Tag: newsletter

Hello! We anticipated a busy year for parliamentary scholars and it is proving to be so. We have lots of exciting news and opportunities for you in this newsletter.

1. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition 2025: Now open!
2. Members’ Spotlight
3. Opportunities
4. Call for Papers
5. Recent Publications
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. PSA Parliaments Undergraduate Essay Competition 2025: Now open!

If you have been busy marking assignments during the last few weeks and have come across some excellent student essays, please consider nominating the student for our annual essay prize. This is a great opportunity for them to get their work recognised and read by a broader audience and add an award to their CV. The winner and runner-up will also receive £100 and £50 in prize money respectively.

The nominating academic has to be based at a UK institution and a member of our specialist group. The essay can cover any aspect of parliaments and legislatures and does not have to be written for a parliamentary studies module.

The deadline for nominations is Friday, 11 July 2025, and everything you need to know can be found on our website.

2. Members’ Spotlight

If you are looking for an interesting read, our very own PSA Parliaments co-convenor, Ruxandra Serban, co-authored two very interesting pieces on the UCL Constitution Unit Blog about the French parliament failed experimentation with Prime Minister’s Questions: 

• Calixte Bloquet and Ruxandra Serban, Why the French parliament tried to introduce Prime Minister’s Questions 
• Calixte Bloquet and Ruxandra Serban, Not interested in a second fiddle – why the French parliament’s Prime Minister’s Questions experiment failed

Additionally, Professor Meg Russel, the Director of the UCL Constitution Unit published a new piece ‘Should we be worried about the decline of parliamentary scrutiny?’. The article draws attention to a number of concerns (including fast-tracked government bills, government amendments to its own bills and late responses to select committee reports) and makes suggestions for improvements.

3. Opportunities

Share your research with the UK Parliament via POSTnotes

POST, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, is calling for research contributions and information relevant to the upcoming briefing below:

• The role of public engagement in improving trust in parliamentary systems and scrutiny: this POSTbrief will collect data on drivers of trust, effective interventions for public engagement and their impacts on parliamentary scrutiny. The POSTbrief may also consider available evidence about the impacts of public engagement on trust and parliamentary scrutiny from international contexts.

The deadline to submit a contribution to the role of public engagement in improving trust in parliamentary systems and scrutiny is 3 March 2025.

LSE Job

The London School of Economics and Political Science is looking for a Fellow in Political Behaviour. This is a 2-year position (with a possible extension for another year). The deadline for application is 7 March 2025, and the full details are available here.

Reminder: Senedd Review of the Public Bill and Member Bill processes

The Business Committee of the Senedd has opened a consultation to gather experiences and views regarding the operation and effectiveness of the Senedd’s scrutiny of Public Bills and Member Bills. You can share your expertise until 28 March 2025. All the information is available here.

4. Call for Papers

EPOP Annual Conference, 4-6 September, University of Exeter

A Call for Papers proposals is currently under way for the 2025 Elections, Public Opinion and Parties Annual Conference, organised by the University of Exeter (4-6 September 2025). Deadline to submit abstracts is 30 April 2025. The submission link is here.

5. Recent Publications

• Tim Mickler, Simon Otjes & David M. Willumsen, “Who gets to speak for the party? How parliamentary party groups select spokespersons” in Legislative Studies Quarterly.
• Mia Costa & Miguel M. Pereira, “Why parties can benefit from promoting occupational diversity in legislatures: Experimental evidence from three countries” in American Journal of Political Science.

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.

• ‘Democratic innovation through AI in parliaments‘ by Franklin De Vrieze.
• ‘Does beauty matter? Physical appearance in candidate selection for German parliamentary elections‘ by Calixte Bloquet and Danny Schindler.

7. 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.

Hello, everyone! We anticipated a busy year for parliamentary scholars and it is proving to be so. We have lots of exciting news and opportunities for you in this newsletter.

1. Reminder: PSA General Conference, Birmingham, 14-16 April 2025
2. Calls for Papers
3. Opportunities
4. Upcoming Events
5. Recent Publications
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 General Conference, Birmingham, 14–16 April 2025

Key Reminders for PSA25 Delegates

Paper Givers Registration Deadline:

All paper presenters must register by 10 February 2025 to ensure inclusion in the final programme. If you haven’t yet registered, you can do so here.

Panel Sessions Format:

• Panel sessions are 90 minutes long, with 60 minutes for presentations and at least 30 minutes for discussion and audience questions.
• Presenters will have 15–20 minutes each, adjusted by the Chair if there are more than four papers in a session.
• Please ensure you bring your presentation on a USB stick, along with any necessary adapters for HDMI connection, as full papers are not required.

Booking Hotels and Accommodation

The conference is taking place in the heart of the city, being a 10-minute walk away from the main train station (Birmingham New Street) and surrounded by various hotels. We encourage you to secure accommodation sooner than later as the conference is just around the corner!

Early Bird Registration

The early-bird registration for the PSA Annual Conference is still open until 21 February 2025. Daily rates are available for early-career members. All information can be found here and the outline programme has been published.

Late Paper Submissions 

The PSA25 Late Paper Submissions form is now available for those who wish to propose paper abstracts for inclusion in specific panels in the conference programme. To learn more and submit your abstract, please visit the PSA25 event page on our website. The deadline for submissions is 14 February 2025, 12pm GMT.

2. Calls for Papers

Reminder: Conference of the ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments, 2–4 July, Barcelona, University of Barcelona

The ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments is hosting its 9th flagship conference this summer in vibrant Barcelona, offering an invaluable experience for anyone studying or researching in the field. 

• The Call for Panels and Papers is still open until 12 February 2025.
• Registration deadline is 19 March 2025.
• For more information, please click here.

Women in Legislative Studies (WiLS) Virtual Research Workshop, 25 April  2025

WiLS is offering a virtual research workshop for scholars at all levels. The workshop will be divided into morning and afternoon sessions and will run from 10 am to 4 pm EST (with a break for lunch). For more information, please contact:

• Mel Atkinson (UNC Charlotte): matkinson@charlotte.edu
• Emilia Simison (Queen Mary University of London): e.simison@qmul.ac.uk

Proposals are due by the end of Wednesday, February 5. The full conference program will be available in late-February. If you are interested in participating as a presenter or discussant please fill this form.

3. Opportunities

Opportunity to join the PSA Executive Committee

The PSA seeks at least two new trustees for its Executive Committee, including the role of Honorary Secretary. This is a great opportunity to contribute to enhancing the study of Politics and International Relations and build your own profile. Nominations close on 10 March 2025, and you can find out more here.

Senedd Review of the Public Bill and Member Bill processes

The Business Committee of the Senedd has opened a consultation to gather experiences and views regarding the operation and effectiveness of the Senedd’s scrutiny of Public Bills and Member Bills. You can share your expertise until 28 March 2025. All the information is available here.

Scottish Parliament: Research opportunity

The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) is seeking to award a contract for research that will support the SPCB Supported Bodies Landscape Review Committee’s inquiry. This desk-based research will set out how other countries set up their commissioners (and why) and how their outcomes are measured. It will support the Committee’s understanding of how other models work in the UK and internationally, and whether aspects of these models could be applied to the Scottish landscape.

For more information and how to obtain a ‘Quotation Pack’, please email academia@parliament.scot quoting Reference: 2023-24/02/SSBLR. The deadline for quotes is 23:59 on Sunday 16 February 2025.

4. Upcoming Events

UCL Constitutional Unit: Improving Parliamentary Scrutiny of Legislation, 24 February, 1-2.15pm

The Constitution Unit at the UCL is organising an exciting expert panel on improving parliamentary scrutiny of legislation. Recent years have seen frequent complaints about the quality of legislative scrutiny by parliament, and particularly by the House of Commons. Various commentators and experts have argued that the scrutiny of proposed laws is too often rushed and/or inadequate, leading to worse policy outcomes for citizens. This online seminar will explore a number of important questions. What problems are there with the legislative process? Have they got worse? And what can be done to fix them?

Speakers:

• Professor Meg Russell – Director of the Constitution Unit
• Sir David Natzler – former Clerk of the House of Commons
• Dr Daniel Gover – Senior Lecturer in British Politics, Queen Mary University of London

Chair: Lisa James – Senior Research Fellow, Constitution Unit

For more information please see here.

5. Recent Publications

• Michael Grahn & Cherry M. Miller, “Feminist institutionalism and ethnography: Crafting research from a diverse methodological menu” in Politics & Gender.
• Daniel Devine, Stuart J. Turnbull-Dugarte & Matt Ryan, “A class of their own: parliamentarians are less likely to be perceived as working class” in West European Politics.
• Christian Breunig & Benjamin Guinaudeau, “Measuring legislators’ ideological position in large chambers using pairwise-comparisons” in Political Science Research and Methods.
• Pamela Ban & Seth J. Hill, “Efficacy of Congressional oversight” in American Political Science Review.

Other resources:

• An interesting blog post outlining Prof. Alpesh Maisuria’s (UWO Bristol) experiences of Parliamentary Academic Fellowships in the UK Parliament, the outputs of which are being used to develop a toolkit for academics to make their research more usable for those who write briefings for politicians and journalists.

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.

• ‘Democratic innovation through AI in parliaments‘, by Franklin De Vrieze.

7. 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.

Hello, everyone! We want to wish you all a very Happy New Year! 2025 looks like a busy year for parliamentary scholars already. We have lots of exciting calls for you in this first newsletter of the year.

1. PSA General Conference, Birmingham, 14-16 April 2025
2. PSA Academic Prizes
3. PSA Parliaments Members Survey
4. Calls for Papers
5. Opportunities
6. Upcoming Events
7. Urgent Questions
8. Recent Publications
9. On the Blog
10. 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 General Conference, Birmingham, 14–16 April 2025

The outline programme for the PSA 75th Annual International Conference has been released, and we are happy to host six panels. We are looking forward to seeing many of you in Birmingham.

The early-bird registration is open until 21 February 2025. For Early Career Network members, daily rates are available. More information here.

2. PSA Academic Prizes

The PSA awards a number of prizes for dissertations, professional contributions, research and teaching. The deadline for nominations is on 24 January 2025.

More details on the nomination process can be found here.

3. PSA Parliaments Members Survey

Thank you to everyone who has already filled in our members survey. We are gathering your viewpoints to plan our priorities and activities.

We are still looking to hear from our members until 24 January 2025. It should only take a couple of minutes to fill in the form.

4. Call for Papers

Conference of the Standing Group on Parliaments, 2–4 July, Barcelona, University of Barcelona

The ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments is hosting its 9th flagship conference this summer in vibrant Barcelona, offering an invaluable experience for anyone studying or researching in the field.  The Call for Panels and Papers now open and inviting proposals on national, sub-national, or international parliaments. Submissions  focusing on under-researched regions are strongly encouraged.

Panel and paper proposals deadline: 12 February 2025. 

Registration deadline: 19 March 2025.

For more information please click here.

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

The Hellenic OCR Team and Széchenyi István University, in cooperation with International Journal of Parliamentary Studies and Brill invite thought leaders to address the challenges and opportunities of our time, where technology, media and geopolitical shifts intersect with democratic governance. The conference theme is: “Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century”.

Submissions are welcome from scholars at all career stages (including PhD students and post-doctoral researchers), as well as practitioners with relevant academic backgrounds such as law, political science, social sciences, informatics and engineering.

Abstract submission deadline: 28 February 2025. Submit your abstract here.  

More information about the event can be found here.

5. Opportunities

Updated guidance: contributing your research to POSTnotes and briefings

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) have simplified and updated its guidance for researchers to share their expertise and provide contributions to POST’s work, such as POSTnotes and briefings for parliamentarians.
Researchers can feed into POST research projects by following the instructions on the contributing to POST research as an expert webpage. Contributions can be emailed to post@parliament.uk within specified deadlines. 

Call for evidence: The Speaker’s Conference on the security of candidates, MPs and elections (UK Parliament)

On 14 October 2024 the House of Commons agreed a motion to establish a committee, to be known as the Speaker’s Conference, to consider: the factors influencing the threat levels against candidates and MPs, and the effectiveness of the response to such threats. 

The committee is currently accepting written evidence from anyone with answers to the questions in the call for evidence. You can submit evidence until Friday 7 February 2025.

6. Upcoming Events

ECPR General Conference 2025, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 26–29 August 2025 

The ECPR Standing Group on Parliaments endorsed Section S08 on Advancing the Study of Parliaments: Structures, Actors and Processes at a Crossroads.

This section seeks to advance our study of parliaments as critical institutions in representative democracies, and to examine how the role and importance of parliaments has evolved over time. It focuses on the structures and organisational aspects of parliaments, as well as key actors and their relationships within and outwith these institutions (such as individual parliamentarians, parliamentary party groups, administrative staff or external stakeholders), and the processes and practices inside these political arenas. 

For more information please see here.

7. Urgent Questions with Richard Whitaker

For those of you who have missed our latest Urgent Questions with Prof. Richard in the December newsletter, worry not! You can still read it here.

8. Recent Publications

• Mette Marie Staehr Harder, “Cross-parliamentary control” in The Journal of Legislative Studies.
• Thomas Däubler, Maarja Lühiste & Mihail Chiru, “Do public attitudes on gender equality affect candidate selection in proportional representation systems? Evidence from European Parliament elections” in European Union Politics.
• Leonie Mugglin, Brian Murahwa & Didier Ruedin, “When politicians feel pressure to represent: Evidence from South Africa” in Parliamentary Affairs.
• Jack Blumenau, Fabio Wolkenstein & Christopher Wratil, “Citizens’ preferences for multidimensional representation” in Perspectives on Politics.
• Marcus Carlsen Häggrot & Chiara Destri, “Proportional non-voter sortition: Legislative inclusion for non-voting citizens” in Perspectives on Politics.
• Alejandro Tirado Castro & Berta Caihuelas Navajas, “The gender gap in policy responsiveness in Spain” in European Journal of Politics and Gender.
• Jana Boukemia, Marius Sältzer & Sébastien Boyer, “Misogyny, politics, and social media determinants of hostile engagement against women parliamentarians on Twitter” in Legislative Studies Quarterly.

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

9. 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.

• Westminster Hall: Parliament’s Best Kept Secret?, by Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Louise Thompson. This blog is based on a paper presented by the authors to the Annual Conference of the PSA Parliaments group in November 2024 at the Senedd Cymru in Cardiff.

10. Overview of Parliaments Map

• An Overview of China’s National People’s Congress, By Chi Zhang.

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

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

• Stephen Holden Bates, William C. R. Horncastle, Caroline Bhattacharya & Stephen McKay, “Which MPs get elevated to the House of Lords?“ in Parliamentary Affairs.
• David Jeffery, Andrew S. Roe-Crines & Timothy Heppell, “Divisions within the British parliamentary Labour Party under Keir Starmer: Results of a cluster analysis” in British Politics.
• Francesco Bromo, Paolo Gambacciani & Marco Improta, “Term limits in parliament and electoral disconnection: the case of the Five Star Movement” in European Political Science Review.
• Nadia E. Brown, Christopher J. Clark, Anna M. Mahoney, Orly Siow & Michael G. Strawbridge, “Intersectional identity and representative politics“, An introduction to an upcoming Critical Perspectives in Politics & Gender.
• Reut Itzkovitch-Malka & Odelia Oshri, “The weight on her shoulders: Marginalization of women legislators in parliaments and substantive representation of women” in the British Journal of Political Science.

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.

• Disability inclusion in the House of Commons in the spotlight, By Dr Ekaterina Kolpinskaya.

9. Overview of Parliaments Map

• An Overview of China’s National People’s Congress, By Chi Zhang.

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

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

• Noon–4 pm: Early-career workshop (Activity room, sbark|spark)
• 6–7.30 pm: Drinks reception in the Foyer of the Senedd – with a keynote address by the Deputy Presiding Officer David Rees MS
• 7.45 pm: Informal, self-sponsored dinner (restaurant TBC)

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

• Margaret Arnott, “Scotland in the multi-national UK state: interpreting legislatures, decentred state, territorial governance” in The Journal of Legislative Studies
• Udit Bhatia, “The Pedagogical Account of Parliamentarism at India’s Founding”in the American Journal of Political Science
• Khemvirg Puente Martínez, “Origen y desarrollo de los estudios legislativos: temas, escuelas y tendencias” in Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales
• Danny Schindler & Oliver Kannenberg, “The institutionalisation of parliamentary party groups. Towards a concept” in The  Journal of Legislative Studies

Book

• Professor Margaret Arnott recently published a book on the challenges of UK Interparliamentary/Intergovernmental Relations in the devolved UK: Arnott, M.A. (2024), Interparliamentary Relations and the Future of Devolution in the UK 1998-2018 with Emerald Publishing Limited. Please also note the Emerald Press podcast with Professor Arnott discussing the future of devolution in the UK.

Other Publications and Resources

• The Hansard Society has published: What’s the point of petitions? What the last century reveals about petitioning and people power in modern Britain?, written by  Anna Bocking-Welch, University of Liverpool, Richard Huzzey, Durham University, Cristina Leston-Bandeira, University of Leeds, and Henry Miller, Durham University
• The Constitution Unit has recently published MPs’ Role in the Constitution: A Practical Guide by Meg Russell and Lisa James
• Bússola Tech in partnership with the Association of Secretaries-General of Parliaments, the Organization of American States, the Society of Clerks-at-the-Table Africa Region, and the Hellenic OCR Team, and with contributions from an international group of parliamentary experts have published a report on “Key Considerations of Artificial Intelligence in Parliaments”

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

6. On the Blog

• ‘The real cost of MPs’ security to constituency representation’ by Neil Matthews and Sean Haughey

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.

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

• Noon–4 pm: Early-career workshop (Activity room, sbark|spark)
• 6–7.30 pm: Drinks reception in the Foyer of the Senedd – with a keynote address by the Deputy Presiding Officer David Rees MS
• 7.45 pm: Informal, self-sponsored dinner (restaurant TBC)

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 75^th 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:

• Parliament for Researchers with Baroness Young of Old Scone (health) – Tuesday 22 October, 13:00-14:00

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:

• ‘How to be an effective select committee chair’ (17 October 2024, 1–2:15pm): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/events/2024/oct/how-be-effective-select-committee-chair
• ‘How to be an effective opposition’ (4 November 2024, 1–2:15pm): https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/events/2024/nov/how-be-effective-opposition

6. Recent Publications and Resources

Publications

• Marc Geddes & Stephen Holden Bates wrote a blog for the Hansard Society: “Select committee chair elections: what do the results tell us about the new Parliament?”
• Nicole Nisbett, Viktoria Spaiser, Cristina Leston-Bandeira & Daniel Valdenegro, “Climate action or delay: the dynamics of competing narratives in the UK political sphere and the influence of climate protest” in Climate Policy
• Michael Grahn & Theodor Thisell, “Are minorities in politics held to a higher standard? Experimental & observational evidence from candidate selection” in Journal of European Public Policy
• Eduardo Alemán, Tiffany D. Barnes, Juan Pablo Micozzi, Sebastián Vallejo Vera, “Gender, institutions, and legislative speech” in Comparative Politics
• Markus Kollberg, “The challenger advantage – how challenger parties disrupt mainstream party dominance in the European Parliament” in Journal of European Public Policy
• Zeljko Poljak (2024). Let’s talk about something else: how cabinet members divert issue attention in answers to parliamentary questions in The Journal of Legislative Studies

Open access book

• Robert Hazell and Timothy Foot, Executive Power: The Prerogative, Past, Present and Future, Hart Publishing, 2022

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

7. On the Blog

• ‘The real cost of MPs’ security to constituency representation’ by Neil Matthews and Sean Haughey

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:

• Overview of the Israeli Knesset by Avital Friedman

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

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 75^th 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 60^th 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

• Marc Geddes & Cherry Miller, “Interpreting parliaments, but how?: Centring parliamentary actors and settings in ethnographic design and practice” in The British Journal of Politics and International Relations
• Petra Ahrens, Barbara Gaweda, Valentine Berthet, Johanna Kantola & Cherry Miller, “Friends, experts or witches: Doing feminist research in challenging political contexts” in European Journal of Politics and Gender
• Neil Matthews & Sean Haughey, “The security of politicians: Towards a research agenda” in Parliamentary Affairs
• Dawn Welsh, “The British and Irish governments’ role in restoring the Assembly in Northern Ireland: October 2002 to May 2007 and January 2017 to January 2020” in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics
• Special issue on Gender Equality Reforms in Parliaments in Politics and Governance, edited by Petra Ahrens and Sonia Palmieri
• Westminster Foundation for Democracy’s has published new AI Guidelines for Parliament. 

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:

• David Judge and Cristina-Leston Bandeira’s fascinating Re-imagining  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:

• Overview of the Israeli Knesset by Avital Friedman

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

In this month’s newsletter, we have the following announcements/information:

1. Ideas for 2020 wanted
2. Communications Officer vacancy
3. #Parl19 – Cardiff 2019
4. Essay Competition 2020 – now open
5. Recently on our blog

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

Best wishes,
Marc (@marcgeddes), Louise (@LouiseVThompson) Alex (@A_Meakin) and Seán (@S_Haughey)

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In this month’s newsletter, we have the following announcements/information:

1. Ideas for 2020 wanted
2. New Project: The Scottish Parliament – A Graphic History
3. Celebrating 40 years of departmental select committees
4. New data resource – ParlRulesData
5. Event: Do parliamentary e-petitions matter to MPs?
6. Call for new PSA Chair
7. Recently on our blog

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

Best wishes,
Marc (@marcgeddes), Louise (@LouiseVThompson) Alex (@A_Meakin) and Seán (@S_Haughey)

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In this month’s newsletter, we have the following announcements/information:

1. Our Annual Conference: please remember to register!
2. PSA Conference 2020, Edinburgh: Call for Papers
3. Job Opportunity at Birkbeck
4. Recently on our blog

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

Best wishes,
Marc (@marcgeddes), Louise (@LouiseVThompson) Alex (@A_Meakin) and Seán (@S_Haughey)

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