We hope that you are safe and well. We have some updates for you:
- PSA Parliaments Roundtable on the Past, Present and Future of Parliamentary & Legislative Studies
- (Still) Hold the Date: PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference
- Urgent (and Not-So-Urgent) Questions with Joni Lovenduski
- PSA Parliaments 2021 Undergraduate Essay Competition
- House of Commons Select Committee Jobs
- Centre for Security Research Workshop on Parliaments & Security
- 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 Roundtable on the Past, Present & Future of Parliamentary & Legislative Studies
We are very excited to be hosting a roundtable on the past, present and future of parliamentary and legislative studies on Wednesday June 9th at 2pm (London time). Our speakers are:
- Emma Crewe
- Shane Martin
- Michelle Taylor-Robinson
The PSA Parliaments team will also be revealing the initial findings of our survey on the sub-discipline, which received over 200 responses, as well as our analysis of publication and citation patterns in sub-disciplinary literature.
This is the last session of this year’s very successful online conference (even if we do say ourselves) and what more can you want from a grand finale?
The roundtable is free and all are welcome but please register beforehand in order to gain details of how to access the event.
Be there or be square.
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.
2. (Still) Hold the Date: PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference
We are pleased to announce that our next annual Conference will be held on 11-12 November 2021. Our theme will be Parliament at a Critical Juncture.
We had hoped to be able to provide full details of the conference in this newsletter but we’re still awaiting guidance from central PSA about holding in-person events, etc.
As such, for the time being, please just make a note of the dates in your diaries and hopefully we’ll be able to announce more details next month.
3. Urgent (and Not-So-Urgent) Questions with Joni Lovunduski
We are very pleased to announce that Professor Joni Lovenduski is the sixth interviewee for our 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 about her love of Italy, why she likes The Irishman, and what she learnt while working in a jewellers!
If you would like to see someone answer our urgent and not-so-urgent questions, then please let us know.
4. The PSA Parliaments 2021 Undergraduate Essay Competition
There is still time to enter your undergraduate students into our 2021 Undergraduate Essay Competition!
Given the extraordinary circumstances of this academic year, we are extending our entry criteria to include any essay or assignment related to parliaments or legislatures (with a maximum word count of 4,000 words) and pushing our deadline back to 5pm, Wednesday 30th June 2021.
The winner will receive a prize of £100 and the runner-up £50, with both prizes being awarded at our 2021 PSA Parliaments conference this autumn.
Do you have a student who has produced an excellent piece of work on parliaments this year? Please submit your entry to Alexandra (all entrants must be nominated by a lecturer or seminar tutor (i.e. no self-nominations) and all entries must be made by a PSA Parliaments member).
5. House of Commons Select Committee Jobs
Two select committee jobs have recently been advertised: Director of Select Committee Scrutiny & Analysis; and Director of Select Committee Communications and Engagement.
Please see here and here for full details.
6. Centre for Security Research Workshop on Parliaments & Security
The Centre for Security Research at the University of Edinburgh is organising an online workshop on the 23rd and 24th June 2021 on the topic of Parliaments and Security.
While parliaments’ roles in security have often been neglected in practice and in scholarship, the importance of parliaments in security has received significant attention in recent years. This online workshop will take stock of the current understanding of parliaments and security, showcase cutting-edge work in this area, and set an agenda for future research. The invited papers in the workshop reflect on this broad theme from multiple perspectives and across a diverse range of specific topics.
We welcome attendance by others who are not already presenting and on the program.
For full details of the workshop and panels, please see here.
7. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
Emma Crewe has published a book, The Anthropology of Parliaments: Entanglements in Democratic Politics, with Taylor and Francis.
Moritz Osnabrugge, Sara Hobolt and Toni Rodon have published an article, Playing to the Gallery: Emotive Rhetoric in Parliaments in the American Political Science Review.
Matthew Shugart, Matthew Bergman, Cory Struthers, Ellis Krauss and Robert Pekkanen have published a book, Party Personnel Strategies: Electoral Systems and Parliamentary Committee Assignments, with Oxford University Press.
A new issue of Parliamentary Affairs has been published.
If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.
8. Recently on the Blog
This month we’ve published two great blogs:
- Who are the ‘unsung heroes’ of Westminster? Results from a survey of MPs staff by Rebecca McKee.
- You are Unmuted: the Impact of Hybrid Proceedings on MPs Participation during the Pandemic by Wang Leung Ting.
If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study please get in touch with our communications officer, Gavin Hart.