We hope that you had a good summer. We have returned from our lilos and have some updates for you:
- PSA Parliaments 2021 Conference
- PSA Annual International Conference 2022
- Report on our Survey of the Sub-Discipline
- Our Plans for the Upcoming Year
- Goodbye to Gavin
- Wanted! Communications Officer
- Book Launch: Parliamentary Committees in the Policy Process
- Other Events: SPG Online Seminar on Select Committee Powers
- Call for Papers: Fifteenth Wroxton College Workshop
- 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 2021 Conference
Due to a mixture of the current situation and the precautionary measures put in place by the PSA, we have decided that our 2021 Annual Conference, Parliament at a Critical Juncture, will be an entirely virtual event on Friday 12th November 2021.
Due to the previous uncertainty surrounding the format, we have extended the deadline for submissions until 22nd September 2021.
Despite hoping that we could meet in person this year, the conference promises to be an excellent event, following in the footsteps of our successful online events last year.
For full details of the conference, including how to submit a paper proposal, please see our website.
2. PSA Annual International Conference 2022
We are delighted to launch our call for papers for the PSA Parliaments panels within the 2022 PSA Annual Conference (#PSA22). The conference is currently planned to be a blend of a physical and digital event taking place online and in York, between 10-13th April 2022 with the theme: “Politics from the Margins”. Full details of the conference, including the current plans for digital-only attendees can be found here.
If you would like to present a paper or organise a panel under the auspices of the PSA Parliaments group, then please submit the relevant form(s), which can be found on our website, to Alexandra and Stephen by Monday 4th October.
We welcome papers from PhD students through to professors and we are fully committed to avoiding manels. We are also seeking to increase the proportion of papers on our panels from people from an ethnic minority background so please get in touch with Alexandra or Stephen if you come from an ethnic minority background and would like to discuss how your research could be highlighted on our panels.
3. Report on our Survey of the Sub-Discipline
Our report on the findings of the 2021 PSA Parliaments Survey of the Sub-Discipline can now be found on our website.
The survey sought to: (i) identify and map trends in theory and methods across the sub-field of parliamentary and legislative studies; (ii) understand who is undertaking research in this area; and (iii) gain people’s views about how the sub-field could be improved. We received 218 responses from people based in 48 countries.
The report is the first paper in our new PSA Parliaments Working Paper Series. More details about how to publish a working paper with us will be included in a future newsletter.
4. Our Plans for the Year
Thanks to all those who filled in our end-of-year survey over the summer. On the basis of your responses and our reflections on last year, we aim to do the following during the 2021-22 academic year, in addition to our annual conference and our panels at the PSA Annual Conference:
- Instead of the regular monthly virtual panels we ran last year, this year we have decided to run fewer on-line events and make use of different formats. We are planning to hold book launches (our first is detailed below) and one-hour departmental-style seminars (where a single scholar presents a paper), as well as conference-style panels. If you are interested in holding a book launch with us, or presenting a paper either as part of a seminar or a panel, please get in touch.
- We are hoping to help organise a couple of workshops– keep an eye-out for details of the first one in next month’s newsletter!
- We are launching the PSA Parliaments Working Papers Series. Again, more details in next month’s newsletter!
- If we have enough time and resources, we’re also hoping to launch a PSA Parliaments Podcast. The aim of the podcast will be to discuss the academic study of parliaments and legislatures with scholars at various stages of their careers who have expertise in particular areas. If you are a member of the PSA and based in the UK and would like to be involved in this project (or, indeed, take a lead on it), then please get in contact.
5. Goodbye to Gavin
It is with mixed emotions that we are saying goodbye to our communications officer, Gavin. We are very happy that he has secured a lectureship in criminology at Liverpool Hope University but sad that his migration across disciplinary boundaries means that he’ll be focusing his research away from parliamentary studies.
Gavin has been communications officer for us since 2019 and has been brilliant at editing our blog and tweeting our tweets. We will miss him and are frustrated that we never convinced him to play his guitar during one of our zoom meetings.
So, it is with a tear in our eye but with fondness in our heart that we must say goodbye to Gavin… but not before he gets a newly-instituted PSA Parliaments send-off by answering some Urgent Questions!
6. Wanted! Communications Officer
Would you like to be our new Communications Officer?
The role entails editing our blog and running our Twitter account, as well as contributing to the general running of the group. The PSA Parliaments team tends to meet once a month during the academic year with some emailing in the meanwhilst. PSA Parliaments is one of the biggest specialist groups of the PSA and must surely be the friendliest.
If you are interested, or want to discuss the role in more detail, please feel free to contact Alexandra and/or Stephen. To take up the role, you must be a member of the PSA and be based in the UK.
7. Book Launch: Parliamentary Committees in the Policy Process
A virtual book launch will be held for the new Routledge collection Parliamentary Committees in the Policy Process edited by Sven Siefken and Hilmar Rommetvedt on Wednesday 29th September at 13:00 London Time.
There will be talks by the editors, Philip Norton, and some of the country specialists who contributed chapters.
The event is free but please register here beforehand. All welcome!
The event is co-sponsored by PSA Parliaments and IPSA’s Research Committee of Legislative Specialists.
8. Other Events: SPG Online Seminar on Select Committee Powers
The Study of Parliament Group are holding an online seminar on select committee powers on 16th September 2021 at 19:30.
Full details of the seminar, including how to register, can be found here.
9. Call for Papers: Fifteenth Wroxton College Workshop
The Fifteenth Workshop of Parliamentary Scholars and Parliamentarians will be held on 30th-31st July 2022 at Wroxton College, Near Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK.
Paper proposals (no more than 300 words), plus suggestions for panels and requests for further information, should be sent to Philip Norton by 31st January 2022.
Details of the most recent Workshops, with the topics of papers delivered, can be found on the Workshop’s website.
10. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
Mark Bennister has published an article, Navigating three faces of decentred leadership in the UK Parliament, as part of a special issue on decentering leadership in The International Journal of Public Leadership.
Stephen Elstub, David Farrell, Jayne Carrick and Patricia Mockler’s evaluation of Climate Assembly UK, which was commissioned by six House of Commons Select Committees, has been published.
Women, Power, and Political Representation, edited by Roosmarijn de Geus, Erin Tolley, Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant and Peter John Loewen, has been published by University of Toronto Press.
Paul Chaisty and Timothy Power have published an article in Government & Opposition entitled Does Power Always Flow to the Executive? Interbranch Oscillations in Legislative Authority, 1976–2014.
And, finally, new issues Parliamentary Affairs and Representation have been published. The former features special sections on voting age reform in the UK and opposition parties in parliament; the latter is a special issue on parties, electoral systems and political theory.
If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.
11. Recently on the Blog
We’ve recently published one great blog:
- Parental Leave, ‘Locum MPs’ and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority by Nick Dickinson.
If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study please get in touch with our communications officer (once we have a new one) and, in the interim, Stephen.