Partner Association Calls

Oded Haklai, haklai@queensu.ca

Israeli politics can be characterizes as deeply divided along several lines, including Jews and Arabs, “first Israel” and “second Israel”, religious and secular, progressives and conservatives, Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Jews, immigrants and Israel-born, and more. Contrasting visions about democracy, checks-and-balances, and the role of the judiciary have also sharpened in recent years.

The Association for Israel Studies invites proposals that analyze issues of pluralism in Israeli politics. We encourage proposals from all fields of political science and from diverse methodological and theoretical perspectives.  

Andy Smith, a.smith@sciencespobordeaux.fr

Zsuzsa Csergő, csergo@queensu.ca

The Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN) invites proposals that focus on the relationship between nationalism and populist politics. We welcome papers from all subfields of political science that feature new research about key aspects of this important theme. We are particularly interested in papers that include a focus on Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe; Russia; the Caucasus; and Eurasia.  Information about the ASN may be found at http://nationalities.org/.

Greg Moore, gregmoore0816@icloud.com

Bruno Bolognesi, brunobolognesi@gmail.com

‘The Brazilian Political Science Association welcomes proposals analyzing recent trends on the uprising of new actors in Brazilian democracy, whether in electoral, social or governmental arenas. It encourages authors to approach Apsa’s 2021 Annual Meeting theme, “Promoting pluralism”, venting new political agents and their interactions with society and/or the State. The recent changes in brazilian political landscape may render new approaches on Brazil’s democracy and its neighbors in Latin America as well. From a methodological perspective, comparative appeals may have a great contribution to offer’

Eric Gomez, egomez@cato.org 

Miro Hacek, Miro.Hacek@fdv.uni-lj.si

Democracy under attack? Challenges facing the Central and Eastern Europe. Year 2019 was all about thirty years of democratic changes and fifteen years since joining the EU in Central and Eastern Europe. While both anniversaries offered the opportunity to celebrate freedom, economic development, cooperation and peace, the frustrations have not avoided the region. On the contrary, the widespread fatigue with the political “establishment”, endemic corruption and failure to fight it effectively, and a desire for change are the issues resonating in the societies and often driving the voters’ decisions. The nationalists and populist movements using the frustrations to question fundamental democratic values are often dominating the agenda. Harsh political rhetoric targeting the EU, attempts to control and influence the independent media and NGOs, the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of individuals or companies with often very questionable backgrounds, all these are important warning signs of the democracy order under attack. Such trends do not go unnoticed by external observers, but do these narratives affect how people in the Central and Eastern Europe see their own democracies? Do those trends effect membership in the EU or NATO? Whose values do the CEE citizens align with? Whom do they perceive as a threat to the national security and stability of their once-hard-won democracy? Do anti-democratic narratives affect them at all? National case studies from Central and Eastern European region, as well as comparative perspective research including (part of) Central and Eastern European region, will be particularly welcomed.

Amy Mazur, mazur@wsu.edu

Philippe Zittoun, pzittoun@gmail.com

Steven Peterson, sap12@psu.edu 

The International Political Science Association’s Research Committee # 12 (Biology and Politics) invites paper proposals for the 2021 annual meeting. The study of biology and politics speaks to the many linkages between the life sciences and the study of politics. We invite proposals for papers as well as offers to serve as panel discussants and chairs. Papers on all topics are welcome, whether bioethics, biopolicy, neurobiological aspects of behavior, evolution and politics, etc.

If you have any questions, contact Steven Peterson (sap12@psu.edu).

Zachary Elkins, zelkins@austin.utexas.edu and Tobias Hofmann, tobias.hofmann@utah.edu

The International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on Concepts and Methods (RC 01) invites paper as well as panel proposals on fundamental conceptual and methodological issues in political science. In line with the 2021 conference theme, RC 01 strives to promote methodological pluralism and encourages discussions across the entire spectrum of social science research methods. We welcome theoretical and applied contributions, submissions by quantitative and qualitative scholars, work on methods for observational and experimental research, and especially innovative proposals that address ‘Promoting Pluralism’ by bringing together conceptually and methodologically diverse authors and approaches.

Giulio Gallarotti, ggallarotti@wesleyan.edu and Alina Vladimirova, alina.v.vladimirova@gmail.com

Pluralism and Power in International Politics

The global system has long been seen only as a community of nation states. Visions of the hard boundaries of nations has led scholars to conceptualize international politics as a process unfolding exclusively among sovereign countries. Indeed changes in the structure of the global system has introduced far more players into the game. Non-state entities have arisen to compete with states in all important issue-areas. This new pluralist constellation has forced scholars to reconceptualize the nature of the global community and the consequences of these new sets of pluralist relations in terms of the new structure of power in international relations. 

Stephanie Alenda, salenda@unab.cl and Karina Kosiara-Pedersen, kp@ifs.ku.dk

The worldwide transformation of political party influence pointed out by different scholars since at least the 1990s has continued and even accelerated its pace. This process raises a series of challenges to democracies, such as the reduction of democratic accountability, greater turmoil and economically costly subversions of the rule of law, and increasing difficulties to channel demands from below.

In many long-standing democracies, political parties seem to have strongly reduced their capacity to recruit and retain members, mobilize their voters conserving their long-term loyalty, represent their own constituencies, and reverse widespread political disaffection. Moreover, the weakening of traditional parties has been accompanied by a sharp decline in the support for center-left parties in countries like France, Italy, Germany, and the UK, and an increase of polarization: a new upsurge of the radical right in Europe and the Americas (USA, Brasil, Italy, Chile, Hungary, France) and the rebirth of a radical left, in the context of a renewed interest in socialism. This so-called new left has been capable of accessing the central government (Greece, Spain), and it obtained electoral success at the legislative level (France, Germany). However, the radical left also challenges democratic governance via noninstitutionalized social movements (Chile, France).

Therefore, it seems that liberal democracy is currently tensioned by illiberal tendencies at the macro level. But the meso level of politics also faces challenges. One of them is that many aspects of politics seem to become more personalized and focus on individual actors in the political process. Political parties have historically played a fundamental role in aggregating voters’ interests through strong programmatic platforms –in particular in Europe, the region in which they took their modern shape and attained the highest levels of institutionalization.

Different factors are pointed out by scholars as causes for their delegitimization: a) the ideological convergence between liberal and social democratic parties, b) the incapacity of “old” parties to connect with the diverse interests of contemporaneous societies, c) the weakening of their representative function, and d) the failure of liberal democracy to achieve welfare for all citizens. These factors have had an impact on the growing influence of direct democracy claims and of innovative ways of participatory democracy.

The CPS panel at the APSA meeting aims to explore the new internal and external challenges to political parties in order to account for their multifaceted transformations and comparatively examine the different expressions of the decline or transformation of their influence. The panel welcomes papers on any aspect of party organization, its transformation, causes and effects.

Michelle Doyle Wildman, michelle.doylewildman@psa.ac.uk

Peter Stone, pstone@tcd.ie

The Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI) welcomes paper proposals related to Irish politics for its panel at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA). It particularly welcomes proposals related to the theme of the meeting, “Promoting Pluralism.” The questions raised by Irish politics do not fall neatly within any one subfield of political science. Some of these questions, for example, can reasonably treated from an area studies perspective. Other questions, however—especially those relating to the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland—fall under the category of international relations. In addition, the study of Irish politics has always been interdisciplinary in nature, with history, economics, sociology, psychology, and comparative literature contributing alongside of political science. There is thus a longstanding conversation regarding methodology and the study of Irish politics. This panel provides an opportunity for the fruitful advancement of this conversation. We also welcome, of course, paper proposals on any aspect of Irish politics.

Kenneth Grasso, kgrasso@txstate.edu