We hope you’re well. We have some updates for you:
- PSA Parliaments Conference 2023: Call for Papers
- PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition
- Parliamentary Studies Module: Call for Applications
- POST Fellowship (UK Parliament): Mapping Public Engagement in Parliaments across the World
- Survey on the Importance & Prestige of Parliamentary Work in the House of Commons
- Hanna Pitkin & David Olson
- Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
- Recently on the Blog
If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.
This is our last newsletter of the academic year. We’ll see you all again in September!
Best wishes
Stephen, Seán, Caroline, Diana, Chris and Ruxandra.
1. PSA Parliaments Conference 2023: Call for Papers
We are very pleased to announce that our annual conference will take place at the LSE and online on Thursday 2nd and Friday 3rd November!
As usual, we will be holding the conference on the Friday and a drinks reception on the Thursday evening. However, in an exciting new development, we will also be holding a working papers workshop, co-hosted by the PSA Early Career Network, for early career researchers during Thursday daytime.
Full details about the conference and workshop, including how to apply and/or volunteer as a workshop discussant, can be found here.
We are very grateful to Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey for helping us to organise the conference and to the Department of Government at LSE for co-sponsoring the event.
2. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition
There’s still time to submit an entry for our undergraduate essay competition! In fact, due to the UCU marking and allocation boycott, we’ve decided to extend the closing date to the 15th September 2023.
If, once you’ve done your marking, one of your undergraduate students has produced an exceptional piece of work, then please consider submitting it on their behalf (no self-nominations allowed).
Every year we want to reward the best assignments written by UK-based undergraduate students on any aspect of parliamentary and legislative studies. The entries which display the most originality, analytical rigour and significant contributions to the field will be awarded a prize of £100 for the winner and £50 for the runner-up.
Full details of the competition, including how to submit nominations, can be found here. For any questions, please get in touch with Caroline.
3. Parliamentary Studies Module: Call for Applications
Applications will open next week for Higher Education institutions to deliver the Parliamentary Studies module for academic years 2024/5 – 2029/30.
This will be the third time that the UK Parliament has sought collaborators to teach the Parliamentary Studies module. For this five year cycle we have made provision for 20 universities or other higher education institutions to deliver the Parliamentary Studies module in partnership with Parliament, and those currently delivering the module are welcome to apply again.
Applications will be judged by a panel of staff from the Houses of Parliament and representatives from the Higher Education sector. The deadline for applications is Thursday 6 July 2023. We aim to inform successful institutions by the end of July/early August.
If you’re interested in further information and/or wish to request an application pack, please contact ppoe@parliament.uk
4. POST Fellowship (UK Parliament): Mapping Public Engagement in Parliaments across the World
Faced with rising populism and political disengagement, parliaments across the world are making efforts to connect with their citizens. What do these activities look like, who undertakes them, where do they take place? Help us answer these questions and create a map of public engagement activities happening in parliaments across the world (rather like this brilliant map showing parliaments’ access to academic research), to enable the International Parliament Engagement Network to foster lesson sharing, knowledge exchange and collaborations.
This opportunity is open to university-based researchers or knowledge exchange professionals. Ideally, you would be working with us 60% of your time for one year, but we can be flexible about these arrangements. You will be able to shape the project and have access to existing networks. More information is available here. Prof. Cristina Leston-Bandeira is also happy to give further details and/or discuss this opportunity further. You can contact her here.
5. Survey on the Importance & Prestige of Parliamentary Work in the House of Commons
Stephen Holden Bates, Caroline Bhattacharya and Stephen McKay are running a survey on the importance of different aspects of parliamentary work and the prestige of different select committees and they would like to hear your views. The survey should take less than 5 minutes to complete and can be found here.
If you have any questions about the survey, then please contact Stephen.
6. Hanna Pitkin & David Olson: In Memory
We were very sad to hear last month of the deaths of both Hanna Pitkin and David Olson.
You can read an obituary of Hanna Pitkin here and a tribute to David Olson here.
7. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
Sebastian Dettman has published The Geographic Scope Of Opposition Challenges In Malaysia’s Parliament in Pacific Affairs.
Boydell & Brewerhave published the 9(!) volume The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1640-1660 edited by Stephen K. Roberts.
Christian D. Phillips has published Nevertheless, He Persisted: White Men and the Links Between Incumbency and Group Descriptive Representation in Political Research Quarterly.
Daniel Stockemer and Aksel Sundström have published Age Inequalities in Political Representation: A Review Article in Government & Opposition.
And new issues of Representation and Legislative Studies Quarterly are out.
If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.
8. Recently on the Blog
We published one great blog last month.
- A Nation of Petitioners: people and Parliament in the nineteenth century United Kingdom by Henry Miller
If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer, Chris.