ECPR press: the publishing imprint of the ecpr

The two book series launched at the Granada Joint Sessions in 2005, ECPR Classics and ECPR Monographs, were intended to fill important gaps in academic publishing markets (Figures 1 and 2). However, they also represent a departure from previous ECPR-sponsored series in that both are produced at the ECPR Central Services and published under the imprint of the ECPR Press. Contemporary technology makes it possible to publish books of a high professional quality on a much smaller scale than in the past, and the ECPR Press has taken full advantage of this. Our aim is to produce a 'quality product' but at a reasonable price, and the latter means that all our books have to be paperbacks and not hardbacks. Three Classics and three Monographs were published in our launch year, and it is our aim to publish annually two or three books in each series.

Figure 1.

The first three authors of the ECPR Monographs series at the Granada Joint Sessions, left to right: Paul Magnette, Mercedes Mateo Diaz and Kevin Casas-Zamora.

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Figure 2.

Giovanni Sartori helps launch the ECPR Press and the reprint of his Classic Parties and Party Systems at the Granada Joint Sessions.

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ECPR CLASSICS

The Classics series brings back into publication important works of political science and international relations that are out of print – in a number of cases they have long been unavailable to readers, except in libraries. The criteria for selection for the series is that a work must not only have made a major contribution to a sub-field of the discipline at the time that it was first published, but it must also be capable of making a significant contribution to academic debates today. We always invite the authors (or, in the case of deceased authors, a friend or close colleague) to write a new introduction to the book. The appropriate length for these introductions varies, of course, but in no case can it be more than 10,000 words.

Our policy is to ask colleagues at ECPR-affiliated institutions to make suggestions for the Classics series, and quite a number have kindly done so. We hope more will contact us in the future. However, we are always in danger of disappointing those who have made excellent suggestions, because we often face quite serious problems in obtaining permission to re-publish from those persons who hold the copyright to a book. This is especially evident with edited collections of essays, where typically the author of each essay in the volume holds the copyright for his or her own essay. Tracking down all the authors many years after the work was published involves far more effort than the resources at the Press's disposal can sustain, particularly in cases where an author has died and the executors of their estates would have to be contacted. However, even single-authored monographs can be problematic, especially when the original publishing firm has been taken over by another one, and their records of copyright holding turn out to be incomplete.

ECPR MONOGRAPHS

With the Monograph series, the gap in the market we are hoping to partially fill is the result of the structure of costs facing commercial publishers, and even university presses. Several decades ago outstanding research-based monographs would find their way into print, whereas now a major consideration as to whether to publish a manuscript is the number of copies it is expected to sell. Younger scholars often find themselves asked to write books aimed at the student market, but find it very difficult to have even greatly revised versions of their doctoral theses considered at all for publication as a book. Such considerations also play some role with the ECPR series: we cannot publish works that are so specialised that we could not cover our production costs. However, we do have one major advantage over both academic and commercial presses, in that our overheads are lower, so that the sales we have to generate from a particular book to break even are also much lower.

Even more than with the Classics series, we rely heavily on academics at the ECPR member institutions to bring promising book proposals to our attention. Although we very much hope to attract onto our lists books from senior and famous scholars, we recognise that the series is especially important for younger scholars whose current lack of fame makes it more difficult to get proposals accepted by other presses. Yet these are precisely the prospective authors that, even with the help of the members of the Editorial Board, the Series Editors themselves are unlikely to know personally in great numbers. That is why we must rely so much on word of mouth: on colleagues telling us about possible outstanding proposals, and word about the series reaching junior scholars.

One obvious point about publishing is that few academic books sell that many copies outside the international research community in which the author is operating. Were the ECPR publishing novels we would surely fail on the marketing front because we would not get our books into many high-street bookshops. But given that virtually all our sales would only ever be to fellow academics, ECPR Press is well placed to market books successfully – because of the size of its membership, the regular contact it has with that membership, the various forums (including workshops and conferences) that it organises regularly, and its growing contacts with other political science bodies, such as the APSA.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE

At the moment our greatest challenge, perhaps, is to get more interest in the Monographs series from those working in International Relations (IR). The two series are aimed at both political science and IR, and in the Classics series we published one IR book in our launch year and will be publishing another one in 2007 (Barry Buzan's People, States and Fear). However, thus far, nearly all the recommendations and proposals we have received for the Monographs series are for works in political science (broadly defined). We want to balance our "portfolio" of books in the next few years and we are looking to our colleagues in IR to help us find suitable research-based manuscripts that we can add to our list.

At key development at the end of 2005 was ECPR Press entering into an agreement with the US-based online library Questia (www.Questia.com) to make all ECPR Press titles available through their portal. And, in addition, the Chinese translation rights to Morton Kaplan's text have just recently been licensed to Horizon Publishing in Beijing for a simplified Chinese character version.

Alan Ware
Worcester College, University of Oxford
Editor, ECPR Classics and Monographs

PUBLISHED IN 2005:

Political Elites, Geraint Parry

Parties and Party Systems, Giovanni Sartori

System and Process in International Politics, Morton A Kaplan

Paying for Democracy, Kevin Casas-Zamora

Representing Women?, Mercedes Mateo Diaz

Citizenship, Paul Magnette

FORTHCOMING IN 2006:

Individualism, Steven Lukes

Elite and Specialized Interviewing, Lewis A. Dexter

The Politics of Income Taxation, Steffen Ganghof

Gender and the Vote in Britain, Rosie Campbell

UNDER CONTRACT

People, States and Fear, Barry Buzan

Identity, Competition and Electoral Availability, Peter Mair and Stefano Bartolini

All ECPR Press books can be ordered directly from the Central Services at a 10% discount to ECPR members. For more information on either purchasing books, or recommending titles for either series please visit the web site www.ecprnet.org, or contact Rebecca Knappett rknapp@essex.ac.uk.

ecpr standing group profile: security issues

The ECPR Standing Group on Security Issues has established a specific forum for scholars with a broad focus on security issues, allows sustained dialogue on these issues among academics and practitioners in this area within and beyond ECPR member institutions, and contributes to fostering a cross-disciplinary, comprehensive European academic debate on security. In keeping with ECPR traditions and academic standards, this debate is open to scholars regardless of their methodological approach or subject background and offers the opportunity to include members of the academic and policy communities from a wide range of countries and institutions. While the Standing Group's predominantly European membership will not preclude the study of security issues outside Europe, it makes it possible to address specific European concerns – academic as well as policy-related – in a more nuanced, substantive and sustained manner and provides a useful forum for engaging in a broader international dialogue with academics and policymakers from North America and elsewhere.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES

The Standing Group seeks to facilitate intellectually challenging and productive dialogue across disciplinary boundaries and methodological approaches in the study of security issues ranging from traditional state-centric security issues, to new transnational security threats, to broader issues of human security in order to enable a comprehensive approach to the study of both the challenges to, and the sources of, security and stability in the contemporary world, involving scholars and practitioners from all of ECPR's member institutions.

ORIGIN AND SHORT HISTORY

The idea for the creation of a Standing Group on Security Issues emerged from discussions between the two conveners Fiona B, Adamson and Stefan Wolff and a number of other scholars in Europe and North America. Initial discussions with ECPR Central Services in the course of 2004 led to the parallel proposal of establishing a new Standing Group and a section on 'Contemporary Security Issues' at the ECPR's 2005 General Conference in Budapest.

ORGANISATION OF THE STANDING GROUP

The Standing Group has, at present, 399 members from 37 countries (counted by subscribers to our mailing list: security@jiscmail.ac.uk). The largest number of members are from the US (132), followed by the UK (109), German (29), Italy (18), and Canada (16).

The Standing Group is managed by its two conveners in consultation with the membership and in accordance with the guidelines of the ECPR.

ACTIVITIES OF THE STANDING GROUP

The Standing Group was present with its own section of panels at the ECPR's 2005 General Conference in Budapest. There were a total of eleven panels with 50 participants giving papers, acting as chairs or serving as discussants. Attendance at the panels varied between ten and thirty people. The Standing Group was also present with one sponsored panel at the Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association of the UK in Reading in April 2006.

Our mailing list (security@jiscmail.ac.uk), has seen a regular volume of traffic of between 10-20 messages per month over the past year, circulating information on conferences, publications, job vacancies and calls for papers relevant to the area of security studies. The list is our main means of communication with members and of maintaining their involvement in the group's activities.

The Standing Group also has a website, hosted by the University of Bath (http://staff.bath.ac.uk/mlssaw/ecpr). It contains basic information about the group, how to contact its conveners, how to join, how to subscribe to our mailing list and about our activities.

Fiona B. Adamson
University College London and Stefan Wolff, University of Bath

the ecpr at the international studies association (isa)

The ECPR sponsored two panels and a roundtable at the 47th Annual ISA Convention in San Diego at the end of March. The two panels were organised on behalf of the ECPR by Mick Cox and Fulvio Attina, both members of the Executive Committee. Full details of the roundtable and panels are below (and can also be found on the ISA web site: http://www.isanet.org/sandiego/).

ROUNDTABLE

Constructing a Mediterranean Region

Chair: Fulvio A. Attinà, University of Catania

Roundtable Discussants:

Emanuel Adler, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Federica Bicchi, London School of Economics and Political Science

Sven Biscop, Royal Institute for International Relations (IRRI-KIIB)

Beverly Crawford, University of California, Berkeley

Raffaella A. Del Sarto, European University Institute

Richard Gillespie, University of Liverpool

Ian Manners, Malmö University

Saba Ozyurt, University of California Irvine

Michelle Pace, University of Birmingham

Barbara A. Roberson, University of Warwick

Etel Solingen, University of California Irvine

PANEL 1

Title: Realism Reconsidered: Hans Morgenthau and the Nature of International Relations – I: The Classical Legacy

Chair: Michael Cox, London School of Economics

Papers:

'"The Twilight of International Morality"? Hans J Morgenthau and Carl Schmitt on the End of the Jus Publicum Europaeum'

Chris Brown, London School of Economics

'Hans Morgenthau, Michael Oakeshott and the Possibility of Tragedy in World Politics'

Nicholas J. Rengger, University of St Andrews

'Pragmatist Phronesis: What Hans J. Morgenthau learned from Aristotle'

Anthony F. Lang, University of St Andrews

Discussant: Richard

Ned Lebow, Dartmouth College

PANEL 2

Title: Realism Reconsidered II – Morgenthau and Realism Today

Chair: Michael C. Williams, University of Aberystwyth

Papers:

'From Impossible to Essential: The Thermonuclear Revolution in Morgenthau's Conception of a World State

Campbell Craig, University of Southampton

'Hans J. Morgenthau, Classical Realism and the Cold War'

Michael Cox, London School of Economics

'Hans J. Morgenthau's Conception of the Balance of Power'

Richard Little, University of Bristol

'Morgenthau Now: National Greatness, Neoconservatism, and Classical Realism'

Michael C. Williams, University of Aberystwyth

Discussant: Richard Ned Lebow, Dartmouth College

BOOK EXHIBITION AND RECEPTION

For the first time, the ECPR also hosted a reception (on the Wednesday evening) and exhibited in the book exhibition area at the Convention. The book stand provided both a base for the ECPR during the Convention, as well as an opportunity to promote both the publications and the wider work of the ECPR to ISA delegates.

the ecpr at the international political science association (ipsa)

The ECPR will be at the International Political Science Association's (IPSA) 20th World Congress this year in Fukuoka, Japan, in July (9th–13th). The ECPR is sponsoring two panels at the Congress, with one in conjunction with the Asian Consortium for Political Research (ACPR). Full details are below and can also be found on the IPSA website (http://www.fukuoka2006.com/en/).

ECPR-SPONSORED PANEL

Title: Was the EU Constitutional Treaty Necessary and Should We Mourn its Passing?

Convener: Richard Bellamy, University College London

Papers:

'Adieu to Constitutional Elitism?'

John Erik Fossum, University of British Colombia, Canada

'Pining for the Fjords? Or an ex-Constitution?'

Lynn Dobson, University of Edinburgh

'Constitutionalising a compound polity: perspective on EU constitutionalism'

Sergio Fabbrini, Università degli Studi di Trento

'If the Constitutional Treaty was the Solution, what was the Problem?'

Andreas Follesdal, University of Oslo

Discussant: Beate Kohler-Koch, University of Mannheim

ACPR–ECPR-SPONSORED PANEL

Title: 'Comparing Local Democracy: Asia-Europe Nexus'

Co-conveners (co-chairs): Chung-Si Ahn, ACPR Secretariat & Seoul National University

Harald Baldersheim, University of Oslo

ECPR Papers:

'Democratic Mobilisation through Quota: Experiences in India and Germany'

Brigitte Geissel, WZ Berlin

'Does metropolitanisation threaten democracy? Lessons from the IMO Project'

Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot, Sciences Po Bordeaux

ACPR Papers:

'The Politics of Policy Making in Hong Kong since 1997: Participation and Policy Dynamics in Comparative Perspective'

Peter T.Y. Cheung, University of Hong Kong

'Globalisation and City Governance in East Asia: Comparing Pusan (Korea) and Taizhong (Taiwan) in Footwear Industry'

Suk-Jun Lim, Dong-A University, Korea

Discussants: Harald Baldersheim, University of Oslo

Chung-Si Ahn, Seoul National University

BOOK EXHIBITION AND RECEPTION

The ECPR will be hosting a reception at IPSA as well as exhibiting in the book exhibition. ECPR Central Services staff will be on the stand to answer any queries on the ECPR, to promote its large publishing portfolio as well as the Consortium as a whole. Participants will be able to order all ECPR Press titles at a discount, as well as viewing other ECPR publications such as the journals EJPR and EPS, and the two book series published with OUP and Routledge.

the ecpr at the american political science association (apsa)

The APSA Annual Meeting will take place in Philadelphia this year from August 31st to September 3rd, and the ECPR will once again have a high-profile presence at this event. The ECPR will be sponsoring three panels; details are below and can also be found on the APSA website nearer the time (http://www.apsanet.org).

ECPR PANEL 1

Title: 'The Americanization of European Politics I: Should Europe Adopt American-Style Judicial Review?'

Co-sponsored by European Politics and Society Division

Chair: Robert A. Kagan, University of California

Papers:

'The Core of the Case Against Judicial Review'

Jeremy Waldron, Columbia Law School

'Political Constitutionalism'

Richard Bellamy, University College London

'Is there a Commonwealth Alternative?'

Janet Hiebert, Queen's University, Ontario

Disc: Lawrence A. Alexander, University of San Diego

ECPR PANEL 2

Title: 'The Americanization of European Politics 2: Has Europe Adopted American-Style Judicial Review?'

Co-sponsored by European Politics and Society Division

Chair: Richard Bellamy, University College London

Papers:

'The Americanisation of European Law? Adversarial Legalism à la européenne'

R. Daniel Kelemen, University of Oxford

'Adjudicating Difference: Judicial Review and Religious Expression in the European Union'

Cindy Skach, Harvard University

'When Courts Decide: Foreigners' Rights and the Demise of Social Citizenship in Europe and the US?'

Lisa Conant, University of Denver

'American and European Ways of Law: Six Entrenched Differences'

Robert A. Kagan, University of California

Discussant: Oliver Gerstenberg, University of Leeds

ECPR PANEL 3

Title: The Bush Doctrine, the War on Terror and International Relations Theory: A study in failure?

Chair: Michael Cox, London School of Economics

Papers:

'What is a pole and do we live in a unipolar world?'

Joe Grieco, Duke University

'Realism and the Bush Doctrine: Crisis – What Crisis?'

William C. Wohlforth, Dartmouth College

'American state strengthening from World War II to the War on Terror'

Dan Deudney, Johns Hopkins University

'Neo-Conservatism, Realism and the Bush Doctrine'

Michael C. Williams, University of Wales and Brian C. Schmidt, Carleton University

''Going it alone' and the Changing Narratives of Self-Interest in the United States'

'Liberal Theory and the Bush experience'

G. John Ikenberry, Princeton University

Discussant: Michael Cox, London School of Economics

BOOTH AND RECEPTION

The ECPR's booth in the book exhibition area will be the centre of the ECPR's presence at the APSA Annual Meeting, and Central Services staff will be on hand to answer any queries on the ECPR, as well as offering all ECPR Press titles at a discount to participants. Other ECPR publications, such as EJPR, EPS, and the two book series published by OUP and Routledge will also be on display. The reception co-hosted by the ECPR, Blackwell Publishing and the APSA's European Politics and Society section has become one of the most well-attended social events of the APSA Annual Meeting, and will be taking place once again this year; full details will be available nearer the time.

Richard Ned Lebow,
Dartmouth College and David Bohmer Lebow,
Office of Congressman Mike Honda