We hope you’re well. We have some updates for you:
- Highlights: PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2-3 November 2023
- #PSA24: Early bird registration
- PSA membership
- SGP Annual Weekend, 5-6 January 2024
- Call for papers: NoPSA 2024
- PhD scholarships, jobs and RKE opportunities
- Recent publications (and other things) 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.
Best wishes
Seán, Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, and Jack.
1. Highlights: PSA Parliaments Conference, 2-3 November 2023
Seeing so many of you at our Annual Conference in November was an enormous pleasure. Despite Storm Ciarán interfering with travel plans, the early career symposium we held for the first time, the drinks reception and the conference were a great success. Read the highlights and see photo evidence here.
If you attended the conference, whether in-person or virtually, we would be grateful to hear your feedback to help us improve future conferences. The survey just has four questions and should only take a couple of minutes to complete.
2. #PSA24: Early bird registration
The PSA Annual Conference will take place from 25–27 March 2024 in Glasgow, convened by the University of Strathclyde. The early bird registration is now open until 2 February, allowing presenters and attendees to secure their spot at a discounted rate. If your paper has been accepted on one of our panels, please take this opportunity to secure your spot and take advantage of the discount.
Please note that there is a further discount for scholars from the Global South and Low-income Countries. The application deadline for the PSA Support Fund to assist with conference expenses is also 2 February 2024.
More information on pricing and registration details can be found here.
3. PSA membership
If you receive our newsletter but are not a member of the UK Political Studies Association, then now is the perfect time to consider joining. Starting from £10/year for students, PSA membership provides numerous benefits including access to various resources and journals, discounted conference registration fees and opportunities to network and even win academic prizes. The full list of benefits and more information on how to join can be found here.
If you are already a PSA member, now is still a good time to verify that your contact details are up-to-date and that you are also an official member of our specialist group (in the ‘My group membership’ section of your PSA account). We would greatly appreciate your support since the number of members directly impacts our allocated funding and hence capacity to put on events for you.
4. SGP Annual Weekend, 5-6 January 2024
The Study of Parliament Group Annual Weekend 2024 will take place over Friday 5th and Saturday 6th January. You can register here, and check the action packed programme here.
5. Call for papers: NoPSA 2024
Our colleagues from the Nordic Political Science Association have published a call for papers for the NoPSA Political Science Congress, which will be held in Bergen (Norway), 25-28 June 2024. There are a few panels that may be relevant to parliamentary scholars (i.e., Conflict in Parliamentary Parties, Generational Politics: Participation, Representation and Politics, or Gender, Politics and Democracy).
6. PhD scholarships, jobs and RKE opportunities
PhD scholarships at the University of Leeds
Do you know of excellent students who are considering doing a PhD? If so, please forward the information below about this open call for PhD Scholarship in Politics and International Studies 2024/25, at the University of Leeds. The deadline for applications is Monday 11th March 2024 and the application to PhD needs to be accepted first to be eligible to scholarship. Further details can be obtained by emailing Prof. Cristina Leston-Bandeira at C.Leston-Bandeira@leeds.ac.uk
CPA call for consultants
The CPA Headquarters Secretariat is calling for consultants to develop an online course on the role of Parliamentarians in upholding human rights as part of the CPA Parliamentary Academy online learning platform. The consultant will work with the CPA to develop the written course content for use by Parliamentarians of Commonwealth national and subnational legislatures. Deadline for applications – 8 December 2023. Read more about this call and apply here.
Research and Knowledge Exchange with the Welsh Parliament on gender and diversity quotas
A number of committees in the Welsh Parliament /Senedd Cymru are currently looking to engage with academics to support the scrutiny of forthcoming gender/diversity quota legislation. You can sign-up through the Area of Research Interest (ARI) form and provide details about your existing and future research on gender and diversity quotas. This might lead to an invitation to provide oral or written evidence.
7. Recent Publications (and other things) that have caught our eye
- Cherry Miller, “Gendering Parliamentary Diplomacy: The Case of EU27-UK relations”, Social Politics.
- Lotte Hargarve, “Earning Their Stripes? How Political Experience Shapes Gendered Policy Prioritization”, Legislative Studies Quarterly.
- James Weinberg published a new book Governing in an Age of Distrust: A Comparative Study of Politicians’ Trust Perceptions and Why They Matter, Oxford University Press.
- The Hansard Society’s Parliament Matters Podcast: Two of the UK’s leading parliamentary experts, Mark D’Arcy (Parliamentary Correspondent) and Ruth Fox (Director of the Hansard Society) have joined up to produce a weekly podcast about all things Parliament and we love it!
If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.
8. Recently on the blog
- Making the Law Count: The UK Post-Legislative Gap. Tom Caygill examines the nature of the decline in engagement in post-legislative scrutiny in Westminster, the wider reasons for it and suggests how we can move forward from here.
- What are the implications of having the Foreign Secretary sitting in the House of Lords? Andrew Defty examines the implications raised by David Cameron’s appointment as Foreign Secretary.
- Also on the blog, we have a new update on our map of parliaments around the world courtesy of Calixte Bloquet’s contribution on the French Parliament.
If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack.