The Commission
The Commission of History of International Relations is overall composed of more than 400 members, of which about 250 are active, according to the rules regarding the fee payments provided by the Articles. The active members list is available in the reserved part of the web site. The members of the Commission are generally scholars and researchers, studying different subjects and coming from all over the world, who, with their activities, enhance the Commission, thus creating a virtual meeting-point, where it is possible to compare and contrast the different ways of conceiving and studying the history of international relations in the world.
The last Scientific Assembly of the Commission, held during the Historical Science World Congress in Oslo (August 2000) and devoted to Globalization and Regionalization in History of International Relations and The Image of Populations in the History of International Relations from XII Century to Nowadays, was just the most recent manifestation of the activities and work criteria on which the members of the Commission had been able to debate.In 2003 the Commission Secretariat in Milan created this web site, through which the active members have the possibility to let their research and teaching activities known.
Moreover, we would like to create a net of knowledge and exchange outside the official and imeeting places. Each member has got a personal web page to attach their curriculum of studies, all the personal works about the history of international relations, more and less recent, and the teaching programmes in progress at the moment.
Furthermore, each member can publish any paper they would like to be known to the other members in their personal web page.The Commission members have the possibility to meet each other every five years in a General Assembly during the Historical Science World Congress, where they also suggest and discuss the work programme for the following five years.
In this context, after Oslo, the Commission has promoted the following conventions: Political Regimes and Foreign Policies: a Comparative Approach, organized by the University of Brasilia in May 2003; and Rethinking International History from Asian Perspectives, arranged for September 2004 at the Hiroshima City University.
The Secretariat also reports about the following conventions programmes, which have still to be defined in their ultimate form: Great Religions of the World and Globalisation (proposed by Professor Alfredo Canavero, Universit�degli Studi of Milan); International Relations after the Second World War: Principal Stages and Basic Tendencies (proposed by Professor Michail Narinskij, Moscow State Institute of International Relations); LEurope central et la formation dune societ�international apr� la Premiere Guerre Mondiale (proposed by Professor Bohumila Ferencuhova, Slovakian Academy of Sciences of Bratislava).
The programme also includes the realization of the seminar A New Dialogue Between Theorists and Historians of International Relations. This seminar, proposed by Professor Yale Ferguson, New Jersey Rutgers University, is included in a group of projects assented to in the past, and still in progress.
Among these we put to your attention the following: Archives and the History of International Organizations (organized by the Working Committee of CHIR and by the International Commission of Archives); and The History of International Relations and Its Periodization (orchestrated by Professor Brunello Vigezzi, Universit�degli Studi of Milan).
Professor Robert Frank, Institut Pierre Renouvin of the Sorbonne University in Paris, has moreover proposed and started a multiyear work project devoted to A New History of Transatlantic Relations: Contrasting Strategies of Interdipendence and the Quest for an Atlantic Identity.
The Commission Secretariat would also like to report on this web site the meetings and scientific projects signalled by the members of the Commission. We have received the following meeting programmes, scheduled for October/November 2003: Facultad de Ciencias Econ�icas of the Buenos Aires University; and America 1804-2004. A Doscientos Anos del Inicio de las Luchas por la Indipendencia , organized by the Escuela Superior de Comercio Carlos Pellegrini of the Buenos Aires University.
In the course of the next Historical Science World Congress (Sydney, July 2005), the Commission Bureau has organized a General Assembly devoted to: Whats New in the History (and Theory) of International Relations after 1989? The list of proposals given by the different members on the subject, arrived at the Secretariat in Milan, is available in the reserved area of the web site. The call for papers is scheduled for the beginning of February 2004, immediately after the meeting of the Bureau, scheduled for the end of January in Paris. The members who would like to present suggestions about the final definition of the ultimate Sydney programme, will be able to do this within 20th January 2004. The general programme of the Sydney Congress with the indication of the major and special themes, the roundtables, the organizers and the discussants is moreover available on the web site.
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