Sometimes the foreign policy crises with the most potential to change the world are the ones you just don’t see coming. That’s never been more apparent than today, as we all sit at home engaging in ‘social distancing,’ trying to maintain work productivity while preventing the spread of the novel coronavirus. A pandemic of this magnitude will have unknown – but potentially major – impacts on global politics for years to come.

The Cato Foreign Policy team wants to encourage graduate students to submit abstracts on this, and on other topics in international security to our fall Junior Scholars Symposium. As the event will be held in October, we still intend to hold it, and hope that it will provide a valuable outlet for graduate students who were unable to present at ISA Honolulu, or at other cancelled conferences this spring.

In order to ease the burden in the current unsettled circumstances, we are extending our submission deadline to April 20^th. Applicants will now be notified of the status of their applications by May 22^nd.

You can find the original call for papers here. The most pertinent details are:

Participants will be expected to produce an original paper of journal‐​article length; the workshop will focus on paper presentations, discussion and suggestions for improvement, with the expectation that authors will go on to seek publication in external journals or to build upon this research as they move towards the dissertation phase of their studies.

Participants are particularly expected to highlight the policy relevance of their work. In keeping with the Cato Institute’s commitment to moving U.S. foreign policy towards prudence and restraint, the policy implications of papers should be broadly compatible with a pragmatic realist approach to foreign policy.

The workshop will be held at Cato’s offices in Washington, D.C on October 9^thand 10^th. Participants will receive a stipend of $500, and will have reasonable travel and accommodation costs for the workshop covered.

To apply, submit an abstract of no more than 500 words to juniorscholars@​cato.​org. The abstract should detail your proposed research project, and be accompanied by a CV. Candidates should have a background in political science, history, public policy or a related field, and must have completed at least one year of graduate study in a PhD program by the time of the workshop.

If you fit these criteria, please consider applying. We are particularly happy to consider abstracts for papers that were unable to be presented at ISA or other conferences. Stay healthy!