Welcome to the June edition of our newsletter, including:
- Reminder: Qualitative Methods Workshop
- Our Conference – call for papers/blogs
- Quantitative Methods Workshop – Thank You
- Conference: The Evolution of Devolution
- 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!
We will have a final newsletter in July, then we will break up for the summer until September.
Best wishes,
Marc (@marcgeddes), Louise (@LouiseVThompson) Alex (@A_Meakin) and Seán (@S_Haughey)
1. REMINDER: Qualitative Methods Workshop
Building on success from last year, we are pleased to hold a qualitative methods workshop at the University of Sheffield on 29 June. The workshop is aimed at and designed for anyone interested in using qualitative methods, particularly interviews, observation and textual analysis. The workshop will have three themed sessions, during which senior and experienced researchers (speakers TBC) will give short presentations to give practical and hands-on tips to use various qualitative methods.
The focus of each themed session is to provide a practical approach to using qualitative methods (rather than focusing on theoretical debates/discussions). Attendees will have the opportunity to discuss their own research design throughout the day.
The workshop will take place at the Department of Politics (see here for directions) and run from 10am until 5pm (a full schedule will be made available ASAP). Lunch will be provided. Each themed session will last around 1h30min.
The workshop is open to all. For PSA members, the event will cost £5.00; for non-PSA members, it will be £7.50. If you are a PhD student and coming from outside Sheffield, we are able to contribute up to £50.00 towards travel costs (due to limited funds, this is on a first-come-first-serve basis, and cannot be guaranteed). Please register online here (payment will be made on the day).
This workshop is brought to you by the PSA Parliaments Group, the PSA Early Career Network, PSA Interpretive Political Science Group and the PSA Qualitative Methods Group.
For any questions, please contact Marc Geddes (marc.geddes@ed.ac.uk).
2. REMINDER: PSA Parliaments Group Conference – Call for Papers/Blogs
Just a quick reminder about our conference, which will take place in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The theme for our conference this year is ‘Making Sense of Parliaments’ – a timely and pertinent question in the NI context, given that the region’s legislature has been suspended since January 2017.
As last year, our call for submissions is a 150-word abstract, which would then be turned into a 1,000-1,500-word blog post. To submit your abstract – please click here. We welcome researchers, academics and practitioners from all disciplines and at all levels, and of course promote methodological pluralism.
Conference details
Date and time: Thursday, 08 Nov (1pm-6.30pm) and Friday, 09 Nov (9am-12.30pm)
Location: Parliament Buildings, Stormont Estate, Belfast, BT4, Northern Ireland
A draft conference schedule will be published closer to the time.
Key dates
Monday, 07 May – Call for blogs/papers announced
Friday, 07 September – Deadline for abstracts
Monday, 01 October – Notification of acceptance
Friday, 02 November – Deadline for registration and draft papers
08-09 November – Conference
For further details, please get in touch with Marc Geddes (marc.geddes@ed.ac.uk). Keep up-to-date at our website by clicking here.
3. Quantitative Methods Workshop
We would like to thank Stephen Bates and colleagues for hosting the Quantitative Methods Workshop at the University of Birmingham at the end of May last month. We really appreciate the time taken out to help early career academics with their methods training.
If you had ideas for future events, feedback on how we could improve events, or what would incentivise you to attend, please feel free to drop us a line.
4. Conference: The Evolution of Devolution in NI, 1998-2018
June 2018 marks the twentieth anniversary of the first elections to Northern Ireland’s power-sharing institutions, established as part of the historic Good Friday Agreement.
The Europe in the World Centre, in conjunction with the Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty, marks this opportune moment to critically reflect upon the outworking of devolution in Northern Ireland with this one-day conference.
The conference will open with a keynote address by Alan Whysall, who has been involved with the Northern Ireland peace process for most of the last 20 years in his capacity as senior civil servant in the Northern Ireland Office. Alan is now Honorary Senior Research Associate at the Constitution Unit, University College London.
Academics and postgraduate researchers from the universities of Liverpool, Edinburgh, Bath, Ulster and Queen’s University Belfast will present papers on topics spanning devolved government, voting behaviour, and identity politics.
For more information, including how to attend, please click here.
5. Recently on the blog
- Leader of the House of Commons Paul Seaward (BA/Wolfson Research Professor)
- How majoritarianism endures in the structures of the UK’s devolved institutions Felicity Matthews (Sheffield)
- Lords Brexit defeats are forcing MPs to face crucial choices Meg Russell (UCL)
- Divisions in the Select Committee on Exiting the European Union Philip Lynch and Richard Whitaker (Leicester)