The 20th World Congress of the International Political Science Association took place in Fukuoka, Japan, and I participated presenting a paper on Intellectual Property Rights, Regional Integration and Food Security in Developing Countries. The paper was presented in the panel about the Relationship Between Human Security and Global Democracy, organized by the Research Committee 35 on Technology and Development. By becoming member of the advisory board of the RC35, I expect to organize a panel on IT, its regulation and development for the next IPSA World Congress to be held in Santiago de Chile in 2009. In the meantime the idea is to held regional meetings and to try to put together at least one edited book on the topic.
As it normally happens with this type of multitudinary congresses, sometimes one feels that there are too many things going on at the same time and misses the smaller topical conferences focused on one issue, but after attending some panels on topics unrelated to my area of research and meeting people from an array of different social sciences I realised how important is to attend these congresses too (still, the more topical conferences are a must). Having tried always to engage IT regulation and development from a multidisciplinary point of view attending this congress put me in contact with a real multitude of disciplines and gave me some insights on ways to explore the topics I am currently researching about.
On the other hand, it is always nice to go back to Japan and feel that everyone is there to make you feel at home. The organization of the JPSA (link in Japanese only) and the City of Fukuoka was impecable, and the legion of volunteers that were there to help the gaijins was very impressive too.
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