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February 2018 newsletter

The February 2018 newsletter from the Political Studies Association Specialist Group on Parliaments

Welcome to the February edition of our newsletter, which is packed full. It includes:

  1. Where next for the PSA Parliaments Group conference?
  2. Essay Competition 2018
  3. PSA Annual Conference 2018 – reminder
  4. Are you a practitioner wanting to come to conference?
  5. Call for Papers: Committees in Comparative Perspective
  6. Call for Papers: Post-Legislative Scrutiny
  7. Exploring Parliament Textbook Launch
  8. Recently on our blog

If you have any notices / messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know (including events, new research projects, grants, publications, etc.). Or other ideas for the group and feedback for us, they’re welcome too!

Best wishes,
Marc (@marcgeddes), Louise (@LouiseVThompson) and Alexandra (@A_Meakin)

1 Where next for the PSA Parliaments conference?

We are currently sounding out ideas for where to hold our next PSA Parliaments Group Annual Conference and Lecture. If you have suggestions, please get in touch, or complete our Twitter poll. We are currently thinking of the following options:

  • Belfast
  • Birmingham
  • Manchester
  • Cardiff
  • OTHER: __________

This is in a random order. Our feedback form from our 2017 Conference is still open. The more feedback we receive, the better. Even if it’s just a quick email to say you really like the idea of X or really don’t like the idea of Y.

Additionally, any thoughts on date/time would be welcome (e.g. rather than one full day; would two half-days be better; weekdays or weekends, etc.). Given the success of our conference to date, we are also wondering about moving our AGM to the conference. If you had strong views, please let us know.

All feedback treated in confidence.

We will announce as much of our conference plans as possible at the PSA Annual Conference in Cardiff.

2 Essay competition 2017

We are pleased to announce the launch of our Essay Competition 2018! The winner will be presented with a prize of £100 and a runner-up prize of £50. Last year’s winners were presented the award by the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament at our annual one-day conference.

The essay competition is open to all undergraduate students, who should complete an essay with a focus on parliament(s), with a word limit of up to 3,500 words (excluding bibliography and references). In order to enter, lecturers must submit an essay on their students’ behalf by the closing date of Friday 01 June 2018. Please note that only one submission can be made per lecturer (or teaching assistant), who must be a member of the PSA and of the Parliaments Group.

Entries should be anonymised and sent to Marc Geddes (marc.geddes@ed.ac.uk) and Louise Thompson (Louise.Thompson@surrey.ac.uk) with key information as requested on our website. The winner will be announced in July 2018.

3 PSA Annual Conference 2018 – reminder

A quick note to say that we are excited and looking forward to our six panelsand 24+ papers covering everything from enhancing parliamentary democracy to organising and managing parliaments. There will also be an exciting panel with four of the current House of Commons academic fellows (a great opportunity to find out about their research, but also to discuss the practicalities of being a fellow) and a joint panel with several other specialist groups exploring populism in political systems.
See our website for the full list of papers and panels.

Please make sure you register for the conference – all details available here

4 Are you a practitioner wanting to come to the PSA Annual Conference?

If you are currently a practitioner – e.g. parliamentary staff across the UK, civil service, etc. – and would like to attend the PSA’s annual conference but find this difficult, then we want to hear from you!

We are in conversation with the PSA to make the conference more accessible to practitioners and we may be able to waive fees for some practitioners to attend the PSA Conference.

Please get in touch with Louise (louise.thompson@surrey.ac.uk) and Marc (marc.geddes@ed.ac.uk).

5 Call for Papers: Committees in Comparative Perspective

Workshop to be held 23-24 July 2018 in Brussels, Belgium.

The reputation, effectiveness and reform of legislative and scrutiny committees are increasingly becoming the subjects of prominent public and political debates. For example, in the US, the operation of congressional committees have been called into question by increasing party discipline and political polarisation, while, in the UK, select committees – especially in light of the 2010 Wright Reforms – are often hailed as ‘Parliament at its best’ and as being central to increasing the power of Parliament vis-à-vis the Government. Following on from developments such as these, academic attention is also being (re)turned towards committees; yet, of course, the role and scope of these institutions in legislatures and the policy making process differ widely around the world.

In light of this diversity, Stephen Bates (Birmingham) et. al. have organised an exciting workshop and full details of the Call for Papers are available here. Please note that the deadline for abstracts is 28 February.

Further information.

6 Call for Papers: Post-Legislative Scrutiny

For 2018, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) is preparing an academic seminar on Post-Legislative Scrutiny in cooperation with the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies of the University of London. The seminar has been scheduled for 10 July 2018 in London; and will result in a Special Issue of the European Journal on Law Reform, published by the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies.

Please click here for the full Call for Papers, and note that academics, parliamentarians, senior parliamentary staff, parliamentary development practitioners and legal / governance experts are invited to respond.

Further information.

7 Exploring Parliament textbook launch

The PSA Parliaments Group is very proud to see the fruition of Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Louise Thompson’s hard work in the form of the Exploring Parliament textbook! This has involved many of our group members, and we are very happy to see the book complete.

The book will be formally launched in the House of Commons on 06 March, with guest speakers including Professor Philip Cowley and Paul Evans.

Congratulations to the editors, authors and everyone else involved!

8 Recently on the blog