Located in the heart of Paris in the 6th district, a five-minute walk from the beautiful Luxembourg gardens which host the French Senate, the American Graduate School in Paris (AGS) organizes its Graduate Student Conference each year on different themes.

This year’s theme is ‘Off the Beaten Track: Non-Western Perspectives in International Relations.’ The conference will be held on Friday, April 21st 2017 and will include four graduate student panels and an additional keynote panel with experts & professionals. The conference theme derives inspiration from the non-Western students at AGS from such countries as Ghana, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Philippines, Liberia, Vietnam, Thailand, who often ask questions about the Western biases in IR as well as from Amitav Acharya and Barry Buzan’s book entitled “Non-Western International Relations Theory: Perspectives on and Beyond Asia” (Routledge 2009).

"Given that the world has moved well beyond the period of Western colonialism, and clearly into a durable period in which non Western cultures have gained their political autonomy, it is long past time that non Western voices had a higher profile in debates about international relations, not just as disciples of Western schools of thought, but as inventors of their own approaches. Western IR theory has the advantage of being the first in the field, and has developed many valuable insights, but few would defend the position that it captures everything we need to know about world politics." (Acharya and Buzan 2009)