Now at the airport to fly back to London. The conference was very interesting and lots of good contacts made. The first morning was a public seminar with presentations by Friedrich Kratochwil and myself, which seemed to go down well. A good audience of students, faculty and visitors, including someone from the Danish foreign ministry. There were some good questions and discussion and I think my paper was well received. Some of the questions will give me cause to think more, which is why this is worthwhile. (Also interesting to get a sense of how some of the terms I use are rendered in Danish).
The afternoon and the morning of the second day was a closed workshop with eight papers by a range of speakers. The topics were fairly wide ranging, with a lot of empirical detail on some interesting places – DR Congo and El Salvador, for instance – and issues (the high seas, arctic sovereignty claims). There was quite a lot of theoretical discussion – Michel Foucault and Carl Schmitt in particular. The discussions on Foucault seemed to be around how we could use him to think about particular issues, recognising some of his work, especially in the lectures, is very provisional and sometimes wrong. But it enables different types of questions to emerge. I am very sceptical about the use of Schmitt.
Overall, for a predominantly but not exclusively IR event, this was a refreshing change. There was very little discussion of the ‘big debates’ that I found so suffocating when I was in a political science department; a real engagement with a wide range of literatures, and a lot of attention being paid to international law. I think this is crucial. The empirical detail was often really excellent. Many of the papers were made available in draft form, and I’ll look forward to reading the followup work.
And the organisers should be commended for facilitating this, and the great hospitality. Copenhagen is a really lovely city.
