The Conclave
Where the year’s research is defended into the book. The Conclave is the room that turns published articles into the annual WMO book. It invites the strongest peer reviewed work to be defended, it seats, by invitation, the researchers who have built the most, and it awards the William Zartman Prize.
How the Conclave works
What it does. The Conclave proposes the annual themes of the Conflict Insight Journal, shaping where the field looks next, and once a year it hears the defence of the year’s research and chooses the annual WMO book.
The invitation to defend. When a peer reviewed article matches a theme of the coming book, the Conclave invites its author to defend it, whatever their engagement level and however many articles they have published. Publishing well is the only qualification to be invited. The defence is real, with questions, before peers.
The way into the book. A single defended and accepted article may stand in the annual book on its own. That is the entry point, and it is open to a first article as much as to a fiftieth. Where an author has published and defended several articles whose content coheres, that body of work may be gathered into a chapter. Both roads run through the same door: the defence.
The standing seat. A researcher who has published seven articles is invited to a standing seat in the Conclave. Seven is the threshold, and the seat is held by invitation, earned by published work and by nothing else. From that seat a member of the Conclave hears defences, shapes the themes, and votes on the book and on the Prize.
Who may watch. Fellows may observe the Conclave. Observers see the standard from inside. They do not vote, and their chair, like everything paid for in this house, carries no voice in the decisions.
The veto. The WMO holds two rights over Conclave decisions. It is the guarantee behind everything here: the standards of the house are not up for a vote, and everyone building here builds on that certainty. It is used rarely, in writing, with reasons.
The Conclave’s seats are not given. They are built, one article at a time.