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December 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! The end of the year is nearly here – how time flies!!! We held our Annual Conference in November and we are now wrapping up 2024 with our last newsletter of the year. We have some nice conference highlights for you and the usual interesting news.

  1. PSA Parliaments Annual Conference: Highlights
  2. Our UG Essay Competition Winners
  3. PSA Parliaments Membership and Survey
  4. Opportunities
  5. Calls for papers
  6. Urgent Questions
  7. Recent Publications
  8. On the Blog
  9. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. PSA Parliaments Annual Conference: Highlights

Last month, we held our Annual Conference and were absolutely delighted to welcome close to 50 participants for the main event. It was great to see so many familiar faces as well as new ones.

On Thursday, 21 November, WISERD hosted us at Cardiff University for our early-career workshop. We then gathered at the Senedd for our traditional drinks reception with a special keynote by the Deputy Presiding Officer David Rees MS. This was followed by an informal dinner on the other side of the bay.

On Friday, 22 November, the main conference took place in the beautiful Pierhead Building, featuring three exciting panels with very high-quality presentations throughout (as we were told by several attendees afterwards). We heard about a wide range of topics and had engaging discussions with many great questions form the audience. Massive thanks to the Senedd Cymru and their research unit for hosting us and sponsoring the lunch.

Please see here for all the highlights!

2. Our UG Essay Competition Winners

At the conference, we also announced the winners of our annual undergraduate essay competition. We received many excellent submissions and the winning essays displayed an outstanding level of analysis. We thank Stephen Holden Bates (University of Birmingham) for being our external judge this year!

The winner is Colin Wilson who was nominated by Philip Cowley of Queen Mary University of London. He wrote a “Parliamentary Studies Research Portfolio” with three mini-studies.

The runner-up is Lola Clugston, nominated by Stephen Elstub of Newcastle University, for her essay on “Enhancing the Impact of Select Committees in the UK Parliament: A Focus on MP Engagement”.

We are thrilled to award both students their well-deserved prizes of £100 and £50 and wish them best of luck for their postgraduate studies! Thank you and congratulations also to the nominating academics!

You can read the judging panel’s feedback and both essays here.

3. PSA Parliaments Membership and Survey

PSA Parliaments membership

If you like what we do and want to support our activities, please consider becoming a member of the UK Political Studies Association (PSA) if you have not already, and join us officially there. Or, if you think one of your colleagues would benefit from a PSA membership or from just receiving our newsletter, please spread the word (all information available here). Our membership figures (PSA members and newsletter subscribers) determine our budget and, thus, the activities we can offer.

The PSA is currently looking into revising its membership structure and assessing the potential of introducing a new affiliate category. We, as a Specialist Group, are supportive of this idea and believe it may allow more of our non-PSA members, especially practitioners, to get involved. We will keep you updated.

Members Survey

We are conducting this survey to gather more viewpoints and wishes regarding our activities and events. This will help us to align our work closely with the expectations of our members while considering our limited resources. The results will be used to inform our planning process and guide us in setting our priorities for the next couple of years.

Thank you for taking the time to fill this in!

4. Opportunities

Call by Modernisation Committee: Reminder

We want to remind you that the new Modernisation Committee has launched a call for written submissions to hear from different groups, including academics. This is a great opportunity to feed your research findings into parliamentary reform.

The deadline is 16 December 2024 and all the details can be found here.

The UCL Public Policy team has provided useful tips on giving written and oral evidence to select committees here.

PSA Women & Politics Specialist Groups Mid-Career Researcher Mentoring Programme 

Are you a mid-career member of the PSA? The PSA Women & Politics SG is hosting a Mid-Career Researcher (MCR) Mentoring Programme tailored specifically to the needs of women in academia following a research track. This initiative responds to a critical need to address the career development of scholars beyond their first promotion, offering tailored support to navigate the challenges unique to mid-career professionals. 10 places are available, with bursary support provided towards travel and accommodation for each participant 

Location: PSA office, Camden, London  | Dates: Thursday 23 January and Friday 24 January 2025 

Apply to register by 5pm Monday 2nd December. 

Find out more, including how to apply, here.

5. Call for Papers

4th Global Conference on Parliamentary Studies, Athens, Greece, Friday, 13 June 2025

This is an opportunity  for academics, researchers and practitioners to explore “Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century”. Set in the birthplace of democracy, this unique gathering invites thought leaders to address the challenges and opportunities of our time, where technology, media and geopolitical shifts intersect with democratic governance. 

The conference is jointly organized by the Hellenic OCR Team and Széchenyi István University.

Submit your abstract by 28 February 2025, and learn more about the event here

6. Urgent Questions with Richard Whitaker

Our popular Urgent Questions feature is back! Richard Whitaker, Professor of Politics at the University of Leicester and currently a Parliamentary Academic Fellow, has told us why the NHS is responsible for him choosing an academic career, about his passion for working in Parliament and – a familiar theme to our loyal readers – music.

Watch out for the yellow jumper! You can read all of Rick’s answers here.

7. Recent Publications

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

8. On the Blog

We would love to have more contributions on our blog. If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer Jack.

9. Overview of Parliaments Map

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
News

Annual Conference: Highlights

Our 2024 annual conference kicked off on Thursday, 21 November in Cardiff University’s sbarc|spark building, a state-of-the-art facility that provided an inspiring backdrop for our early-career workshop. Our gratitude to WISERD for hosting us. Jack Liddall (University of Cambridge / University of Edinburgh) presented a paper on parliamentary oversight of intergovernmental relations in the UK. Lauren Martin (University of Sheffield) shared her research on the interactions between citizens and the UK Parliament during e-petitioning campaigns. Both papers offered novel insights based on primary interview data and document analysis. We are extremely grateful to the discussants, Jo Hunt (Cardiff University), Larissa Peixoto Vale Gomes (University of Edinburgh), Stephen Holden Bates (University of Birmingham) and Richard Whitaker (University of Leicester), who devoted time to providing thoughtful and encouraging feedback.

Our Co-convenor Diana Stirbu welcomed many of our conference participants at the evening drinks reception, where old acquaintances were reconnected and new ones made. We were in for a treat, as our guest speaker the Deputy Presiding Officer David Rees MS delivered an engaging keynote address on the evolution of the Senedd with first-hand insights into the decision-making processes that led to the reforms for the 2026 elections. He encouraged us to examine the developments in the Senedd closely and feed into future discussions, reminding us that a full review is due to be conducted after the elections. After the drinks reception, we headed to the other side of Cardiff Bay to the Duchess of Delhi for an informal dinner, providing an opportunity for further catching up over delicious Indian food.

On Friday, 22 November, the setting of the Senedd’s Pierhead Building was more than fitting for our first panel of the conference which explored ‘25 years of devolved parliaments and current developments in the UK Parliament’. The panel, which was moderated by Jack Liddall, our Communications Officer, gave us a tour around the UK’s legislatures as panellists presented on a wide variety of issues facing parliaments and parliamentarians. Josh Hayman presented research which he has worked on alongside Sara Moran (both from Senedd Research). Their work on ‘25 years of Welsh law-making’ has also been collated into a comprehensive report. This report was available in hard copy for our members at the conference at the stall set up by the Study of Parliament Group Wales. Richard Whitaker (University of Leicester) spoke to his recent research on skeleton bills in the Scottish Parliament, UK Parliament and Senedd (and also touched on the legislative process in Northern Ireland). Ekaterina Kolpinskaya (University of Exeter) then rounded off our panel with a discussion on disability inclusion practices in the House of Commons (on behalf of herself and Mike Winter from PACAC). We are delighted that Ekaterina’s work, which is available here, also features in our latest PSA Parliaments blog.

Following a delicious platter of Welsh cakes and other assorted pastries we kicked off with our second panel of the day, ‘Parliamentary procedures and reform’ (chaired by our Treasurer and Membership Officer Lauren Martin), which saw us transported back to Westminster (not actually). Louise Thompson (University of Manchester) and Cristina Leston-Bandeira (University of Leeds) presented their pilot research on Westminster Hall as an alternative to the House of Commons Chamber. Ruxandra Serban (University College London) then presented co-authored research with Meg Russell (UCL Constitution Unit) about Urgent Questions in the UK House of Commons between 1992 and 2024. We finished up by hearing from Tom Fleming who presented research conducted with Hannah Kelly (both of UCL Constitution Unit) on the extent to which the House of Commons has enough control over its own procedures.

The first two panels gave us plenty to discuss during the lunch break. We enjoyed a lovely buffet, which was kindly sponsored by the Senedd Research unit. After this, we held an annual general meeting. We announced the winners of our undergraduate essay competition: The winner is Colin Wilson who was nominated by Philip Cowley of Queen Mary University of London, and the runner-up is Lola Clugston, nominated by Stephen Elstub of Newcastle University. The judging panel’s laudatory feedback and the essays can now be accessed here. We then also used the opportunity to gather some feedback and ideas on future activities of PSA Parliaments.

The third panel explored different aspects of effectiveness and influence in parliaments and was chaired by our Co-convenor Ruxandra Serban. Greg Power (Global Partners Governance) discussed research on the impact of legislative turnover, particularly in terms of loss of parliamentary expertise and its potential effects on how parliaments work. Alex Prior (London Southbank University) and Louise Thompson (University of Manchester) presented new research on the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association — its objectives, strategies, and impact. Our last presenter was Kiwi Ting (University of Reading), who looked in detail at the effects of virtual participation on MPs’ influence in parliamentary debates at Westminster during Covid-19.

For those not ready to bid farewell yet, we headed over to the Senedd for a private tour of the building, getting fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpses into the work of Welsh parliamentarians. The Heart of Wales in the Senedd chamber has cracked recently but we are not suspicious and are curious to follow how Welsh parliamentarism will develop pre- and post-2026.

Categories
News

November 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! Our Annual Conference is fast approaching, so please remember to register. We also have, as per usual, lots of news for you this month.

  1. Reminder: PSA Parliaments Annual Conference, Cardiff
  2. Opportunities
  3. Calls for papers
  4. Events
  5. Recent Publications and Resources
  6. On the Blog
  7. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. Reminder: PSA Parliaments Annual Conference, Cardiff

Our Annual Conference is fast approaching! We have a great line up of panels and an exciting schedule. If you are planning to attend, please register by 11 November, to help us plan attendance and catering. We look forward to seeing you in Cardiff!

Timetable

Thursday, 21 November 2024

Friday, 22 November 2024

  • 9 am–3.30 pm: Conference in the Pierhead Building
  • 4–4.30 pm: Tour of the Senedd

For more details, updates and the full conference programme, please visit our website.

2. Opportunities

Call by Modernisation Committee

The new Modernisation Committee has launched a call for written submissions to hear from different groups, including academics, about ideas how to:

  • drive up standards; 
  • improve culture and working practices; and 
  • reform Parliamentary procedures to make the House of Commons more effective. 

The deadline is 16 December 2024 and all the details can be found here.

The UCL Public Policy team has provided useful tips about giving written and oral evidence to select committees here.

Call by the Electoral Matters Committee of the Parliament of Victoria (Australia) 

The Electoral Matters Committee of the Parliament of Victoria (Australia) is calling for written submissions on possible changes to the electoral structure for the Victoria’s Upper House. Submissions can address any of the following questions:

  1. Should Victoria be divided into regions to elect members of the Upper House, or should all members be elected by the state as a whole?
  2. If there should be regions, how many regions should there be and how many members should each region elect?
  3. How many members of the Upper House should there be in total?
  4. Are there other changes to the way that members are elected to the Upper House that should be considered?

Submissions are due by 3 February 2025.

For more information or to make a submission, please visit the Committee’s webpage or contact the Secretariat at emc@parliament.vic.gov.au.

3. Call for papers

ECPR Joint Sessions Workshop: Beyond Parliamentary Recruitment: Gender and pathways to Power and Influence”, Charles University, 20-23 may, 2025

The workshop “Beyond Parliamentary Recruitment: Gender and Pathways to Power and Influence” is sponsored by the Standing Group on Parliaments and welcomes submissions that focus the complex interplay between gendered structures and resistances to greater diversity and inclusion. 

Deadline for abstract submissions is November, 21. 

Global Political Marketing and Management Conference 5-7 August 2025

The 2025 conference will be the first event for the Global Political Marketing and Political Management network and will be held at the University of Dundee – see the conference website:  The call for paper/presentation proposals and registrations are now open. Contributions are welcome from academics and practitioners from any discipline, organisation and role as long as it is relevant to Political Marketing and Political Management, including discussion of the parliamentary workplace including MPs staff and HR as well as well being, so will be of interest to your members. 

Please send your proposal to gpmmnetwork@dundee.ac.uk by 1 December to be in the first round of those considered for the conference.

4. Events

The Study of Parliament Group’s 60th Anniversary Conference – Westminster, 5 and 6 December 2024

Registrations are now open for the 60’s Anniversary Conference of the Study of Parliament Group. The Conference programme has been published on the SPG website and is attached to this email. Tickets are £25 for two days or £20 per day for SPG Members. Included in the ticket price is lunch and refreshments (including coffee and tea). All tickets are available through Event Brite.

Save the date! – 9th Conference of the ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments: 2-4 July 2025, University of Barcelona

The conference will bring together senior and junior scholars of the field. The academic program will be complemented by a social program including a visit to the Catalan parliament! The conference conveners will soon be inviting proposals for individual papers and entire panels consisting of preferably four (or five) papers.

5. Recent Publications and Resources

Publications

Book

Other Publications and Resources

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

6. On the Blog

We would love to have more contributions on our blog. If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer Jack.

7. Overview of Parliaments Map

We do not have any new contributions for our Overview of Parliaments Map this month but we are really looking forward for more.

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
News

October 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone, happy beginning of the academic year! Exciting times for us at the PSA Parliaments group as we are finalising arrangements for our Annual Conference in November. We have, as per usual, lots of news for you this month.

  1. Registration is now open for our PSA Parliaments Annual Conference
  2. PSA Annual Conference: Call for papers closing soon
  3. Opportunity: Parliament for Researchers session with the House of Lords
  4. Calls for papers
  5. Events
  6. Recent Publications and Resources
  7. On the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. Registration is now open for our PSA Parliaments Annual Conference

We have now opened the registration for our PSA Parliaments Annual Conference, which will take place between 21and 22 of November 2024.

We are extremely grateful to the Welsh Parliament | Senedd Cymru, who are hosting and co-sponsoring our full day Conference on Friday 22 November at  the iconic  Pierhead Building, and have also kindly provided the Senedd Foyer for our annual Drinks Reception on Thursday 21 November in the evening. We are also very grateful to Cardiff University and WISERD for hosting our Early Career Researchers Workshop at Sbark|Spark – Cardiff University’s state of the art Social Science Research Park. 

Registration

You can now register here until 11 November: Registration form

We are very excited that the Senedd will host our annual conference on 21-22 November in Cardiff.

Timetable

Thursday, 21 November 2024

Friday, 22 November 2024

  • 9 am–3.30 pm: Conference in the Pierhead Building
  • 4–4.30 pm: Tour of the Senedd

More details, updates and the full conference programme, please visit our website.

2. PSA Annual Conference: Call for papers closing soon

The 75th PSA Annual Conference, “What Next?”, convened by the University of Birmingham and Aston University, will take place from 14-16 April 2025. Abstracts should be submitted to the Ex-Ordo website by 18 October. Detailed instructions can be found here.

If you would like to present in one of our panels, please select “Parliaments” in the ‘Topics’ section, when submitting your abstract.

For our PSA Parliaments panels, we are open to papers on any aspect of parliamentary and legislative studies. We particularly encourage papers on the UK Parliament, the 2024 General Election as a critical juncture for the UK Parliament, 25 years of devolved parliaments, comparative parliamentary studies, representation, scrutiny and accountability.

More information can be found on our website.

3. Opportunity: Parliament for Researchers sessions with the House of Lords

Two new Parliament for Researchers training sessions, in collaboration with Members of the House of Lords, will take place in October 2024. Every session will include an introduction to engaging with Parliament for researchers of all academic backgrounds, and a chance to hear from a Member of the House of Lords on the value of academic research in Parliament. Each session will also explore a specific theme related to the participating member’s expertise and may be of particular interest to researchers working in related disciplines. 

These training events are suitable for early career researchers, PhD students, researchers who are new to engaging with the UK Parliament as well as those who would benefit from a refresher.

Register for the next upcoming session:

Details for future sessions will be shared here.

4. Calls for papers

IPSA Annual Conference 2025, Seoul, South Korea

The Call for Papers for the 28th IPSA World Congress of Political Science, to be held in Seoul, South Korea from 12-16 July 2025, is now open! Paper and closed panel proposals on any political science-related subject are welcome.

Please note the Research Committee Track on Legislative Specialist (RC08), which might be highly relevant for parliamentary scholars. View all Tracks Open to Submissions.

Paper and Closed Panel Submission Deadline: 5 November 2024 

Global Political Marketing and Management Conference 5-7 August 2025

The 2025 conference will be the first event for the Global Political Marketing and Political Management network and will be held at the University of Dundee – see the conference website:  The call for paper/presentation proposals and registrations are now open. Contributions are welcome from academics and practitioners from any discipline, organisation and role as long as it is relevant to Political Marketing and Political Management, including discussion of the parliamentary workplace including MPs staff and HR as well as well being, so will be of interest to your members. 

Please send your proposal to gpmmnetwork@dundee.ac.uk by 1 December to be in the first round of those considered for the conference.

5. Events

Please note the following UCL Constitution Unit events:

6. Recent Publications and Resources

Publications

Open access book

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. On the Blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer Jack.

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We do not have any new contributions for our Overview of Parliaments Map this month but we are really looking forward for more. Our last entry was:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
News

September 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! The newsletter is finally here and we have lots of news for you.

  1. Our PSA Parliaments Annual Conference: Call for papers closing soon!
  2. PSA Annual Conference 2025: Call for papers
  3. Opportunity: UKRI policy internship with POST
  4. UCL Constitution Unit event: Prospects for the House of Commons Modernisation Committee
  5. New open access book: Liber Amicorum: Making Europe Happen
  6. Recent Publications and Resources
  7. On the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. Our PSA Parliaments Annual Conference: Call for papers closing soon!

We are very excited that the Senedd will host our annual conference on 21-22 November in Cardiff.

This is our preliminary timetable:

Thursday, 21 November 2024

  • Daytime: Early-career workshop (Time and venue will be confirmed soon)
  • 6–8 pm: Drinks reception in the Senedd foyer

Friday, 22 November 2024

  • 9 am–4 pm: Conference in the Pierhead Building

The calls for papers for the conference and pre-conference early-career workshop are now open, and the deadline is 16 September. We welcome papers on all aspects of parliaments and legislatures around the world and from different disciplines! In light of the Senedd’s 25th anniversary, we are also keen to receive submissions that focus on the devolved parliaments. 

For the main conference, we also encourage papers by researchers working in parliaments and collaborations between practitioners and academics. Please note that we will ask you to write a blog piece for our blog after the conference. The form to propose a paper for the main conference is available here.

If you are a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher or an early-career academic not in a permanent position, please consider applying for our early-career workshop where you get the opportunity to receive more in-depth feedback on a draft paper. You can find the form here.

More details and updates on our website.

2. PSA Annual Conference 2025: Call for papers

The 75th PSA Annual Conference, “What Next?”, convened by the University of Birmingham and Aston University, will take place from 14-16 April 2025. Abstracts should be submitted to the Ex-Ordo website by 18 October. Detailed instructions can be found here.

If you would like to present in one of our panels, please select our Specialist Group’s name in the ‘Topics’ section, when submitting your abstract.

For our PSA Parliaments panels, we are open to papers on any aspect of parliamentary and legislative studies. We particularly encourage papers on the UK Parliament, the 2024 General Election as a critical juncture for the UK Parliament, 25 years of devolved parliaments, comparative parliamentary studies, representation, scrutiny and accountability.

More information can be found on our website.

3. Opportunity: UKRI Policy Internship with UK Parliament POST

The UK Parliament POST has restructured its individual Fellowship schemes and substituted them with an overarching opportunity called the Policy Internships Scheme. The scheme provides the opportunity for doctoral students funded by the research councils of UKRI to work for three months in a policy organisation.

This scheme is open to doctoral students funded by the Research Councils of UK Research and Innovation (AHRC, BBSRC, ESRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC and STFC). Internships will take place during 2024 and students must be able to start their internship before the end of their funded period of study.

More information, including on how to apply, is available on POST’s website. Applications are open until 2 October 2024, 4:00 pm.

4. UCL Constitution Unit event: Prospects for the House of Commons Modernisation Committee

The UCL Constitution Unit is hosting a free, online event on 13 September at 1 pm about the prospects for the House of Commons Modernisation Committee.

As the Committee gets up and running this autumn, it faces a number of important questions. How should it approach its work, what issues might it address and what lessons can it learn from past efforts to reform the Commons?

Greg Power (former special adviser to two Leaders of the House of Commons), Dr Sue Griffiths (former Clerk to the House of Commons Modernisation Committee) and Dr Tom Fleming (Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at UCL), with Prof Meg Russell (Director of the Constitution Unit) as chair, will discuss these questions and more.

Register here.

5. New open access book: Liber Amicorum: Making Europe Happen

Klaus Welle was Secretary-General of the European Parliament from March 2009 to December 2022. In this set of essays in Klaus’s honour, published to mark his 60th birthday, friends and former colleagues in the EU institutions write about the impact he made on the Brussels scene, and notably on the development of the European Parliament, during his tenure at the administrative helm of the Union’s only directly-elected institution.

You can access this open pdf book here.

6. Recent Publications and Resources

Publications

New resources

  • The Institute for Government has made publicly available its Ministers Database, which holds information about all government ministers since 1979 – who served as a minister, in which roles, and their dates in office. The database might be a useful resource for academics and other researchers interested in exploring ministerial churn, gender balance and plenty of other topics. There is also a webinar recording explaining what information the database holds and answering some questions about how to use it.

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. On the Blog

We would love to have more contributions ib our blog. If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer Jack.

Here is a previous blog entry that we thought interesting and relevant in the context of a new parliament:

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We do not have any new contributions for our Overview of Parliaments Map this month but we are really looking forward for more. Our last entry was:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
Events News

#PSA25: Call for Papers

The 75th PSA Annual Conference, “What Next?”, co-convened by the University of Birmingham and Aston University, will take place from 14–16 April 2025. The call for papers has opened!

Call for Papers

After careful deliberation, the PSA team have agreed a more streamlined approach to the call for papers, and panels formation for PSA25, which means we are doing things a little differently this year! As opposed to submitting your abstracts directly to our Specialist Group, please log-in to Ex-Ordo via this link and upload your abstract which you intend for review by our Specialist Group by 18 October.

If you don’t already have an Ex-Ordo account, you can create one via the link above. 

  • Once you are logged into the PSA25 Ex Ordo website, click the ‘Dashboard’ link in the top bar. On the dashboard home page, you will see a card that says, ‘SUBMIT ABSTRACT’ and a button labelled ‘Submit Your Abstract Now’ which will take you to the My Submission Portal. 
  • In the My Submission portal, you will find an easy step-by-step process to follow and successfully submit your abstract.
  • When submitting your abstract, please select our Specialist Group’s name in the ‘Topics’ section, which will identify us as the intended recipient and ensure your abstract is sent to us by the PSA team. 

Please note that where there is more than one author per paper, you should also ensure that the ‘Lead Author’ includes the details of the co-authors.

For our Specialist Group panels, we are open to any papers on national, sub-national and supra-national parliaments and legislatures. We particularly encourage papers on the UK Parliament, the 2024 General Election as a critical juncture for the UK Parliament, 25 years of devolved parliaments, comparative parliamentary studies, representation, scrutiny and accountability.

What happens next?

#PSA25 timeline

Please note that you will find out about the status of your abstract in November.

As this is a different approach to submitting your abstract to us, the PSA team has created these step-by-step guidelines to help. If you have any queries regarding this, please don’t hesitate to contact the PSA team via email.

We hope to see many of you in Birmingham next year!

Categories
Events News

Annual Conference 2024: Call for Papers

Save the Date

We are very excited to share that our conference will be held 21-22 November 2024 in Cardiff, Wales.

25 years ago, the Senedd Cymru was first created as the National Assembly for Wales as part of the devolution process. The red-brick Pierhead Building of 1897 in Cardiff Bay is now at the doorstep of the modern glass-fronted Senedd building and has served as the Senedd’s visitor and education centre since 2010. We are very grateful to be able to hold our Annual Conference in this setting, especially since we have such fond memories from our 2019 conference at the Senedd.

After positive feedback from last year, we will again organise a workshop for early-career researchers on Thursday, 21 November 2024. Our traditional pre-conference drinks reception will be on Thursday evening. The venues for the workshop and drinks reception will be confirmed soon.

Calls for Papers

Main conference (22 November)

We invite you to propose papers featuring original research on any parliaments or legislatures around the world. In light of the Senedd’s anniversary, we are keen to receive submissions that focus on the devolved parliaments. We also encourage papers by researchers working in parliaments and collaborations between practitioners and academics.

The deadline for proposing abstracts is 16 September 2024. Please fill in this form. Please note that if accepted, we will ask you to submit a blog post to be published on our blog in the aftermath of the conference.

ECR workshop (21 November)

If you are a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher or an early-career academic not in a permanent position, please consider applying for our pre-conference early-career workshop where you get the opportunity to receive in-depth feedback on a draft paper. We welcome papers on any aspect of parliamentary and legislative studies that you seek to get published. (If you are collaborating with senior colleagues, you should be the main author of the paper.)

The deadline for the workshop proposals is also 16 September 2024, and the application form can be found here. If accepted, we will ask you to share your paper with the other participants and expert discussants two weeks before the event.

If you would like to volunteer to act as a discussant, please let Caroline know. We would be very grateful.

Further details can be found here.

We hope to see you in the Welsh capital in November!

Categories
News

July 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! We are a bit late with the newsletter this month, but all for good reasons! A lot of us will have been busy following the 4th of July General Election and will still be busy with post-election analysis. Our next newsletter will be out on the 2nd of September. Meanwhile, we have lots of news for you this month.

  1. Our Annual Conference: Save the Date!
  2. Our Annual Conference: Call for Papers!
  3. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition: Last call
  4. 25th Anniversary of the Devolved Legislatures in Scotland and Wales
  5. General Election Insights
  6. Recent Publications
  7. Recently on the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. Our Annual Conference: Save the Date!

We are very excited to share that we have a date and location for our Annual Conference. The conference will be held 21-22 November 2024 in Cardiff, Wales.

25 years ago, the Senedd Cymru was first created as the National Assembly for Wales as part of the devolution process. The red-brick Pierhead Building of 1897 in Cardiff Bay is now at the doorstep of the modern glass-fronted Senedd building and has served as the Senedd’s visitor and education centre since 2010. We are very grateful to be able to hold our Annual Conference in this setting, especially since we have such fond memories from our 2019 conference at the Senedd.

After positive feedback from last year, we will again organise a workshop for early-career researchers on Thursday, 21 November 2024. Our traditional pre-conference drinks reception will be on Thursday evening. The venues for the workshop and drinks reception will be confirmed soon.

Further details and the call for papers can be found on our website.

2. Our Annual Conference: Call for Papers!

Main conference (22 November) – We invite you to propose papers featuring original research on any parliaments or legislatures around the world. In light of the Senedd’s anniversary, we are keen to receive submissions that focus on the devolved parliaments. We also encourage papers by researchers working in parliaments and collaborations between practitioners and academics.

The deadline for proposing abstracts is 16 September 2024. Please fill in this form. Please note that if accepted, we will ask you to submit a blog post to be published on our blog in the aftermath of the conference.

ECR workshop (21 November) – If you are a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher or an early-career academic not in a permanent position, please consider applying for our pre-conference early-career workshop where you get the opportunity to receive in-depth feedback on a draft paper. We welcome papers on any aspect of parliamentary and legislative studies that you seek to get published. (If you are collaborating with senior colleagues, you should be the main author of the paper.)

The deadline for the workshop proposals is also 16 September 2024, and the application form can be found here. If accepted, we will ask you to share your paper with the other participants and expert discussants two weeks before the event.

If you would like to volunteer to act as a discussant, please let Caroline know. We would be very grateful.

Further details and the call for papers can be found on our website.

We hope to see you in the Welsh capital in November!

3. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition: Last call

The deadline for our undergraduate essay competition is approaching fast. If you are teaching at a UK university and have marked an excellent piece of work by a student, please consider nominating them.

The deadline is 12 July at 5pm BST. You can find all the details here.

4. The 25th Anniversary of the Devolved Legislatures in Scotland and Wales

The Festival of Politics (Monday 19 August to Friday 23 August 2024)

The Scottish Parliament’s Festival of Politics (In partnership with Scotland’s Futures Forum) is happening in August, with a five-day programme of over 30 events, in the home of Scottish politics at Holyrood. More info

25 years of Welsh law-making

To mark the Senedd’s 25th anniversary, Senedd Research has published a special series on 25 years of Welsh law-making. Welsh law-making is still young and has adapted to its changing context, whether initiated from within Wales or externally. The series looks at how the legislative process in the Senedd has changed, the role external bodies and events have played in its evolution and considers the impact of Senedd reforms.

5. General Election Insights

PSA website General Election resources

The PSA has set up a special section on their website to feature resources about the General Election. There is also information about how you can contribute and share your insights. Please see here.

Call for contributions on the PSA Parliaments blog

Over the next few months we are welcoming timely contributions discussing the implications of the General Election for the UK Parliament and the devolved legislatures so please get in touch with our communications officer, Jack.

6. Recent Publications

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. Recently on the Blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack.

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We have one new contribution to our Overview of Parliaments Map:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
News

June 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! We  hope you all enjoyed the late May Bank holiday and that you are as excited as we are about the forthcoming General Election! We have plenty of updates for you this month!

  1. New Book: Reimagining Parliament
  2. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition
  3. Events
  4. Job Opportunities
  5. Call for Papers
  6. Recent Publications
  7. Recently on the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. New Book: Reimagining Parliament

David Judge and Cristina Leston-Bandeira have edited a book which does exactly what the title says: Reimagining Parliament. As luck would have it, it was officially published on the day the next general election was announced. This is the ideal literature to distract you from the latest election coverage and rethink the future of the UK parliament.

The main objective of the book is to discuss how the guiding principles of openness, engagement/connectedness, accessibility, inclusion, equality, fairness, responsiveness, and accountability can be reimagined in terms of space, connectivity, and interaction. See our blog for a teaser.

In addition to Cristina and David, the book includes contributions by our friends and colleagues Alexandra MeakinEmma CreweDidier CaluwaertsDaan VermassenHannah WhiteBen YongLucinda Maer, and Paul Evans.

The book has been published by Bristol University Press and is available in paperback, hardback and as an e-book. See here.

2. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition

We are seeking nominations for our Undergraduate Essay Competition. If you are teaching undergraduates in the UK, please consider nominating a student for their excellent written work on any topic related to parliaments and legislatures. In addition to academic recognition, the winning student will get a £100 prize and the runner-up a £50 prize.

The submission deadline is 12 July. For more details, check our website or feel free to contact Caroline.

3. Events

The UCL Constitution Unit vitual panel on: Priorities for new MPs’ induction in the next parliament

The UCL Constitution Unit is hosting a virtual panel on “Priorities for New MPs’ Induction in the Next Parliament”. The experts are Ruth Fox (Director of the Hansard Society), Hannah White (Director of the Institute for Government), Daniel Greenberg (Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards) and Alistair Burt (former Conservative MP), and Meg Russell (Director of the Constitution Unit) will be chairing. The event takes place on 5 June, 1:00-2:15pm. You can sign up here.

The UCL Constitution Unit Conference: New Constitutional priorities for the Next Government 24- 25 June 2024

This two-day conference will bring together a range of senior speakers, including parliamentarians, academics and commentators, to discuss the constitutional priorities for the next government. For more information, see here.

4. Job Opportunities

The University of Edinburgh is offering a three-year fully funded PhD scholarship to work on “Patterns, Practices and Interpretations of Knowledge Use in Parliaments”. The position sits within the Studying Parliaments and the Role of Knowledge (SPARK) led by Marc Geddes. The application deadline is 6 June. More information can be found here.

5. Call for Papers

Parliamentary Affairs call for papers: Special section on the state of British politics in 2024/5

This call for papers, from the editors of Parliamentary Affairs, is for a special section of the journal on the state of British politics in 2024/5. The deadline for proposal submissions is 30 September 2023, with first drafts due at the end of January 2024. 

For more information see here

WFD and AFRODAD call for papers and experts on the role of African parliaments in public debt oversight

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) and the African Forum and Network for Debt and Development (AFRODAD) intend to examine the role of African parliaments in public debt oversight. The intention is to  compile a research publication featuring 8 to 10 peer-reviewed articles, each authored by different contributors who will submit full papers after abstract review. The paper abstract deadline is 10 June 2024

For more details and a timeline please see here or contact: Franklin De Vrieze (WFD) or Shem Joshua Otieno (AFRODAD).

6. Recent Publications

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. Recently on the Blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack.

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We have one new contribution to our Overview of Parliaments Map:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.

Categories
News

May 2024 Newsletter

Hello, everyone! We are two days late from our usual schedule, but we hope you all enjoyed the first May Bank holiday! We have plenty of updates for you this month!

  1. PSA (Parliaments) News
  2. Urgent Questions with Sean Haughey
  3. Undergraduate Essay Competition
  4. Opportunities
  5. Special Issue: Call for Articles
  6. Recent Publications
  7. Recently on the Blog
  8. Overview of Parliaments Map

If you have any notices/messages you would like us to circulate to our group, please let us know.

Best wishes,

Caroline, Diana, Ruxandra, Jack and Lauren

1. PSA (Parliaments) News

Welcome to Lauren Martin

We are delighted that Lauren Martin is joining our team as our new Treasurer and Membership Officer. Lauren is a PhD student at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on the use of the House of Commons e-petition system as a way for citizens to engage with Parliament and explores how they are featured in both individuals’ and organisations’ campaigning activities.

Call for and to Members 

If you have colleagues who are interested in parliaments, consider recommending them to join our specialist group! We are open to members who study legislatures from anywhere around the world, with any theoretical or methodological approaches, from an academic or from a practitioner perspective. Even if parliaments are just a small part of your broader research agenda (for example you are using parliamentary debates to try out a new text analysis technique), we want to hear from you and learn more about your work!

If you supervise or work with PhD students or Early Career Researchers, please forward our details to them, and we’ll be happy to chat if they have any questions. We hold regular events where they can get feedback on papers, like the ECR workshop we held at the LSE in November 2023, and we are keen to plan more ECR events (such as workshops and methods training) in the future.

If you are not a member of the Political Studies Association, consider joining in order to benefit from the full range of PSA events.

Worrying developments at the University of Lincoln and other universities

We are all aware that the UK higher education sector has come under significant financial pressure. More than 50 universities have already opened voluntary severance schemes or announced compulsory redundancies. (The UCU branch at Queen Mary University of London has compiled an overview here.) We also know that the social sciences, arts and humanities tend to be particularly vulnerable to budget cuts.

The PSA, BISA and UACES have recently issued a joint letter regarding the redundancies faced by the Department of Politics & International Relations at Goldsmiths. The University of Huddersfield just announced that around 12% of staff are at risk and at least 12 courses (including sociology) will be axed. Unfortunately, these are just some of the examples highlighting the precarious state of many universities.

As representatives of the community of academics in the subfield of parliamentary studies, we are also very concerned about the news we hear from the University of Lincoln, where one in ten academic staff is facing redundancy. The university is known for excellent parliamentary research and teaching (see e.g. the Lincoln Parliamentary Research Centre), and we stand in solidarity with our colleagues who are affected.

Help Shape the PSA 2025+ Strategy

The PSA’s Trustees want to devise a new strategy to ensure the PSA is clear on its direction and role, and is sustainably resourced, from 2025 to best serve our community in the future. More information can be found here. You can share your thoughts HERE! For further questions please email: strategy@psa.ac.uk

2. Urgent Questions with Sean Haughey

Our outgoing Co-Convenor Sean left us a special present and answered our Urgent Questions. Whether you want to read about an Irishman in Seoul, join in the dream of being a farmer with dogs (many dogs) or need a restaurant recommendation for Wales, you should read Sean’s answers here.

3. Undergraduate Essay Competition

It is that time of the year again! The call for our 2024 undergraduate essay competition has officially opened.

If you are teaching undergraduates in the UK, we are asking you to nominate a student for their excellent written piece on parliaments and legislatures. It is a fantastic opportunity for them to get recognition for their work and even win prize money. More details can be found here.

4. Opportunities

Full-Time and Permanent Job Opportunity at University of Edinburgh 

The School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh is looking for a Lecturer in (British) Politics. Applicants with expertise in any area of Scottish, British or UK politics (i.e., research on political behaviour and elections/parties; parliaments and other political institutions; and representation and participation) are welcome. This post is open ended, available from September 2024. You can find the job advert here. The deadline for applications is 14 May 2024.

Lectureship in Politics and Gender at Queen Mary University

Queen Mary University of London is seeking a permanent Lecturer in Politics and Gender at the School of Politics and International Relations. The closing date for applications is 26th May 2024. Find more information here.

Commons Library website

The House of Commons Library provides politically impartial research, analysis, statistics and information to help MPs to scrutinise legislation, prepare for debates, develop policies and support their constituents. They want to hear more about how you use the Library website and would be very interested to have a 30-40 minute call with you to discuss your views. Please contact Ed Knight (knightec@parliament.uk) if you would like to participate and we will organise a call.

5. Special Issue: Call for Articles

Please note the following Call for Articles for a special issue of the International Journal of Parliamentary Studies, “Political impartiality in a parliamentary context” (to be published in 2025) edited by Ben Yong (Durham) and Christoph Konrath (Austrian Parliament).

There is a growing interest in the administration of parliaments, and the work of parliamentary officials. This special issue aims to examine a core aspect of parliamentary administration: political impartiality. 

We invite applications with titles, abstracts (maximum 300 words) and short CVs, which should be sent by 31 August 2024 to benjamin.y.yong@durham.ac.uk. Selected candidates will then have to send their articles by 31 March 2025. More details can be found here.

6. Recent Publications

If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Caroline with details.

7. Recently on the Blog

If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our new communications officer, Jack.

8. Overview of Parliaments Map

We have one new contribution to our Overview of Parliaments Map:

For anybody who wishes to cover any of the countries not yet covered in our map, contact our communications officer Jack.