The Interdisciplinary Studies Section (IDSS) of the International Studies Association is an international community of scholars working across disciplines to address pressing global issues and problems.

The IDSS seeks to engage academics together with practitioners in novel productions of knowledge that recognize the complexity and heterogeneity of understanding our complex world today. As myriad processes of globalization challenge spatial and territorial boundaries, understanding them likewise requires imaginative and eclectic methods that transgress established disciplines. Hence the IDSS’s emphasis on pressing issues and problems, treated by scholars from multiple, interdisciplinary perspectives. We seek to create a space for conversations across multiple disciplines as well as challenging the ways disciplinary specialization limits appreciation of the complexity of global worlds, creating a community of scholars engaged in global studies, broadly conceived, beyond the traditional fields of political science and international relations. Some of our members work on particular countries and regions, while others address global concerns. The key is working in and across multiple disciplines in interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary ways that break down the artificiality of academic disciplines so as to understand globally constructed spaces and worlds.

What We Do

The IDSS organizes panels and roundtables at the annual conferences of the International Studies Association – sponsoring or co-sponsoring forty panels at the upcoming virtual ISA conference in April 2021. We also organize a bi-annual summer conference on specific themes, most recently in Seoul, South Korea, in collaboration with Youngsai University, on Regionalist Perspectives on World Order: Challenges and Responses; and in Bologna, Italy, with the University of Bologna, on Cooperation and Contestation in World Politics. In addition, IDSS organizes occasional webinars, offers prizes for best conference papers at ISA conferences, and presents a Best Book Award.

Our major activities include organizing panels and roundtables at the annual conference of the International Studies Association – we are sponsoring or co-sponsoring 40 panels at the upcoming virtual meeting in April – and organizing a bi-annual summer conference on specific themes, most recently in Seoul, South Korea together with Youngsai University on Regionalist Perspectives on World Order: Challenges and Responses, and in Bologna with the University of Bologna on Cooperation and Contestation in World Politics. We also organize occasional webinars and offer prizes for the best graduate student conference papers at the ISA meetings and a best book award (this year’s winner is Murad Idris, War for Peace: Genealogies of a Violent Ideal in Western and Islamic Thought (OUP, 2019)). We also plan to organize forums on this website and to create spaces for scholars to post research queries and to discuss issues and approaches in interdisciplinary research.

About Our Blog

The blog section of this website is intended to create a space for scholars to post research queries and discuss approaches to interdisciplinary research. With the IDSS blog we want to broaden the community of scholars engaged in global studies, broadly conceived, beyond the traditional fields of political science and international relations, and bring academics into engagement with practitioners. Some of our members work on particular countries and regions, while others address global concerns. The key is to work in and across multiple disciplines, and in transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary ways that break down the artificiality of academic disciplines, to gain a better understanding of emerging global trends and critical issues.