We hope that you are safe and well. We have some updates for you:
- PSA Parliaments Survey: The State of Parliamentary & Legislative Studies
- PSA Parliaments Panel on Analysing Representation
- PSA21: Register Now!
- Urgent (and Not-So-Urgent) Questions with Michael Rush
- Webinar for Prospective PhD Students in Parliamentary Studies
- Upcoming Events: Diversity Sensitive Parliaments Seminar & EUGenDem Workshops
- Jobs in Poland and the University of Cambridge
- Call for Chapters: Doing Fieldwork in Centres of Power
- Recent Publications that have Caught our Eye
- Recently on the Blog
If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to the group, please let us know.
1. PSA Parliaments Survey: The State of Parliamentary & Legislative Studies
We are very pleased to announce the launch of our survey on research in parliamentary and legislative studies.
The purpose of the survey is to map the sub-discipline and to identify any trends and absences.
We encourage all our members who undertake research on (any aspect of) parliaments and legislatures to fill it in.
We will be presenting the initial findings at 2pm on Wednesday 9th June 2021 as part of our roundtable on the past, present and future of parliamentary studies. Book your ticket now!
2. PSA Parliaments Panel on Analysing Representation
Acting as a scholarly oasis in the arid dessert of pandemic-ridden UK academia, this month’s PSA Parliaments panel is at 2pm on Wednesday 10th March.
We’ll be focusing on representation and our speakers are:
- Rebecca McKee on “Who works for MPs? Representation in the House of Commons”
- Sardar Aziz on “Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament: stuck in the middle”
- Wang Leung Ting on “Professional Representation: The Effects of Prior Occupation on MPs’ Attention on Policies”
- Fotis Fitsilis on “Digital Tools to Bridge the Representation Gap”
All panels are free and all are welcome but please register beforehand in order to gain details of how to access the event.
Recordings of past presentations, including from last month’s excellent panel on parliaments and social media, can be found on the PSA Parliaments YouTube Channel.
3. PSA21: Register Now!
There are only four weeks to go until the start of the Political Studies Association Annual International Conference, PSA21, which will be taking place virtually this year.
We have four fantastic panels for you, featuring cutting edge research on parliaments and legislatures from around the world.
Take a look at our updated papers and panels list and register now!
4. Urgent (and Not-So-Urgent) Questions with Michael Rush
We are very pleased to announce that Professor Michael Rush is the third interviewee for our new feature, Urgent (and Not-So-Urgent) Questions, where scholars and practitioners in the field answer questions about their life, their academic career, their interests, and other less serious questions.
Please visit our website now to find out the reason why the Public Accounts Committee features in his greatest disappointments, why there is only one way to eat a scone, and whether he’ll be the first respondent not to say that the Palace of Westminster is their favourite building!
We must also apologise to last month’s interviewee, Christine Leston-Bandeira, for including a wrong link to her answers in last month’s newsletter. To read her answers, please click on this link.
If you would like to see someone answer our urgent and not-so-urgent questions, then please let us know.
5. Webinar for Prospective PhD Students in Parliamentary Studies
PSA Parliaments have organised a webinar for prospective PhD students who are interested in parliamentary and legislative studies.
The webinar will take place on Monday 19th April at 2pm and the panel features Margaret Arnott, Sarah Childs and Marc Geddes.
More details, and how to sign up, can be found here.
Please spread the word to any undergraduate and MA students you may know!
6. Upcoming Events: Diversity Sensitive Parliaments Seminar & EUGenDem Workshops
The Global Diversities and Inequalities Research Centre at London Metropolitan University is running a seminar on Diversity Sensitive Parliaments on Wednesday March 24th 2021.
More details, including how to register, can be found here.
The EUGenDem project is organising two virtual workshops in March as part of its series on Gender, democracy and polarized politics in Europe.
- Gendering Representative Institutions: Actors, Inner Lives, and Political Struggles on 12 March 2021 at 11am (Eastern European Time);
- Democratic backsliding in Europe and the opposition to gender equality on 17 March 2021 at 11am (Eastern European Time).
Please click on the titles above for full details of the workshops, including how to register.
7. Jobs in Poland and at the University of Cambridge
The Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies at the University of Wrocław, Poland, is seeking to appoint a full-time postdoctoral researcher for the research project “Democracy in pandemic times: towards a decline or a new form of representative democracy? (PANDEMO)”.
More details about the postdoc, including how to apply, can be found here.
The Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge is seeking a Research Assistant/Associate to support a research project led by Professor Michael Kenny, exploring the British state’s approach to devolution across the UK since 1999, and contemporary pressures upon the domestic union in the wake of Brexit and Covid-19.
More details about the position, including how to apply, can be found here.
8. Call for Chapters: Doing Fieldwork in Centres of Power
Jonathan Chibois (IIAC, France) and Samuel Shapiro (Université Laval, Canada) are planning to publish an edited collection entitled Doing Fieldwork in Centres of Power: The Example of Deliberative Bodies.
The aim of the book will be to examine the methodological and epistemological challenges of field research in centres of power. The editors are seeking contributions from both young and experienced researchers, from all continents, as well as from different academic disciplines.
Full details of the edited collection, including how to submit your proposal for a chapter can be found here.
9. Recent Publications that have Caught our Eye
The Westminster Foundation for Democracy has recently published two reports, both by Franklin De Vrieze and Luka Glušac.
- Combatting corruption capably: An assessment framework for parliament’s interaction with anti-corruption agencies;
- It’s complicated: Parliament’s relationship with anti-corruption agencies in Indonesia, Pakistan, and the Maldives.
And a new issue of both the Journal of Legislative Studies has been published.
If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.
10. Recently on the Blog
Our blog is taking a breather while we do some homeschooling and catch up with the extra marking and teaching preparation that has been foisted upon us because of UK Higher Education’s masterful response to the pandemic.
We’ll hopefully be back in March firing on all cylinders!
If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study please get in touch with our communications officer, Gavin Hart.