[A2k] call for papers, Politics of Intellectual Property

[Ken Shadlen]

Please post this call for papers on the A2K list. This regards a
workshop on the Politics of Intellectual Property, as part of the
European Consortium for Political Research, in April 2008. The deadline
for proposals is 1 December.

Thanks,

Ken Shadlen
Senior Lecturer in Development Studies
Development Studies Institute (DESTIN)
London School of Economics
London WC2A 2AE (United Kingdom)

TEL: +(44-20) 7852-3681
FAX: +(44-20) 7955-6844
EMAIL: k.shadlen@lse.ac.uk
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/DESTIN/whosWho/shadlenk.htm

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Politics of Intellectual Property
Convenors:
Sebastian Haunss (University Hamburg, Germany)
Kenneth C. Shadlen (London School of Economics, UK)

Intellectual property (IP) has become an issue of utmost importance in
the contemporary global economy. How should the private or collective
acquisition and control of knowledge be governed? Which frameworks for
managing IP are optimal for stimulating the production of knowledge
while also facilitating use? These overarching questions are
increasingly the subject of political conflicts over what types of
knowledge can and should be privately owned, and about how much power
owners should have to restrict access to privately owned knowledge.

The prevailing regulatory model, first adopted in the OECD and
transmitted throughout the world by means of a variety of multilateral
and regional agreements, is informed by an expectation that more and
stronger intellectual property rights improves social welfare. Yet as
some actors push for continuous expansion of IPRs, others point to the
negative impact that strong private, exclusionary rights over knowledge
can have on downstream innovation and consumers=92 abilities to access
critical knowledge-based goods. Parallel to this welfare-based debate
over the relative utilities of different IP frameworks, another debate
focuses on the philosophical, ethical, and moral rationale for and
objections to private ownership of knowledge. In short, the increasing
importance of intellectual property in the global economy has been
accompanied by a wide range of political conflicts, as actors contest
the structure, scope, and boundaries of existing frameworks for
establishing and regulating intellectual property rights.

The following areas of conflict areas are notable, though this list is
far from comprehensive:
=95 Biodiversity: Patentability of genetic sequences of indigenous plants.
=95 Biomedical biotechnology: Patentability of genetically modified life
forms and genetic sequences.
=95 File Sharing: Pirate parties, copying and distribution of music and
videos.
=95 Public health: Access to essential medicines.
=95 Software: Patents for software (and business methods).
=95 Research Tools: Access to publicly funded research and the
availability of research tools.
=95 Technology Transfer: The constraints placed on industrial firms in
developing countries that seek to adapt advanced technologies to local
demand.

Each of these issues raises complex economic, legal, and political
questions. And each provides illustration of the sorts of conflicts =96
over utility and morality =96 indicated above. Our workshop will examine
these diverse lines of political conflict. We invite participants to
present papers that address these (and other) areas of political
conflict over IP. We welcome papers that do so theoretically and/or
empirically.

While the broad topic of intellectual property has received considerable
attention in recent years, particularly from lawyers and activists,
remarkably few political scientists have turned their attention to this
issue. Our workshop aims to encourage this incipient research agenda and
encourage scholars to direct their analytic energies toward the politics
of IP. As such, we invite scholars working in international relations,
political economy, social movement studies, political sociology, and
other fields to confront their respective methodological perspectives
and theoretical assumptions in a productive exchange that promises to
lead to a fuller understanding of the social and political processes
that affect the governance of intellectual property.

Please submit abstracts by 1st December 2007 to:
Sebastian Haunss <sebastian.haunss@uni-hamburg.de> or
Kenneth Shadlen <k.shadlen@lse.ac.uk>

For more information see the ECPR website:
http://www.rennes2008.visionmd.co.uk/index.html