Recap of the IPSA World Congress - Day 6 (15 July)

Closing Ceremony of the 2021 IPSA World Congress

The 2021 IPSA World Congress of Political Science concluded with a virtual ceremony presented by IPSA Executive Director Kim Fontaine-Skronski. On behalf of the World Congress Team, Dr. Fontaine-Skronski thanked all the delegates, attendees, exhibitors and partners for their participation and support. She then introduced IPSA Past President Marianne Kneuer.

In her Closing Ceremony address, Prof. Dr. Kneuer emphasized that the World Congress was successful in every respect: "It was successful in terms of the number of participants, and also because IPSA was able to fulfill its mission in a virtual way ​​namely to create opportunities for academic exchange, opportunities of new and inspiring encounters and opportunities for the creation of networks."

Moreover, Prof. Dr. Kneuer announced the establishment of a new award, the IPSA Guillermo O'Donnell Award for Latin-American Scholars. The award is named after Prof. Guillermo O'Donnell, IPSA's Past President and one of Latin America's most prominent political scientists.

Next, IPSA’s newly elected President, Dianne Pinderhughes, explained how Ilter Turan and Marianne Kneuer’s Presidential leadership terms have substantially institutionalized IPSA since 2016. She explained that the IPSA Constitution has been revised, and the 2018-2022 Strategic Plan reaffirmed the Association’s commitment “to promote the advancement of political science throughout the world” by identifying new goals and a strategy for that new commitment.

The identification of five missions, including 1) a Global Political Science Community, 2) Inclusivity and Diversity, 3) Academic Freedoms, 4) Robust Networks and 5) Ethics, provides for mutually reinforcing values. 

Dr. Pinderhughes also highlighted IPSA’s dazzled capacity as an organization with various projects and publications, including IPSAPortal, IPSAMOOCs, 51 Research Committees, Summer Schools, IPSR and Abstracts journals, and the IPSA Digital project. Dr. Pinderhughes reassured the delegates that she would continue to work to extend these resources. 

She indicated the importance of continuing to develop strategies for expanding membership on the African continent to further advance Prof. Dr. Kneuer and Past Vice President Christopher Isike’s existing work in these efforts. She also mentioned that the Association will focus on Latin America and Asia.

Finally, Dr. Pinderhughes explained that “issues in a new leadership era with the Presidency changing hands from a woman President Kneuer to another woman President, Pinderhughes” and she’s looking forward to working as the new president to “shape IPSA’s future”.
 

Next, the Program Co-Chair, Hasret Dikici Bilgin, provided a brief overview of the World Congress Program. She discussed new nationalisms that became oppressive and created obstruction and excluded various groups. Prof. Dikici Bilgin dedicated her Co-Chair work to the Turkish Academics for Peace, who were criminally charged and expelled from their universities. She also dedicated her work to the students and scholars of the Bogazici University in Istanbul who resisted the appointed President of their university: “I am in solidarity and thankful to them for their fight against new nationalisms”. 
 

The next speaker was Rodney Hero, the Chair of the IPSA Committee on Organization, Procedures and Awards (COPA), to present the following IPSA awards:

• The Francesco Kjellberg Award went to Elif Naz Kayran, Post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs at Leiden University, for her outstanding paper “Understanding Anti-Immigration Demands: Reconceptualising the Labour Market Competition Hypothesis and the Role of Institutions”.
• The Wilma Rule Award on Gender and Politics went to Nayia Kamenou, Lecturer at the Department of Social & Political Sciences at the University of Cyprus, for her paper “Feminism Hijacked: Women, Gender and Political Agency in the Golden Dawn and the National Popular Front”.
• Finally, APSA-IPSA Theodore J. Lowi First Book Award went to Simukai Chigudu, Associate Professor of African Politics at the Oxford Department of International Development. His first book is titled The Political Life of an Epidemic: Cholera, Crisis and Citizenship in Zimbabwe (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Congratulations to the recipients!

In her Closing Ceremony remarks, Dr. Fontaine-Skronski expressed her profound gratitude to the Executive Committee (EC) members and Past President Marianne Kneuer. Their commitment allowed IPSA to progress and transform tremendously over the past three years.

Dr. Fontaine-Skronski also thanked the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) Co-Chairs, Madalena Meyer Resende and Carlos Jalali, and the other members of the Committee for their work in preparing the Congress in Lisbon, and for their collaboration and flexibility when transitioning to a virtual format.

Finally, she recognized the excellent work and leadership of the World Congress Director, Yee Fun Wong, and the other members of the IPSA Secretariat (Roksolana Bobyk, Thomas Chapdelaine, Ekaterina Kuzmenko, Eric Grève, Mathieu St-Laurent, Halûk Dag, and Fernand Thériault) for organizing the 2021 IPSA World Congress.
 

Next, the Program Co-Chairs of the 2023 IPSA World Congress of Political Science, Euiyoung Kim, IPSA EC member, and Theresa Reidy, IPSR Co-Editor, presented the theme of the upcoming World Congress: Politics in the Age of Transboundary Crises: Vulnerability and Resilience in an Uncertain World. 

In their presentations, the Program Co-Chairs explained that when they began their discussion about the 2023 Congress theme, the COVID-19 pandemic was at the forefront of their thoughts, and they saw the pandemic as an example of a global challenge. 

The Co-Chairs invited submissions from all subfields of Political Science and methodological approaches, more specifically, submissions from scholars cooperating across state borders.
 

The next IPSA World Congress of Political Science will be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2023, with Martín D’Alessandro, Chair of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), and Oscar Ozlak serving as LOC Honorary Chair. Prof. D’Alessandro expressed his excitement to host the next World Congress in Buenos Aires to show their hospitality and to establish a new landmark in their career as political scientists and in the Political Science community. 

The LOC representative, María Laura Perera Taricco, also addressed the Congress delegates and shared a video of the Universidade Catolica de Argentina.

Finally, the closing ceremony entered into a formal part with the passing of the IPSA Congress flag symbolizing the transfer of duty and responsibilities from the current LOC, represented by the LOC Co-Chairs, Carlos Jalali and Madalena Meyer Resende, to the next one, represented by the Argentina LOC Chair, Prof. D’Alessandro.

Perspectives on New Nationalisms Generated by Race, Ethnicity and Gender in Domestic, National and International Contexts

Chaired by IPSA's newly elected President Dr. Dianne Pinderhughes, the panel presented contemporary issues associated with the rise of nationalisms, revealing the array of ways in which variables such as race, ethnicity and gender promote, generate, shape and support varieties of nationalism in comparative perspective.

In his presentation, titled The Intersection of Race and Structural Features of US Government: Enduring Differential Political Outcomes for African Americans, Dr. Minion K. C. Morrison concluded that the US Constitution was designed by a white elite to sustain its supremacy and property interests. According to him, this design yields structures that reinforce white supremacy and institutionalize the racist ideology that undermines black citizenship rights. 

Prof. Todd Shaw's presentation, titled Different Nations Within: African American & Puerto Rican Cultural Nationalism, compared African Americans and mainland Puerto Ricans and concluded that Puerto Rican and African American cultural autonomists strongly identify with their groups or their group’s conception of a homeland as well as believe that their group’s distinctive cultures, histories, and languages must be taught to children.

Prof. Sukyong Choi's presentation, titled The Integration of Racial Minorities in the U.S., explained the reasons for educational, economic and political inequality among the racial and ethnic groups in the US. by focusing on why some racial and ethnic groups succeed while other groups don't make much progress.

Timofey Agarin Elected Research Committee (RC) Liaison Representative

IPSA is pleased to announce the election of Timofey Agarin as Research Committee (RC) Liaison Representative. RC chairs elected Dr. Agarin at the Advisory Commission on Research (ACR) meeting held on 15 July 2021, in conjunction with the IPSA Virtual World Congress of Political Science. The RC Liaison sits on the Committee on Research and Training (CRT), which convenes at each IPSA Executive Committee meeting. The position holder represents the interests of the research committees within IPSA official bodies and strengthens ties between research committees and the Executive Committee.

The State of Political Science in Africa 

This special session examined the state of Political Science in Africa in terms of teaching and learning, including teaching methods and Political Science research. The key questions the panel seeked to answer included the often neglected ones on the epistemological perspectives shaping the Political Science curricula in Africa. For example, how relevant are these curricula to the continent’s political and developmental realities in a digitalizing world? Talking about digitalization, the fourth industrial revolution has also affected African politics and its development profoundly, and in ways that raise new questions about the digitalization of Political Science education in universities across the continent.

The roundtable was chaired by IPSA Past Vice President and recently elected President of the African Association of Political Science (AAPS), Christopher Isike. Following its revival in 2018, the AAPS was formally relaunched with the support of IPSA on 25 March 2021 and became the 61st collective member of IPSA the next month.

Contributing editor: Angelina Parmentier