We hope that you are keeping safe and well. We have some updates for you:
- PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2022 in Birmingham & Online
- PSA Annual Conference 2023 in Liverpool & Online
- Winners Announced for the PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition!
- Wanted: Treasurer & Membership Officer
- Urgent Questions with Alexandra Meakin
- Funded PhD on House of Lords Committees at the University of Sheffield
- The History of Parliament Trust’s Oral History Project: Call for Volunteers
- Write a Blog for the PSA
- 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 prizewinning group, please let us know.
1. PSA Parliaments Annual Conference 2022 in Birmingham & Online
There is still time to book tickets for our Annual Conference, which will be held at The Exchange in Birmingham and online on 3rd-4th November 2022 with the theme of What Next?
We have our now traditional drinks reception on the Thursday evening and then four brilliant panels on the Friday.
We had nearly twice as many paper proposals than normal and we weren’t able to accommodate everyone on the Friday so we have decided to also run some annex panels online in December and January – please keep an eye out for details in future newsletters.
The conference (including lunch and refreshments) is free for all attendees, whether presenting or in the audience, but you must register beforehand. We are also in a position to be able to offer a limited number of travel bursaries to PhD students. Please contact Sean for further details.
Please see here for full details of the conference, including how to book tickets and a slightly revised timetable.
We are very much excited to be meeting up in person after two years of online conferences and we hope to see as many of you there as possible!
For those of you attending on Zoom, a link will be sent round beforehand.
2. PSA Annual Conference 2023 in Liverpool & Online
The 73rd Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association will be held in Liverpool and online on 3rd-5th April 2023 (see here for details).
The submission process is different from previous years in that specialist groups were given an exclusive timeframe for them to receive papers and propose panels ahead of the open call which closes on 8th November.
We’ve already put together four panels but we do have room for more in our allocation. So, if you have missed the specialist group deadline and will submit through the open call but would like to present under the auspices of our group, we recommend putting “I would like to be on a PSA Parliaments panel please” somewhere prominent on your submission. It’s not now fully in our control but hopefully your request will be granted by the convenors.
As always, we do not have any preferences in terms of theory, method or empirical focus and we welcome papers from PhD students through to professors, as well as from practitioners. We are fully committed to avoiding all-male panels. We are also seeking to increase the proportion of papers on our panels from people from an ethnic minority background.
3. Winners Announced for the PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition!
We are delighted to announce the winners of our 2022 Undergraduate Essay Competition!
First place has been awarded to Jack Liddall, from the University of Edinburgh. Jack was nominated by Dr Marc Geddes for his excellent essay: ‘Compare the effectiveness of the Scottish Parliament’s committees and the House of Commons’ Public Bill Committees in influencing government bills’. The judging panel described Jack’s essay as a “tight, rigorous comparative study that was well-structured, well-written, made a clear case on the basis of the evidence presented, and advanced our knowledge of the two Parliaments concerned.” The panel praised the “outstanding mixed-methods approach, with impressive interview data complementing the quantitative analysis” and noted that it was “particularly welcome to see a rigorous empirical comparison between the Westminster and Scottish Parliaments”. Finally, the panel also commended the essay for contributing to “ongoing debates in the literature – of which it showed a sophisticated understanding – about the extent of executive dominance of the legislative process”.
Our runner-up was Liliana Smith from the University of Leeds, who was nominated by Professor Cristina Leston-Bandeira for her MP strategy briefing ‘Historic child sexual exploitation in Bradford’. The judging panel described Liliana’s entry as a “really interesting and impressive strategy briefing, which demonstrates a thorough and astute understanding of how Westminster operates”. The panel concluded that “the strategy briefing could have been put straight in front of an MP or their staff and been immediately useable”, noting how it “evidenced a strong and sophisticated understanding of both the local policy landscape around the relevant issue and the Westminster mechanisms available to backbenchers”. Liliana’s entry was also praised for being nuanced, well-structured and particularly well-written.
Jack and Liliana will receive prizes of £100 and £50 respectively, and have been invited to receive their certificates—and our congratulations—at the PSA Parliaments Annual Conference on Friday 4 November in Birmingham.
All entries were anonymised and shortlisted before judged by a panel which included a guest judge, Dr Brigid Fowler, Senior Researcher at the Hansard Society. The PSA Parliaments team would like to share our immense thanks to Brigid for reading through these entries and providing such helpful feedback.
The standard of entries from universities across the UK was incredibly high and we would like to thank all the PSA Parliaments members who took part and congratulate their students for their excellent work. Nominations for the 2023 competition will open early next year.
You can read the winning entries here.
Congratulations Jack and Liliana!
4. Wanted: Treasurer & Membership Officer
PSA Parliaments are now looking for a new Treasurer and/or Membership Officer.
If you are interested in joining the PSA Parliaments team and being part of, quite frankly, the friendliest and prizewinning-est specialist group in the world, then please let Stephen know in the first instance.
PSA Parliaments team members must be based in the UK and be somewhere between PhD student and professor.
5. Urgent Questions with Alexandra Meakin
This month’s interviewee is Dr Alexandra Meakin, who gives us her valedictory answers as the outgoing co-convenor of PSA Parliaments.
Head over to Urgent Questions to read about greyhounds, dinosaurs and fast food twinnery!
6. Funded PhD on House of Lords Committees at the University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is advertising a PhD, co-funded by the House of Lords, on the role and reform of Select Committees in the House of Lords, 2018-2025.
Full details of the PhD, including how to apply, can be found here.
7. The History of Parliament Trust’s Oral History Project: Call for Volunteers
The History of Parliament Trust’s oral history project is looking for more volunteers to interview former MPs about their lives and experiences.
The Trust’s oral history project has been underway since 2011. They now have around 200 interviews in their archive, held with their partners at the British Library, mostly undertaken by volunteers. They aim to produce life story interviews of former MPs and so their interviews ask about early life experiences, inspiration to enter politics and life after Parliament, as well as day-to-day life in Westminster and major political events.
The Trust would love to hear from those with an interest in political history and experience in oral history, although this is not essential as full training will be provided. They are running their next online training course on 12th and 13th January 2023 (09:30-13:15) and are especially keen to hear from volunteers in the North, the Midlands and Wales.
Volunteers will be expected to undertake some research on their interviewee (materials provided by ourselves), conduct interviews and prepare summaries for the archive. Ideally each volunteer will undertake around two interviews a year, which can last for many hours over several sessions. Travel expenses will be reimbursed. The Trust also runs a programme of seminars for the volunteer team, and they are regularly invited to attend other events held by the Trust at the Institute of Historical Research or Westminster.
The Trust is also inviting expressions of interest from A-level or undergraduate students of history or politics who wish to gain some work experience in a research organisation. The placement will involve assisting the oral history project team in collecting data and research materials on prospective interviewees.
You can find more information about the project on their website and blog. You can listen to many of the interviews undertaken so far on the British Library’s catalogue.
Please contact Dr Emmeline Ledgerwood for more information.
8. Write a Blog for the PSA
The PSA would love to see more PSA Parliaments’ members contributing to the PSA Blog on their website (which we would also republish on our website).
You can find their guidelines here.
If you are interested in submitting a blog please contact comms@psa.ac.uk for approval and publishing.
9. Recent Publications that have Caught Our Eye
Felix Wiebrecht has published an article, Explaining Activity in Authoritarian Assemblies: Evidence from China, in the Journal of East Asian Studies.
And Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, Christopher Dann and Jacob Chapman have published an article, The accountability gap: Deliberation on monetary policy in Britain and America during the financial crisis, in the European Journal of Political Economy.
If you would like your published research to be featured in this section, please email Stephen with details.
10. Recently on the Blog
We published one great blog this month:
If you have an idea for a blog on some aspect of parliamentary study, please get in touch with our communications officer, Chris.
