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March 2019 newsletter

The March 2019 newsletter from the Political Studies Association Specialist Group on Parliaments

In this month’s newsletter, we have the following announcements/information:

  1. Reminder: #PSA19 registration open
  2. Essay competition 2019 reminder
  3. Australasian Studies of Parliaments Group Conference, October 2019
  4. PhD Scholarship at Leeds University of public engagement with Parliament
  5. Expert Seminar: Post-Legislative Scrutiny
  6. ECPR Summer School
  7. Good news/news from members
  8. Recently on our blog

If you have any notices / messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.

Best wishes,
Marc (@marcgeddes), Louise (@LouiseVThompson) Alex (@A_Meakin) and Seán (@S_Haughey)

1. REMINDER: PSA19 registration now open

The PSA’s annual international conference will take place in Nottingham, 15-17 April 2019.

Registration is now OPEN. Find out all about registration by clicking here.

For those interested in what the PSA Parliaments Group has got to offer, we have submitted six panels on the following themes:

  • Strengthening Parliamentary Democracy
  • Parliaments and Policy Making in Comparative Perspective
  • Opening Up Parliament: From public claims to expert knowledge
  • UK Parliament: How does history inform he future?
  • Legislation and Brexit
  • Researching Parliament (with HoC Academic Fellows)

Full details, including individual papers, are available on our website – please click here. Further details will be provided as and when they come available.

2. Essay competition 2019 reminder

Did you have an outstanding student from autumn 2018 that might deserve a prize for their academic work? Look no further and consider submitting their essay to our undergraduate essay competition, which is now open!

The winner will be presented with a prize of £100 and the runner-up with a prize of £50. The winners for 2018 were presented the award by Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira at our annual conference in Belfast. Previous winners have also been awarded by the Clerk of the House of Commons and the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. The deadline is 31 May, with a 3,500 word limit.

All of the details about the competition can be found on our webpage.

3. Australasian Studies of Parliament Group Conference, Oct 2019

Our members might be interested in the Australasian Studies of Parliament Group Conference being held in Canberra, 2-4 October this year. The call for papers and presenters can be found here – the organisers have said that they’d love to see international colleagues attending if possible.

If you have any further questions, please get in touch with Toni Matulick, Toni.matulick@aph.gov.au

4. PhD Scholarship at Leeds University on public engagement with Parliament

This may be of interest to your best MA students: a great opportunity for a PhD Scholarship at Leeds University, with Cristina Leston-Bandeira. The PhD would develop a collaborative project with Hope For The Future (HFTF), a small charity that promotes public engagement with parliament from bottom-up, with the specific aim of influencing climate change. The PhD project would evaluate the methods used by HFTF. This follows an ongoing collaboration between HFTF and Cristina, and the successful candidate would be sure to receive plenty of support and have access to great opportunities. Full details.

Deadline for applications: 1st May. Feel free to direct your students to Cristina, if they wish to discuss their application (C.Leston-Bandeira@leeds.ac.uk).

5. Expert Seminar: Post-Legislative Scrutiny

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the University of Hull are organizing an expert seminar on legislative ex-post impact assessments on 26 April in London.

Please find more information about this here.

6. ECPR Summer School 

This year’s summer school will take place at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. From July 23rd through August 2nd, join us in Lisbon for a fantastic academic and social network program:

  • Kenneth A. Shepsle (Harvard University) – Legislative Organization
  • Diana O’Brien (Texas A&M) – Representation in the 21st Century
  • George Tsebelis (University of Michigan) – Formal Models in Legislative Studies
  • Kaare Strøm (UC San Diego) – Delegation Theories and Parliamentary Democracy
  • Shane Martin (University of Essex) – Electoral Systems and Legislative Behavior
  • Jonathan Slapin (University of Essex) – Speechmaking in Legislatures and Text Analysis
  • Amie Kreppel (University of Florida) – European Parliament: Organization and Functions
  • Thomas Saalfeld (University of Bamberg) – Parties and Legislators
  • Ulrich Sieberer (University of Bamberg) – Party Discipline and Cohesion in Legislatures
  • D.J. Flynn (IE University, Madrid) – Experimental Design in Legislative Studies

Applications until March 15th to parliaments2019@gmail.com. Applicants should submit a CV and an abstract of a paper to present in the Summer School.

They should ask a referee to submit a letter of recommendation on their behalf.

Successful applicants will be notified by late March. Please note that all participants have to register for the summer school. The registration fee is € 400. Fee includes lunches, coffee breaks, and a final group dinner. Fee also covers all course materials.

Full information at www.parliaments2019.com

For more information reach out to jorge.fernandes@ics.ulisboa or ersanches@ics.ulisboa.pt

7. Good news items

Please remember to send us your good news items for us to celebrate in our monthly newsletter – accepted grant proposals, giving evidence to committees or stakeholders, large public events, finally published that book you’ve been working on … we’d love to hear it and share it with our members.

8. Recently on the blog

Some of our recent blogs include:

If you are interested in publishing a blog, please get in touch with our Communications Officer Alexandra Meakin (a.meakin@sheffield.ac.uk) for a chat about how to get involved.