of creating a list of topics that will be covered in this volume has been designated to the ISA sections. I am the point person for the Environmental Studies Section committee (which also includes Miranda Schreurs and Matt Hoffmann) working on this project at this stage.

We would like to begin soliciting suggestions for topics to be included in the compendium that relate to environmental studies. Several points of information that may be relevant to your understanding of the process:

• it is not currently specified how many topics each section will be allocated, but it is likely to be something on the order of 15 to 40. The number will be partly determined by how many topics a section thinks it needs. But this does mean that we’re conceptualizing a smaller number of larger topics.
• the length of each essay is also not specified, but these are intended to be essays that are longer than traditional encyclopedia entries, up to 10,000 words. Not all entries would necessarily be that long, however (but we wouldn’t likely want any in the 1000-word-or-shorter range).
• the creation of a list of topics will be completely separate from the process of choosing people to write specific entries. At this point we are *only* creating a list of potential topics, so please take that into consideration when you propose topics. Do not at this stage volunteer to write anything; simply let us know what topics you think should be included.

With all that in mind, the committee would like to begin soliciting suggestions for topics. As a preliminary way to organize the discussion, we’ve conceptualized three different categories of topics we could imagine being proposed:

1. Politics of Environmental Issues — essays that outline/analyze specific (and probably singular) international/global environmental problems and efforts to address them (like desertification or climate change)
2. IR/Comparative Theories and the Environment — essays that apply or discuss the use of a variety of theories or theoretical approaches (like the epistemic community concept) or compare/contrast theoretical perspectives.
3. Process of Environmental Politics — essays that look at processes that might cut across issues and theories (like negotiation, the role of scientific knowledge, multilevel governance, the role of focusing events, etc.)

Please send any and all suggestions for topics to be considered for inclusion to me (edesombr[AT]wellesley.edu) by February 10th.

Thanks, Beth DeSombre (on behalf of the ESS Compendium Committee)