World Association of International Studies (WAIS) - official Corresponding Fellow (WAISer)
WAIS is one big international network whose aim is to promote peace across cultural, religious, and political boundaries. --Ronald Hilton
Delighted to say I've finally received an email from prof. John Eipper, the WAIS editor, telling me my candidacy has been approved! So I'm now an official Corresponding Fellow ("WAISer"), and perhaps a little wiser too…I hope! ;)
Their mission statement is very much in line with my own and that of the "Knights Templar", so proud to join this community of professionals.
From their website:
The World Association of International Studies (WAIS) was founded in 1965 and is the oldest e-journal in the world, even prior to Internet days.
WAIS as an independent, non-profit association traces its roots back to its founding in 1965, as the California Institute of International Studies (CIIS). Prof. Ronald Hilton (1911-2007) of Stanford University directed CIIS/WAIS for over four decades, during which time he assembled a worldwide network of scholars, historians, business leaders, lawyers, journalists, military officers, diplomats and sundry other experts. Beginning in 1970, CIIS/WAIS published the paper-and-ink journal World Affairs Report, but in the early 1980s Prof. Hilton saw the possibilities of connecting an international scholarly community in real-time through the wonders of computer technology. Beginning in 1983 WAR became accessible to 15,000 university terminals through the DIALOG computer system. The Stanford Campus Report stated in a March 9, 1983 article that WAR was the first journal of any kind to make its entire text available on-line.
Now under the editorship of Prof. Hilton's successor, John Eipper, a Hispanist at Adrian College (Michigan), WAIS carries on daily discussions among its 250+ correspondents in 30 nations on topics far and wide. The WAIS goals are analysis and insight. We are not constrained by any single ideology--indeed, "WAISers" represent the entire spectrum of political views, from Left/Marxist to US Democratic to Republican to Right/Libertarian.
Readers of WAR will meet apologists for US foreign policy, as well as scathing critics of the same. We have pro-EU internationalists and isolationists of all stripes. Defenders of the present government in Iran and proponents of its overthrow. Protectionists and lovers of free trade. Idealists and Realists in International Relations. Our only requirement is that correspondents make a good-faith effort to convey an informed Truth ("veritas" is the third part of our motto--Pax, Lux et Veritas), and that they avoid ad hominem attacks on other WAIS members. Discuss ideas, not people, we say. Yet given the spectrum of ideas represented by our membership, it is no surprise that WAIS discussions can occasionally get heated.
Prof. Hilton always described himself as a mugwump, someone who accepts no ideological position without a healthy dose of skepticism (now we might term such an attitude "critical thinking"). Now in its 50th year, WAIS/WAR continues to operate fearlessly in the mugwumpish tradition.