There are three reasons why the initial organization for the GSA will be based at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK at least for the next two years until the membership has hopefully expanded and a second batch of elected executive committee members may cause the main location of the GSA to move elsewhere.

• The initial interest in founding the GSA grew out of the first international conference on ‘Globalization and identities’ organised by Paul Kennedy of the Institute for Global Studies and the department of sociology in June/July 1999 and held at MMU.
  
  Many people attending that conference expressed a strong desire to attend follow-up conferences around similar global themes and urged us to organise such future events.
  
  Some went further and suggested that a permanent forum was needed in order to bring together scholars from related disciplines in the social and human sciences who share a common interest in themes relating to globalization, global society and global problems.
  
  Thus, inadvertently, and with the support of other academics, the opportunity arose for MMU to become the focus and the locus for organising such events and for providing the early framework for establishing a GSA. As indicted above, however, this is a temporary arrangement.



• The Department of Sociology at MMU has agreed to provide a small amount of initial funding This will enable the association to secure sufficient administrative support so that the first executive committee can launch the new association effectively in the early period.



• Paul Kennedy and Catherine Danks, assisted by colleagues attached to the Institute for global studies at MMU, have already played a key role in preparing the ground work for the GSA.
  
  They have also been helped and supported through links to people from other universities and organizations including those mentioned in section A. They are prepared to act as key members of the first executive committee.