Dear Colleagues, In celebration of the new year, I want to urge you all to renew your membership in the Political Economy of the World System section. We are planning a particularly interesting program for the ASA in Washington in August. Specifically, we are jointly sponsoring with the Political Sociology section, a one day mini-conference on the "The Politics of Globalization" that will take place the day before the start of the ASA conference. Plenary speakers for the mini-conference include Immanuel Wallerstein, Neil Fligstein, Saskia Sassen, and Beverly Silver. There will also be two open sessions, one on "Globalization and Resistance" and the other on "Institutions of Globalization." Deadlines for submission for these two sessions are March 1st, 2000. Complete information on the mini-conference is available at the webpage: http://sociology.ucdavis.edu/pewspol/index.html. We are grateful to Sean O'Riain at U.C. Davis for organizing this website. Please check it out. One other piece of information. One of the PEWS sessions is being organized in collaboration with the Section on International Migration. The topic is "Comparative Studies of International Migration in the World System." The organizer, Luin Goldring, (goldring@yorku.ca) is still looking for papers for this session. Sincerely, Fred Block