Category: Events

PSA Annual Conference 2017: Call for Papers!

Post author By psaparliaments
Post date August 22, 2016

The 2017 PSA Annual Conference will be held in Glasgow on 10^th – 12^th April 2017 and we hope to be able to put forward some specialist group panels for this.

If you would be interested in presenting an individual paper as part of our specialist group panel, please complete a Paper Proposal Form with an abstract of no more than 250 words by Friday 7^th October 2016. If you would be interested in putting together a panel for the conference please complete a Panel Proposal Form by the same date. We will be in touch during the week of 10^th October to let you know if your paper has been successful.

This call is open to all members of the group. There are, as yet, no panel themes so all pape and panel proposals are welcome. Postgraduate students are also encouraged to apply (particularly as there is no early career conference this year). Those who wish to present would be eligible to apply to the PSA Postgraduate Access Fund for financial support to attend the conference.

We had a really successful 2016 conference, with more papers and panels than we’ve ever had before. So we look forward to hearing from you!

For our Panel Proposal Form, please click here (opens Word Document).

For our Paper Proposal Form, please click here (opens Word Document).

Tags #psa17, PSA Conference 2017

Events News

Call for Papers: “Making Parliaments Work: What Makes For an Effective Parliament?”

Post author By psaparliaments
Post date June 9, 2016

Politicians, the public, think tanks, journalists and academics alike have increasingly focused in recent times on how parliaments and legislatures work and how to make them work better in terms of policy-making, representation, scrutiny and accountability. Yet, despite this focus, the evidence base for making judgments about the effectiveness of parliaments and legislatures is arguably not as extensive as it could be, perhaps partly because of methodological difficulties in assessing the influence, impact and power of these institutions.

This one-day conference of the PSA Parliaments & Legislatures Specialist Group, co-hosted by the University of Birmingham, seeks to concentrate on the evidence – whether qualitative and/or quantitative and from a range of theoretical and analytical traditions – of parliamentary and legislative effectiveness and the effectiveness of parliamentary and legislative reform.

The conference, to be held at the Institute for Government in central London on 28^th October 2016, will be followed by the PSA Parliaments & Legislatures Annual Lecture.

To register an interest in presenting a paper, please contact Stephen Bates (s[dot]r[dot]bates[at]bham[dot]ac[dot]uk) with initial ideas before August 31^st 2016. We welcome contributions beyond the UK Parliament, namely on the devolved legislatures and/or with a comparative dimension. Registration will open in early September.

Events News

Statistical Analysis of Parliaments and Legislatures for Dabblers

Post author By psaparliaments
Post date May 16, 2016

Time: 11.00-15.00 (with lunch provided)
Date: Friday, 16 September 2016
Venue: University of Birmingham (Room TBC)

This workshop is aimed at those with little or no previous experience of quantitative statistics but who believe it may be useful for them in their current or future research.

The workshop will be based around the conveners’ current British Academy-funded research project on select committees. Each stage of the project – from initial inspiration through data collection and analysis to finished article – will be outlined and discussed in terms of both methodological and practical considerations so that participants have an idea of what the research process entails and what hazards and opportunities to look out for along the way. It will cover such things as finding out about available data, the different software that may be useful, and working with external stakeholders and experts.

The workshop will be run by Stephen Bates and Mark Goodwin (who are relative novices when it comes to quantitative statistics) and Steve McKay (who is an old-hand at this kind of thing).

Attendance and lunch are free but participants will have to cover their travel costs.

To register for the workshop, please email Stephen Bates (s.r.bates[at]bham[dot]ac[dot]uk).

Tags methods workshop, parliamentary research, quantitative methods

Events News

Workshops on Methods

Post author By psaparliaments
Post date April 11, 2016

At our Annual General Meeting, we discussed the possibility of holding small workshops at a range of universities on methodological issues and training in legislative studies. Any of you could host one of these workshops, and we have funding available to help put these together. They do not need to be large workshops, and could comprise small groups of 6 or so people (or a larger group!). Similarly, it does not need to be a full day activity – a 1h30min workshop would be just as useful as a full day/afternoon one. The idea is that it explores a specific methodology issue in legislative studies. This is to build on the workshop we held last year (details here), and the feedback showed that it would be useful to do more of these but focused on specific approaches/techniques. Stephen Bates (Birmingham) has offered to run a workshop on quantitative analysis for legislative studies, for example.

If anyone else would like to run one in a different area, we would love to hear from you – just get in touch with us. As soon as we have details for workshops, including the one in Birmingham, we will circulate details.

Do get in touch, even if you just want more details about what we have organised so far and/or discuss a possible idea.

Tags legislative studies, methodology

Events News

Success at the PSA Annual Conference

Post author By psaparliaments
Post date April 4, 2016

We just wanted to share the great success that we had at the PSA Conference in Brighton last week – having held a range of panels and talks throughout Tuesday and Wednesday of the Conference.

Tags #psa16, PSA