Multilevel Governance and Federalism

● Multilevel Governance and Federalism:Closely Linked or Incompatible Concepts?

● Two Cheers for Majoritarianism● The UK – Beyond Majoritarianism?

Who Will Host the 2015 World Congress? Istanbul and Montreal Head to Head.

Vol. 34, no 2 – October |Octobre 2010

Multilevel Governance and Federalism

● Multilevel Governance and Federalism:Closely Linked or Incompatible Concepts?

● Two Cheers for Majoritarianism● The UK – Beyond Majoritarianism?

Who Will Host the 2015 World Congress? Istanbul and Montreal Head to Head.

IPSA New Website!

THE 2009-2012 IPSA EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE COMITÉ EXÉCUTIF DE L'AISP 2009-2012

President | PrésidentLeonardo Morlino, Italy

Past President | Présidente sortanteLourdes Sola, Brazil

First Vice-President | Première vice-présidenteHelen Milner, USA

Vice-Presidents | Vice-présidentsWyn P. Grant, United KingdomMarian Sawer, Australia

Other members | Autres membresHyug Baeg Im, KoreaGiliberto Capano, ItalyVincent Hoffmann-Martinot, FranceMikhail Ilyin, RussiaSule Kut, TurkeyKia Lindroos, Finland Francisco José Llera, SpainIrmina Matonyte, LithuaniaJose Alvaro Moises, BrazilLeslie A. Pal, CanadaWerner J. Patzelt, GermanyTeresa Sasinska-Klas, PolandAiji Tanaka, Japan

International Political Science AbstractsDocumentation politique internationalePaul Godt, Editor | ÉditeurSerge Hurtig, Co-Editor | Co-éditeur

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IPSA Online Portal | Portail en ligne AISPMauro Calise, Editor | Éditeur

Program Chair, XXIIst World CongressPrésident, Comité du programme du 22e congrès mondialWyn P. Grant

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Participation is the biannual bulletin of the International Political Science

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Participation Vol. 34, no 2

From the Editor | Éditorial2 Building Bridges

Marian SAWER

Feature | Dossier3 Multilevel Governance and Federalism:

Closely Linked or Incompatible Concepts?Michael STEIN Lisa TURKEWITSCH

6 Two Cheers for MajoritarianismWyn GRANT

8 The UK – Beyond Majoritarianism?David BEETHAM

IPSA News | Nouvelles de l’AISP10 A Tale of Two Cities for IPSA

Isabel BRINCK

12 IPSA New Website!Eric GRÈVE Mathieu ST-LAURENT

13 IPSA Stays at Concordia University: Renewal of the Agreement

IPSA Participation | L’AISP participe14 IPSA at the APSA Annual Meeting

in Washington, DC

15 National Association News Nouvelles des associations nationales

19 Research Committee NewsNouvelles des réseaux de chercheurs

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Contents Sommaire

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parts of the world as well as debates over competing political sci-ence frameworks, whether theoretical or methodological. In thisissue you will find different perspectives on the recent UK election,in which no party gained a majority of seats, and what this develop-ment means for Westminster majoritarianism.

David Beetham argues that the ensuing coalition betweenConservatives and Liberal Democrats presents an opportunity tomove beyond the first-past-the-post electoral system and its damag-ing effects on political equality. He points out that in this election ittook around 120,000 votes to elect each Liberal Democrat MP, com-pared with 34,000 votes for each Conservative and 33,000 for eachLabour MP. There is a coalition agreement to have a referendum onelectoral reform, specifically the introduction of the alternative vote,where voters mark preferences and these are distributed until a can-didate has 50 percent of the vote plus one.

Wyn Grant is more cautious about the benefits of moving beyondmajoritarianism. He points out that proportional representationmight give a disproportionate amount of influence to smaller partiessuch as the anti-immigration British National Party. On the otherhand the alternative vote would be unlikely to change the outcomein a large number of seats, although it does give minor parties morebargaining power.

I have a particular interest in the topic explored by Beetham andGrant because no party achieved a majority in Australia's recentelection – although we have used the alternative vote for the Houseof Representatives since 1918 and usually have majority govern-ments. There is now a minority Labor government in Australia sup-ported by three Independents and a Green MP. The negotiationsover the formation of government provided opportunities to signboth major parties up to a series of parliamentary and politicalfinance reforms. Political scientists were quick to get involved indrafting these reforms, under the aegis of the online campaigningorganisation GetUp, which has more members than all theAustralian political parties combined.

Also in this issue, Michael Stein and Lisa Turkewitsch argue thatthe concept of multilevel governance can enrich the study of feder-alism, because of its attention to the way public decision-making isincreasingly shared both between a larger number of levels of gov-ernment (including the transnational) and between both state andnon-state actors. In North America federalism experts have tendedto be suspicious of the concept of multilevel governance butEuropean theorists have been more likely to see the two analyticframeworks as sharing normative concerns and being complemen-tary in their analytic focus.

If you would like to see more articles of this kind in Participation,we would welcome suggestions. Please forward your comments to Marian Sawer at: marian.sawer@anu.edu.au

Marian SAWERIPSA Vice-President and Chair of the Committeeon Publications

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Participation Vol. 34, no 2

Features Dossiers

device. In the first sense, multilevel gover-nance is a framework for analysis and aconceptual approach to the study of deci-sion-making across levels of governance.In the second sense, multilevel governanceis a concrete or substantive governmentalform. It is a system of governance thatemerged originally in the European Unionand is distinct from federalism.

In a third, normative sense, multilevel gov-ernance is a more desirable approach tointergovernmental decision-making in thecurrent era of economic globalization. Thisis because of the horizontal expansion ofthis mode of decision-making, particularlyin this age, to include non-governmentalactors and civil society, and its verticalexpansion to encompass both the local andsupranational governmental levels.

Some scholars have also argued that MLGcan be used in both empirical and norma-tive senses. We agree, but also note that itis important to distinguish between theseusages. We argue primarily for the utilityof multilevel governance as an analyticalframework. Our work highlights the con-ceptual strengths that the multilevel gover-nance approach can bring to the study ofintergovernmental relations in federal sys-tems in an age of increasingly complex

Multilevel Governance and Federalism: Closely Linked or Incompatible Concepts?

Building Bridges

modes and multiple units of intergovern-mental decision-making.

With respect to the application of federal-ism and multilevel governance to theEuropean Union, most European federaland MLG theorists have tended to view thetwo concepts in complementary rather thancontradictory terms, and to consider theboundaries between them to be increasing-ly blurred. We suggest that the concepts offederalism and multilevel governanceshare some important characteristics.

In terms of their common traits, the twoconcepts share a normative focus on attrib-utes such as the capacity to divide powerand sovereignty between national andother levels of government in order tocombat authoritarian or overly centralizedgovernment. They have other commonnormative concerns such as that of conflictmanagement, protecting minority interests,achieving a balance between societal unityand diversity, and providing for the repre-sentation and protection of territorial inter-ests.

With respect to the analytic differencesbetween the two concepts, the term feder-alism continues to apply primarily to apolity that encompasses two territorialjurisdictions within a single nation-state,whereas the term multilevel governance isapplied to all levels and units of gover-nance, whether defined vertically or hori-zontally. In our 2008 paper we set out anumber of additional points that we saw assubstantive and/or analytical differencesbetween federalism and multilevel gover-nance. However, in retrospect, we findthese distinctions increasingly hard to sus-tain, and overall, we suggest that there aremore similarities than differences betweenthe two concepts.

One of the most persuasive academic argu-ments in favour of extending the definitionand application of federalism in today’sglobalized world to encompass some of thestrengths of the MLG analytical constructhas been made recently by a leading spe-cialist in international relations, Janice

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Michael STEIN Lisa TURKEWITSCHVisiting Professor of Political Science, PhD candidate in Political Science,University of Toronto University of Toronto

The concept of multilevel governance isincreasingly being applied beyond its

European origins. However, many NorthAmerican scholars of federalism and inter-governmental relations have been slow toembrace it. We suggest that multilevel gov-ernance is a useful approach for capturingthe increasingly complex and sharednature of public decision-making in feder-al systems, especially in the current age ofincreased global competition. We arguethat the concept of multilevel governancecan well be combined with the conceptsand models currently used to study inter-governmental relations in Canada, theUnited States and other federations.

IPSA has provided us with importantopportunities for developing our argumentboth at IPSA conferences (Montreal 2008,Santiago 2009 and Luxembourg 2010) andthrough Research Committee 28 (Feder-alism and Federation) meetings (Berlin2008). We have welcomed feedback fromIPSA members and further refined ourideas as a result of our participation inthese conferences.

The term, “multilevel governance”, can beused in at least three different ways: as ananalytical concept, as a concrete entity orsubstantive construct, and as a normative

As IPSA's Wikipedia entry says: 'During its history IPSAhas helped build bridges between East and West, Northand South, and has promoted collaboration between schol-

ars in both established and emerging democracies. Its aim is to cre-ate a global political science community in which all can partici-pate, most recently it has been extending its reach in EasternEurope and Latin America.'

IPSA has new ways of letting its members know about events in theglobal community of political science, providing up-to-date infor-mation through the monthly e-newsletter and through the IPSAwebsite <www.ipsa.org>. The new website is now online. It ismore accessible and user-friendly than ever. It has listings of con-ferences, as well as job postings, publications, IPSA events such asthe summer schools and the useful ‘paper room’. I invite you toexplore all its new features.

The ‘research committee’ button takes you to the 52 IPSA researchcommittees and the many events featured on their websites. Forexample, the political communication research committee will holda UK conference in November, exploring, among other things, thefine line between the mediatisation of politics (compatible withdemocracy) and populism (damaging to democracy) – keynotespeaker Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Milan.

IPSA hasn't yet ventured into forms of communication increasinglyfavoured by politicians, the use of social networking tools such asFacebook and Twitter. Let us know if you think we should have aFacebook site, like some other political science associations. IPSAis keen to develop its online presence and welcomes all suggestions.

All of this brings us to the changing role of Participation. Becausewe now provide news through other channels, this frees upParticipation to provide more analytic articles. We would like toinclude insights into current political developments in different

Editorial Éditorial

Gross Stein. She uses the term “networkedfederalism” rather than “multilevel gover-nance” to describe what she refers to as aprocess that is:

located in a grid that is simultaneous-ly horizontal and vertical, wheremovement is along many of the axes,not through a central hub. The institu-tions remain, but the pattern of move-ment among them and between themchanges. The important questionsbecome those of the genesis of policyideas, the creation of shared policyspace, the opportunities for feedbackand correction, and the resilience oftransmission lines. [This concept]might better reflect…federalism in a

global age. (Stein, ‘Canada byMondrian’, in Gibbins et al, Canadaby Picasso, 2006, p. 18).

Stein recognizes that the concept of “net-worked federalism” is essentially equiva-lent to what others call multilevel gover-

4nance. Although she does not explicitlydraw on the recent MLG literature, sheacknowledges its close kinship with herconcept of “networked federalism.” Shefinds many of the same benefits in “net-worked federalism” as we have identifiedwith the concept of MLG. These include

capacity to capture movement away fromcommand and control structures towardspolicy-making that is more “network-like”, as is the case with non-governmentalorganizations such as networks of environ-mentalists that push to hold governmentsand corporations accountable for their per-formance on environmental commitments(ibid. p. 41).

Our own argument in support of linkingthe concept of multilevel governance tofederalism in the current globalized inter-national context is a similar one, but hasbeen framed in a somewhat different, moreempirical and comparative form. We havetried to demonstrate the applicability of amultilevel governance framework for theunderstanding of contemporary internalintergovernmental relations in two olderfederations, Canada and the United States.We consider these two federations to be“prototypes” of mature parliamentary andpresidential federations.

We have attempted to show the relevanceof MLG for understanding the changingpolicy-making process of intergovernmen-tal relations in these two countries in threepolicy areas: environmental policy, fiscalpolicy and health policy. We argue that theemergence of new modes of intergovern-mental relations in these three policy areasas a result of globalization points to a needfor the framing of new theoretical con-structs and the offering of new insightsdrawn in particular from the concept ofMLG. As we do not have enough spacehere to elaborate on this argument, wedirect interested readers to our chapter inthe Handbook on Multilevel Governanceedited by Enderlein, Wälti and Zürn,which is forthcoming from Edward Elgar.

In short, a multilevel governance approachcan bring several new conceptual tools to

5the study of intergovernmental relations inCanada and the United States, as well as tothe study of federal systems in other partsof the world. Multilevel governanceencourages a broader focus on the verticaland horizontal non-governmental and gov-ernmental policy-making structures at dif-ferent levels and sectors of the intergovern-mental process.

The concept of multilevel governance pro-motes greater emphasis on cooperativerather than competitive or conflictualaspects of intergovernmental relations. Itdraws attention to the incorporation intothe complex web of intergovernmentaldecision-making of both public and privateactors, and the need for this process to bemore transparent and open. We acknowl-edge that the inclusion of private actors inprocesses of intergovernmen-tal policy-making may fail toproduce more cooperativegovernance in some policy-making contexts.

In considering the applica-tion of multilevel governanceas a conceptual tool, in-creased focus on the locallevel of government is anoth-er area where traditionalapproaches to federalism andintergovernmental relationscan draw inspiration from a multilevelgovernance approach. Increasingly, studiesof local governance in the political scienceliterature make use of multilevel gover-nance as an analytic tool.

We have recently extended our compara-tive analysis of intergovernmental relationsin federal systems to seven other federa-tions, including several countries in thedeveloping world. They encompass threefederations of the parliamentary type(Australia, Germany and India) and four ofthe presidential type (Brazil, Argentina,Mexico and Nigeria). Our findings herediverge somewhat from those in ourCanadian-American intergovernmentalcomparison.

We find that some common characteristicsare manifested exclusively in the parlia-mentary federations that we have studied,and some commonalities are exhibitedonly in presidential federations. Howeverit is the overlapping features of the emer-gent parliamentary and presidential federa-tions that we consider to be most signifi-cant. Our overall conclusion is that a morenuanced understanding of these federa-tions calls for the development of a moredynamic categorization, encompassing

political cultural, historical and societal, aswell as institutional features. This is anongoing project of ours.

We have also compared in greater depthtwo emergent federations, Brazil andIndia. We explore whether the concept ofmultilevel governance could be incorporat-ed into an analysis of changing patterns ofintergovernmental relations in those coun-tries. We speculate that Brazil, since it hasa comparatively more multicentred anddecentralized presidential federal system,is a polity in which an application of anMLG approach should prove to be particu-larly useful. Our work also highlights sev-eral policy areas in which a multilevel gov-ernance approach appears to be most ana-lytically promising.

In contrast to Brazil, however, India, as anemergent parliamentary federation, hasproved to be less likely to manifest incipi-ent characteristics of multilevel gover-nance. In our preliminary research, we find

little evidence of a horizontal or outwardexpansion of decision-making to includethe private sector or NGOs. However, wedo discover that the multilevel governanceapproach might provide a useful lensthrough which some other relatively recentdevelopments in India, including its shiftto a more market-oriented economy and itsaccording of increased decision-makingpower to its local governments in a major1992 structural reform.

We therefore suggest that presidential fed-erations, particularly those which are char-acterized by decentralization and fragmen-tation of powers both vertically and hori-zontally, may be more open to the emer-gence of multilevel governance than areemergent parliamentary federations, espe-cially those that display characteristics of

executive federalism. How-ever, we acknowledge thatthis argument is in need ofmuch more refinement andresearch in future studies.

In conclusion, we find theinterface between federalismand multilevel governance tobe a fruitful area for futureresearch. Dialogue betweenscholars of multilevel gover-nance in the European con-text and students of compara-

tive federalism globally can only serve tofurther clarify and solidify the linkagesbetween the two concepts, and furtherenrich our understanding of intergovern-mental processes.

Participation Vol. 34, no 2 Features | DossiersFeatures | Dossiers Participation Vol. 34, no 2

(...) the concept of “networked federalism” is essentially equivalent towhat others call multilevel governance.

The concept of multilevel governance promotes greater

emphasis on cooperative ratherthan competitive or conflictualaspects of intergovernmental

relations.

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Short biographies of the authors

Michael B. Stein

Michael B. Stein is currently Visiting Professor of Political Science atthe University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada and Professor Emeritus atMcMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. He is Chair of IPSA ResearchCommittee 28 on Comparative Federalism and Federation, and co-editor of the IPSA Research Committee Book Series on The World ofPolitical Science.

Lisa Turkewitsch

Lisa Turkewitsch is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the Univer-sity of Toronto, Canada. She received her BA (Specialized Honours) inPolitical Science at Glendon College, York University, Canada in 2006,and her MA in Political Science at the University of Toronto in 2007.

Features | Dossiers Participation Vol. 34, no 2

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Wyn GrantShort Biography

Wyn Grant is Professor ofPolitics at the University ofWarwick. He was chair of thePolitical Studies Associationof the UK (2002-05) and waspresident until 2008, sincethen serving as a vice-presi-dent. He was elected amember of the executivecommittee of the Inter-national Political ScienceAssociation in 2006.

His main areas of expertiseare pressure groups, govern-ment-business relations,agriculture and food policyand economic policy includ-ing globalisation. His mainareas of teaching areresearch methods, economicpolicy-making and crop biol-ogy.

What view you take of majoritari-anism depends in part on whatview you take of the purposes of

democratic politics. For political scientistsand many members of the political class,process legitimacy (maximising adherenceto democratic norms) is of paramountlegitimacy. For many voters, output legiti-macy (providing desired services) is moreimportant.

The European Union has tried to buildadherence among its citizens by providingoutputs that would not otherwise be avail-able such as a more effective environmen-tal policy. It has had some success in pol-icy development. Its efforts to reach out tocitizens through the European Parliamentand engagement with civil society havearguably been less successful. In practiceno polity can ignore either process or out-put legitimacy.

The United Kingdom experienced anincredible few days after its May 2010general election failed to give any party anoverall majority. I do not know of anyonewho predicted a Conservative-LiberalDemocrat coalition in advance. Even afterthe election results were declared, Ithought that the most likely outcome was a“confidence and supply” agreementbetween the Conservatives and LiberalDemocrats which would give a minorityConservative government support on votesof confidence and passing a budget. Ithought that another election before toolong would be likely in an effort to get theelectorate to make their minds up.

My reasoning was that, given that mostLiberal Democrat activists tend to be to theleft rather than right of centre, a coalitionagreement with the Conservatives wouldundermine the party’s integrity and identi-ty, However, a ‘rainbow coalition’ withLabour and various minor parties wouldnot have been sustainable given the arith-metic. It could also be castigated as a“coalition of losers”. If the LiberalDemocrats were to support theConservatives, they might as well takeoffice and influence policy.

I realised how much the world hadchanged when I saw the Liberal Democratsarriving at Buckingham Palace to collect

their seals of office, led by the new LordPresident of the Privy Council, NickClegg. It was 65 years since the Liberalshad last held office and then only in awartime coalition. Many of us hadassumed they would never hold officeagain. It just shows how much of politicsis contingent and unexpected.

The coalition agreement was reached rela-tively quickly, certainly much more quick-ly than typically happens in Germany. Theone thing that I got right during the fewdays of transition was when my local radiostation asked me on air (after GordonBrown’s resignation) when DavidCameron would arrive at No. 10 DowningStreet as prime minister. I estimated 8.45p.m.: in fact it was 8.43. The cabinet sec-retary, Gus O’Donnell, was there to wel-come David and Samantha Cameron, per-haps applying the lessons he learnt whenhe took Introduction to Government atWarwick University.

The British civil service is rightly famedfor the ease and speed with which it han-dles a change of government. This time itwas a little bit more difficult than usual. Inaddition to “blue” and “red” briefingbooks, the civil service prepared “yellow”briefing books for Liberal Democrat min-isters, and held meetings with theirspokespersons, but understandably moreattention was given to the official opposi-tion.

As chance would have it, I was with mid-dle-ranking civil servants from a particulardepartment on Wednesday and Thursday.On Wednesday they were understandablyedgy about whom their new secretary ofstate might be. There was a rumour earlyin the day that it might be a LiberalDemocrat. This was quickly shown to befalse as other slots were filled. I was pret-ty sure that the shadow minister would notbe appointed to the vacant slot. Myresearch assistant was frantically workinghis I-pod to try and found out who it wasgoing to be. Eventually we found outabout 50 minutes ahead of the officialannouncement by checking with a special-ist magazine.

Somewhat to my surprise, the civil ser-vants were not much more comfortable the

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Two Cheers for Majoritarianism

Wyn GRANTProfessor of Politics at the University of Warwick, IPSA Vice-President andProgram Chair for the 2012 IPSA World Congress in Madrid

Participation Vol. 34, no 2 Features | Dossiers

next day. They insisted that they were still“in purdah” which refers to the caretakerrules that govern activity during an elec-tion. This made any discussion of policyissues virtually impossible. I suppose Ishould have realised that bureaucrats arealways going to be ultra cautious. It will beinteresting to see how therelationship between civilservants and the new genera-tion of “SPADs” (special pol-icy advisers) develops.Sometimes these individualsseem to be selected more onthe basis of belief thanexpertise, but then they aresupposed to be political crea-tures.

War stories are interesting,but what are the broaderimplications of developmentsin Britain? There is a strong-ly held and cogent view thatas a more pluralist, diversesociety the range of identitiesand views in 21st centuryBritain cannot be adequatelycaptured by a system basedaround two main parties thathad their origins in class divi-sions. A first-past-the-postsystem tends to strengthensuch parties, particularly ifthey have a strong geographi-cal base. In the 2010 elec-tion, the Liberal Democratsreceived nearly a quarter ofthe votes but less than ten percent of the seats.

It is also argued that a first-past-the-post system discour-ages many voters from taking part in theelection. The outcome in the majority ofseats is predictable; hence parties focustheir campaign on the relatively smallnumber of seats that are winnable. Indeed,parties can become even focused on themedian voter in such seats. In previouselections it has been “Worcester woman”, awoman in her 30s with two children work-ing part-time, driving a mid-range Ford carand living in the cathedral city ofWorcester in the middle of England.

“Worcester Woman” briefly surfaced againin this election, but the main focus was on“Motorway Man” (the gender change sim-ply reflects the alliteration). MotorwayMan and his family were said to live on anew housing estate very near to a motor-way, often built on formerly derelict land.Motorway Man was typically a middlemanager in business and his wife might

work in the public sector. Maps identifieda whole series of highly marginal con-stituencies dotted along the motorway net-work and the Financial Times even man-aged to identify and interview the medianvoter. In the event it may have been WhiteVan Man, a skilled worker lived in

Southern England and concerned aboutimmigration, who delivered the final blowto New Labour.All this shouldn’t be taken too seriously,but it does point to the extent to which theelection campaign becomes focused on alimited range of voters and their particularconcerns. So is the case for proportionalrepresentation overwhelming? It is clearlystrong, but creating more fairness in theelectoral process may create unfairnesselsewhere.

Much depends, of course, on what kind ofproportional representation system oneadopts. What is on the agenda at themoment in Britain in terms of a prospectivereferendum is the alternative vote, which isreally a modified form of first-past-the-post. It would probably change the out-come in less than ten per cent of seats in aUK election.

Full systems of proportional representationwould have a greater effect as they tend tofavour smaller parties. These parties thentend to have a disproportionate effect onthe formation of a government. The FreeDemocratic Party in Germany has had apivotal role after many elections in the

Federal Republic. Whilst ithas, quite un-derstandably,sought to maximise its postsand influence, it has general-ly behaved in a mature andresponsible way in coalitionnegotiations. This cannot besaid of some ‘flash’ partiesas was experienced in NewZealand after the switch toproportional representation.In Britain the half million orso votes received by the pop-ulist right British NationalParty, which holds contro-versial views on immigra-tion, would have resulted insome MPs under most sys-tems of PR. Indeed, theywon seats in the Euro-peanParliament elections where ad’Hondt party list systemwas used.

There is certainly a strongtrend towards more partici-patory, deliberative forms ofdemocracy. However, manypeople live busy lives andprefer to spend their sparetime on family, cultural andsporting activities whichthey find more satisfyingthan politics. Representa-tive systems of democracymay be rooted in the 19th

century, but they do ensure that the politi-cal agenda is not driven by a “zealocracy”of unrepresentative activists.

Much depends on what one wants fromgovernment and politics? Does one want astrong and stable government which candrive through necessary but unpopularpolicies? Or does one maximise opportu-nities for participation even if it means ittakes longer to reach decisions? It’s not an“either or” choice, of course. But manyEuropean governments face a combinationof internationally uncompetitive econ-omies, ageing populations and personaland public debt mountains. This may pro-duce unanticipated forms of politics andsome tensions between the demands ofdemocracy and decisions that will placatethe international financial markets.

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The May 2010 general election in theUnited Kingdom proved to be anextraordinary one in a number of

respects. First, and most notably, the firstpast the post (FPTP) electoral system,whose chief merit in the eyes of its propo-nents is that it delivers single-party govern-ment, produced an indecisive outcome. Noparty won sufficient confidence of theelectorate to govern on its own. Secondly,the opinion poll surge for the LiberalDemocratic Party brought on by its leaderNick Clegg’s performance in the televisedleaders’ debates evaporated unexpectedlyat the polls, for reasons still to beexplained, yet still left him playing the roleof king maker or breaker. So the UK had toget used to the kind of coalition discus-sions which are taken for granted as nor-mal elsewhere, albeit with the much short-er time-scale demanded by an impatientmedia. Thirdly, the popular vote showedunusual and unpredictable variationbetween and within regions, as it playedout in individual constituency results, notaltogether explicable by an “incumbency”effect, or candidates tarnished by theexpenses scandal. Finally, there weregrotesque scenes of voters being turnedaway from polling stations up and downthe country, because these were under-staffed, had run out of ballot papers, or hadnot got an up-to-date register of electors.And all because the turnout of electors hadrisen from a meagre 60 per cent in 2005 toa feverish 66 per cent in 2010.

During the campaign Nick Clegg reiteratedthe familiar Liberal Democrat complaintabout the “unfairness” of the electoral sys-tem, and to an extent this is a perfectly

valid complaint, echoed by others.Because his party’s vote is more evenlyspread than that of the other two main par-ties, it delivers far fewer parliamentaryseats for the number of votes cast. In thiselection, for 23 per cent of the popular votethe party got fewer than 10 per cent of theseats. However, an appeal to “fairness” isalso a mistake. It can too easily be present-ed as the self-regarding complaint of achild who gets a smaller slice of the cakethan the others, and as a narrowly partisandemand when times demand attention tothe “national interest”. A much strongerand less partisan case can be made that thecurrent system compromises the quality ofdemocracy for everyone. The argumentsshould be familiar, but are worth rehears-ing in the context of the recent election,and before they become submerged by theevents of the past week. They concern howthe system treats voters; what kind of par-liament it produces; and the quality of gov-ernment it gives rise to. I take each of thesein turn.

Treating all voters equallyA fundamental principle of democracy isthat of political equality: in Bentham’sphrase, ‘everyone counts for one and nonefor more than one’. Although the UK’sBoundary Commission works hard toequalise the size of constituencies so thatthe value of the vote is the same whereveryou live, under FPTP people’s votes stillhave markedly differential value. They dif-fer according to which party you vote for:in this election it took around 120,000votes to elect each Liberal Democratic MPin comparison with 34,000 for eachConservative and 33,000 for each Labourone. Votes also vary in value according towhether you live in one of the marginalconstituencies where an election outcomeis decided. The pollster Bob Worcesterreckons that elections are determined bythe one in 25 “swing” voters in marginal

constituencies who may or may not changetheir party allegiance. Others reckon thefigure to be much smaller, as few as100,000 voters. It is on these voters that theparties focus all their money, attention andelectoral effort, not to mention their poli-cies. Voters in safe seats can be safelyignored. It is hardly surprising that theelectoral turnout in these seats is systemat-ically lower, because voting can make nodifference to the outcome, and electorshave correspondingly less incentive tovote. Even when voters have an incentiveto turn out, they are often obliged to voteagainst the party they most dislike ratherthan for the one whose policies they wouldrather support, and to do so on the basis ofthe last election figures in their constituen-cy and second guessing what other voterswill do.

Creating a parliament that is represen-tativeA basic requirement of an elected assem-bly is that it should be representative of thediversity of the electorate. Much is rightlymade of the failure of legislatures to reflectthe social diversity of the population interms of gender, ethnicity or class. Evenmore fundamental, however, is that a par-liament should reflect the diversity ofpolitical opinion in the country, asexpressed in votes for the respective par-ties, and should do so without substantialdistortion. Under contemporary UK condi-tions FPTP fails this basic test. Since the1970s the UK electorate has become polit-ically diverse, voting for multiple parties;yet the electoral system suppresses thisdiversity, as it limits the effective choice ofgoverning party to the duopoly of Labouror Conservative, with their respectivelynarrow social bases in different regions ofthe country. At the same time the systemcan produce perverse results, with a partywinning more votes and fewer seats, ashappened to the Liberal Democrats thistime. Even more bizarre were some of theprojections made at different stages of therecent electoral campaign, with the possi-bility of the party coming third in the pop-ular vote winning most seats, or the onecoming first winning fewer than the othertwo. It is hardly surprising that when thenew assemblies were created under devo-lution for Scotland, Wales and NorthernIreland, using the FPTP electoral systemwas never seriously considered.

David BEETHAMUniversity of Leeds

The UK – Beyond Majoritarianism?

Features | Dossiers Participation Vol. 34, no 2

Securing an effective governmentThe chief advantage of FPTP, according toits supporters, is that single-party rule pro-duces strong government, and the coalitiongovernments typical of a proportional sys-tem only weak ones. Any glance at therecord of coalition governments in conti-nental Europe will readily dismiss the sec-ond part of this proposition. Coming clos-er to home, the experience of Scotland andWales shows that coalition government, oreven a minority government as recently inScotland, can be perfectly effective. Andnow we have the new Prime Minister,David Cameron, justifying his successfulattempt to forge a coalition government onthe grounds that it is the only one that canproduce ‘strong and stable government’. Asto the first part of the proposition, theBritish record of the past twenty yearsshows that single-party rule can producedownright bad government. The executivedominance over parliament produced by aruthless whipping system (whereby partydiscipline is enforced) leaves parliamen-tary oversight and scrutiny far too weak,and makes government all too prone topolicy disasters: the poll tax under Thatcher,

the rail privatisation under Major, and theIraq war under Blair, to give only the mostnotable examples. In this context, for a rul-ing party to have to debate and convince acoalition partner or even an oppositioncould be seen to be a positive advantage,and make for more considered, and henceeffective, government. It is doubtful that arepeat of the 2005 election result, in whichLabour won a decisive parliamentary ma-jority with only 36 per cent of the popularvote, would be accepted again as legitimate,or carry public support for tough decisions.

Prospects for changeThe creation of a coalition government be-tween Conservatives and Liberal Democ-rats (“Conrats” or “Liberatives” accordingto choice) has been described as a typical-ly British revolution, though it was theonly sustainable administration that theparliamentary arithmetic would allow. Thekey question is whether it will prove a one-off exception, or will lead to a permanentchange in the character of British govern-ment, mirroring that which has alreadytaken place in Scotland, Wales and North-ern Ireland. Cameron was prepared to go

David BeethamShort Biography

David Beetham is ProfessorEmeritus, University of Leeds,UK, and Associate Director, UKDemocratic Audit. He has pub-lished widely on democratictheory and the methodology ofdemocracy assessment, as wellas its application to the UK.

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surprisingly far to meet the Liberal Demo-crats’ demands for constitutional reform: afixed-term parliament, a mainly electedupper chamber, legislation on the WrightCommittee reforms to make parliamentmore independent of the executive, and areferendum on changing FPTP to the alter-native vote (AV), with the proviso thatConservatives would be free to campaignagainst it. AV is in no sense a proportionalsystem, and would only go some way to-wards redressing the defects of FPTP enu-merated above; in addition, there is noguarantee that it will pass a referendum,given the visceral opposition of manyLabour as well as Conservative MPs to-wards it. Yet that very opposition acknowl-edges what a shift in the long-term charac-ter of government it could still produce,with coalitions more the norm than theexception. If the new government does in-deed prove sustainable over time, then thatfact in itself will go far to removing thebogey of a “hung parliament” from publicdiscourse, for all that it has taken the mostunrepresentative group of parliamentariansin terms of gender and class to bring itabout.

Voters in safeseats can be

safely ignored.

Participation Vol. 34, no 1 Here and There | Ici et ailleurs

10 11

Features | Dossiers Participation Vol. 34, no 1 Participation Vol. 34, no 2 IPSA News | Nouvelles de l’AISPParticipation Vol. 34, no 2

May 26 to 28: Istanbul

The IPSA team, including SecretaryGeneral, Guy Lachapelle, was warmly

received in the city that straddles two con-tinents by Sule Kut, head of theDepartment of International Relations atBilgi University and member of the IPSAExecutive Committee; Gün Kut, associateprofessor at Bosphorus University; GencerÖzcan, associate professor at BilgiUniversity; Dilek Gündog and HülyaVahide Kaya, representatives of InventiveHouse, a local destination managementcompany; and political scientists fromother universities in Istanbul.

We were shown the principal hotels in theTaksim Plaza area, including the HiltonIstanbul – the longest operating Hilton out-side of the Americas –, the Lütfü KirdarConvention Centre, and the Santral andDolapdere campuses of Bilgi University. Abeautiful dinner cruise on the Bosphorusafforded views of both the European andAsian sides of the strait, as well as achance to mingle with the Turkish politicalscience community, including the programchair of the Santiago World Congress, IlterTuran. The visit culminated with a dinnerin the company of Füsun Türkmen, associ-ate professor at Galatasaray University.

All in all, we gained a glimpse into a wel-coming, cosmopolitan city that is bothintellectually and culturally vibrant.

A Tale of Two Cities for IPSA

Isabel BRINCKEvents and World Congress coordinator

From left to right Gencer Özcan, Hülya Kaya, DilekGündog, Isabel Brinck, Werner Patzelt, S,ule Kut,Guy Lachapelle and Lyne Lalonde

The Galata Tower and the Beyoglu district

June 16 to 18: Montreal

Tourisme Montréal, represented byMarie-France Polidori and members of

the bidding local committee, among themEC member Leslie Pal, extended a foodie’swelcome to Prof. Patzelt on June 16.Joining him for dinner were StéphanePaquin, chair of the organizing committeeand professor at Sherbrooke University,and committee members Leslie Pal(Carleton University), Stéphane Roussel(UQÀM), former Canadian PoliticalScience Association president KimRichard Nossal (Queen’s University), andCatherine Côté (Sherbrooke University).

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Werner Patzelt, head of the Executive Committee’s selection commit-tee, visited Istanbul and Montreal, the two cities shortlisted to hostthe 2015 IPSA World Congress of Political Science, in May and June,respectively. Accompanying him was IPSA Events and World CongressCoordinator, Isabel Brinck. See sidebar for more information on thebidding process.

Prof. Patzelt was then treated to a tour ofthe city that included a thorough examina-tion of the central Palais des Congrès(Montreal Convention Centre), togetherwith a well-prepared audiovisual presenta-tion showcasing the numerous features ofthis world-class venue. To capture the spir-it of the city, he was also taken on a specialwalking tour of historic Old Montreal, withstops at various hotels and student resi-dences in the vicinity of the conventioncentre to highlight the diversity of accom-modations available. Capping off the visitto Montreal was a customized tour of thecity.The island city proved to be a delightful,friendly metropolis, one that knows how tomix business and pleasure à la Montréal.

New Bidding Process forIPSA World Congresses

Beginning in 2009, IPSA is asking citiesinterested in hosting the World Congress ofPolitical Science to respond to a specially-prepared Request for Proposal (RFP) takinginto account the requirements necessary forensuring a successful event.

The deadline to submit bids for the 2015World Congress of Political Science wasDecember 1, 2009. We received bids fromIstanbul, Montreal, Singapore and Taiwan.

Headed by Werner Patzelt, the selectioncommittee took the time to review each bidin detail, and a shortlist of candidates (2)was produced in time for the springExecutive Committee (EC) meeting inLuxembourg. Those cities were Istanbul andMontreal.

At the fall EC meeting, the selection com-mittee will present a new report to theExecutive Committee, featuring the resultsof the two site visits. The EC will then voteon the final host city for the 2015 WorldCongress of Political Science.

The bidding process for the 2018 WorldCongress of Political Science will beginimmediately following the next event in Madrid. Details are available through the IPSA Events and World CongressCoordinator.

IPSA News Nouvelles de l’AISP

The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is one of thelargest and oldest covered markets in theworld

Werner Patzelt during a site inspectionin a Montreal hotel

Palais des congrès de Montréal (convention centre)

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Sultan Ahmet Mosque (Blue Mosque)built in the 17th century Saint-Paul Street

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IPSA News | Nouvelles de l’AISP Participation Vol. 34, no 2

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Dear IPSA members,

We are proud to present the new IPSA website,

We have been working hard for the past months to bring you anew, modernized version of the IPSA website. While keep-

ing all the features you love, we have infused the IPSA websitewith a shot of vitality. The new features will bring more interactionbetween IPSA and its members. They are:

- A reconceptualised and easy to use homepage titled “PoliticalScience News”. As opposed to the old homepage, this nicerlooking screen will provide you with even more news aboutpolitical science around the world.

- A personalised ‘’My IPSA’’ profile for each IPSA member. Witha personalized log in, you will be able to perform tasks onlyavailable to members such as :

● Edit your biography, specialization, résumé,publications, etc. ;

● Post news, events, calls for papers, books,journal summaries, awards, and job, fellow-ship & internship offers that will appear on the“Political Science News” homepage;

● Easy to use members’ directory;

● Edit your privacy settings;

● And much more.

IPSA New Website!- Option to subscribe to RSS feeds and share news and pages on

social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.);

- New ‘’History’’ section;

- A survey box to take the pulse of the international political sci-ence community;

- A brand new, easier to use membership form;

- A new payment system in partnership with Paypal, allowingmore flexibility and increased security for payments online.

This new version of the IPSA website is not final; it will be con-stantly upgraded in the next 12 to 20 months. We will keep youinformed every step of the way but, make sure to visit us often atwww.ipsa.org !

Upcoming new features:

- Submit panels and papers, register and get information aboutIPSA events directly in your IPSA Profile;

- My IPSA profiles for research committees and institutional andcollective members;

- Possibility to create/join groups related to specific subjects;

- A complete section to navigate past events;

- Manage your RC (exclusively for RC Chairs);

- An IPSA Store;

- A revamped Online Paper Room;

- And many more.

We hope you will enjoy the new site and the services it brings tothe political science community.

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Participation Vol. 34, no 2 IPSA News | Nouvelles de l’AISP

IPSA Stays at Concordia University:Renewal of the Agreement

On October 6th 2010, Concordia University andIPSA renewed their agreement extending their

partnership for another 5 years (2011-2015 inclusive-ly). Leonardo Morlino, IPSA President and JudithWoodsworth, President of Concordia University,exchanged and signed the agreement in the presenceof Louise Dandurand (Vice-President, ConcordiaUniversity), Guy Lachapelle (Secretary General,IPSA), Peter Stoett (Chair, Political Science,Concordia University) and Andrea Cestaro(Administrator, IPSA).

The IPSA Secretariat is located in Montreal since2001. It all started in 2000, when IPSA organized withgreat success its XVIIIth World Congress of PoliticalScience in Quebec City. One of the organizers of theevent was Guy Lachapelle who became SecretaryGeneral of the association the same year. As theSecretariat normally followed the Secretary Generalto his country of residence, it came to be officiallytransferred from Dublin, Ireland to Montreal in

January 2001. In October 2005, the IPSA Executive Committeedecided to establish its Secretariat on a more permanent basis inMontreal with the support of Montreal International and ConcordiaUniversity. Establishing the Secretariat in Montreal has contributeda great deal to the development of the association as it provided theinstitutional stability necessary for the diversification and increaseof IPSA’s activities. The association is indebted to ConcordiaUniversity for its continuous support and looks forward to a longand productive relationship.

Another element of the visit of Prof. Morlino to Montreal was apublic lecture at the Political Science Department of ConcordiaUniversity on October 7th. His lecture, based on aspects of his lat-est book (International Actors, Democratization and the Rule ofLaw: Anchoring Democracy?, London, Routledge 2008) andresearch generated great interest and lively participation from theattendants.

Eric Mathieu GRÈVE ST-LAURENTIT Project Manager External Relations &

Membership Coordinator, Webmaster

www.ipsa.org

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From left to right Guy Lachapelle (Secretary General, IPSA),Leonardo Morlino, IPSA President, Judith Woodsworth,President of Concordia University, Louise Dandurand (Vice-President, Concordia University), Peter Stoett (Chair,Political Science, Concordia University)

IPSA Participation L’AISP participeNational Association NewsNouvelles des associations nationales

Participation Vol. 34, no 2

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Participation Vol. 34, no 2

Three-CountryConference Titled“PoliticalIntegration” to BeHeld in Basel,Switzerland in 2011

AThree-Country Conference hosted by the Austrian, Germanand Swiss political science associations will be held at the

University of Basel on January 13 and 14, 2011.

The conference will focus on processes of political integration,viewed in this context as both a challenge and an opportunity tobridge borders. Three public sessions and various workshops willexamine the conditions and potential for political integration fromthree main perspectives:

• Political integration as it relates to the regional integration ofstates, more specifically cross-border cooperation betweenneighbouring countries.

• Political integration as an agent of social integration. How aresocieties constituted in the age of globalization?

• Political integration in relation to state-building processes,state reform and the disintegration of states. The assumption,here, is that state-building is an ongoing process marked byrenegotiation and rebalancing.

Please note that conference workshops will be given mainly inGerman.

In addition, a career day for youngpolitical scientists, particularly doc-toral and post-doctoral students, willbe offered as part of the conference,with an emphasis on fundamentalquestions such as how to publish aPhD thesis or a scientific article orhow to pursue an academic career.Students will also have a chance to meet representatives of well-known publishers. The career day for young political scientists willbe held in English.

Details on the conference and workshops are available atwww.dreilaendertagung.unibas.ch.

The application deadline is November 30, 2010.

The Three-Country Conference is open to participants from all dis-ciplines. We look forward to seeing you there!

If you have any questions, please contact project assistant MyraPosluschny-Treuner at myra.posluschny-treuner@unibas.ch.

61st AnnualConference

“Transforming Politics: New Synergies”April 19 to 21, 2011 - Novotel London West

The PSA is among the world’s most senior political studies asso-ciations. The 61st Annual Conference comes 20 years after the

end of the Cold War and just one year after an historical electoraloutcome in Britain. The conference offers a timely opportunity todebate the extent to which political action and thought have beentransformed in recent years and to consider the potency of the newsynergies that have emerged. This year, we intend to build on pastsuccesses and continue with recent innovations. In particular, we’reinterested in promoting cross-disciplinary participation and show-casing collaborative research. The London location for the 2011PSA Conference will make it easier for scholars and practitionersfrom the UK and abroad to take part. Our objectives for 2011 are to:

• Encourage a multi-disciplinary presence; • Foster a more sustained international presence by forging ties

with associations such as APSA, ECPR and IPSA; • Connect academic research to practice by establishing a

stronger practitioner presence at the conference and by institut-ing a plenary academic/practitioner debate.

Call for proposals for workshops, panels, papers and postersDetails on the call for proposals for workshops, panels, papers andposters are now available on the PSA website at http://www.psa.ac.uk/2011/Call.aspx.

Postgraduate student supportIf you propose a panel that includes a post-graduate student, or ifyou submit a paper proposal as a post-graduate student, you maybe eligible for the PSA Post-graduate Access Fund. Details will beavailable on the PSA website (www.psa.ac.uk) in due course.

Program confirmationThe full conference program will be published by December 2010.On publication, registration and paper submission details will bemade available on the PSA website at www.psa.ac.uk.

Serving as conference convenors are Drs. Tereza Capelos, MaxineDavid, Roberta Guerrina and Simon Usherwood. Papers may beforwarded by email to papers11@psa.ac.uk or convenor@psa.ac.uk.

For more on conference registration, the publishers' exhibition orgraduate access, please contact Sue Forster, the PSA conferenceorganizer, at sue.forster@ncl.ac.uk.

Queries on submissions and proposals may be forwarded toWebmaster@ncl.ac.uk.

lingual copy of the Madrid 2012 “Save theDate” flyer that was available at the stand,go to www.ipsa.org. Members areencouraged to download a copy and for-ward it to friends and colleagues.

Of course, those already familiar withIPSA are always welcome to stop by andsay hello. This year, we greeted memberspast and present Richard Niemi, JoyceGelb, Luciano Bardi, Martin Bull, JaneBayes and Cynthia Massie Mara, not tomention the program chair of the nextworld congress, Wyn Grant. For those whomeant to come but never made it, your nextopportunity will be at the InternationalStudies Association meeting in Montrealfrom March 16 to 19, 2011. Look for theIPSA banners!

A highlight of this year’s APSA AnnualMeeting was greeting Nobel LaureateElinor Ostrom, seen here with AndreaCestaro. Ostrom will serve as a plenaryspeaker at the 2012 IPSA World Congressof Political Science, to be held in Madrid.

For a third consecutive year, IPSAmanned a booth at the American

Political Science Association’s AnnualMeeting. This year’s event was held inWashington, DC. From the well-positionedtable, administrator Andrea Cestaro andEvents & World Congress Coordinator

Isabel Brinck extolled the benefits of IPSAmembership and participation in researchcommittees, as well as provided details onupcoming conferences. Membership bro-chures, Madrid 2012 flyers, and 60th

Anniversary pins were handed out, as werepopular copies of the International

Political ScienceReview and Ab-stracts. Even thedisplay copies ofthe History ofIPSA and theC o n s t i t u t i o nwere gone by theend of the exhib-it! A popularnew item at thebooth this yearwas a newsletterpromoting theupcoming activi-ties of researchcommittees andnational associa-tions. For a bi-

IPSA at the APSA Annual Meeting in Washington, DC

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Isabel Brinck, Event and World Congress Coordinator,at the IPSA booth

Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom with IPSA Administrator, Andrea Cestaro

Distrust and DemocracyThe 43rd Annual Conference of the Finnish Political Sci-ence AssociationUniversity of Jyväskylä – January 20 and 21, 2011

Politics is founded on distrust. A pervasive dynamic of distrustand mutual control based on established rules is at the root of

parliamentary democracy – indeed, it is a necessary element indemocracies the world over. In mature political systems, however,commitment, identity and trust are also, to an extent, a given; butdistrust alone can spur critical evaluation and generate alternativecourses of action. Directing attention to distrust encourages schol-ars to avoid clichés, which call for greater “trust in institutions” asa panacea to disinterest in politics. Distrust and democracy is thetheme of the Finnish Political Science Association’s AnnualConference, which takes place in Jyväskylä.

Dr. David Runciman, senior lecturer in the Department of Politicsand International Studies (POLIS) at the University of Cambridge,will serve as the keynote speaker at the conference. His bookPolitical Hypocrisy: The Mask of Power, from Hobbes to Orwelland Beyond (2008) is closely connected to the theme of the confer-ence.

Dr. Tuula Juvonen, lecturer in the Department of Social Sciencesand Philosophy (Women’s Studies) at the University of Jyväskylä,will serve as the Finnish keynote speaker. She has studied how(homo)sexuality affects assessments of political reliability on thepart of voters and party members in Finland, Germany and theUnited States.

The call for papers continues until December 31, 2010. Paper sub-missions may be forwarded to www.jyu.fi/ptp2011.

For details, please contact conference secretary Onni Pekonen atonni.i.pekonen@jyu.fi.

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National Association News | Nouvelles des associations nationales Participation Vol. 34, no 2

NOPSA 201116th Nordic Political Science CongressAugust 9 to 12, 2011 · Vaasa · Finland

Call for Papers

Paper proposals are being accepted for the 16th Nordic PoliticalScience Congress, which will be held at the Åbo Akademi

University Campus (Academill) in Vaasa, Finland.

The call for papers runs from October 1, 2010 to January 15,2011.

Interested participants are asked to forward an abstract (one pagemax.) by email to any of the workshop leaders. Details on work-shops and the NoPSA Congress are available atwww.nopsa2011.abo.fi.

Workshops:

● Interesseorganisationer i nyt terræn● Urban politik i ett nordiskt sammanhang● Omsorgspolitikkens dynamik: institutioner, interesser og

spændinger● The Nordic models in transition● Politikens projektifiering – temporära organisationer i offentlig

politikutformning● Perspektiv på politisk kultur● Mellem demokratisk konsolidering og hybridregimer● Utvärdering i offentlig sektor● Political communication: antecedents, contents and effects of

political information● Parlamenter og regeringer● Postkommunistisk politikk 20 år etter murens fall: teoretiske

perspektiv og empiriske analysar?● Religion och nationalism: skärningspunkter, konflikter och

utmaningar● Kommunalt selvstyre i Norden● Sovereignty in the making: emerging forms of state formation

and political authority● Nordic migration states● Nordisk populisme: konvergens eller divergens?● Politics of history● Parliamentarism● Models of democracy: what are they and do they travel?● Politics & expertise● The politics of party leadership change: criteria for party lead-

ership challenges and impacts on political outcomes● Mångfald och integration i Norden● Flernivåstyring og forhandlinger i velferdsstaten● Deltagardemokrati● Electoral behaviour and turnout● Discourse and ideology: storytelling, images, and the space of

conflicts● Humanitarian politics

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Participation Vol. 34, no 2 National Association News | Nouvelles des associations nationales

10th NationalCongress of theArgentine

Association of PoliticalAnalysis. Sociedad Argentinade Análisis Político - 10mo.Congreso Nacional de CienciaPolítica.

The Argentine Association of PoliticalAnalysis (SAAP for its acronym in

Spanish) invites you to take part in its 10th

National Congress of Political Science,which takes place in Córdoba City from July27 to 30, 2011. The theme of the congress is“Democracy, Integration and Crisis in theNew Global Order: Tensions and Challengesfor Political Analysis.” The congress programwill include plenary, special and thematicsessions, roundtables, lectures by guestspeakers, debates and business meetings. The main working lan-guage at the congress will be Spanish, with some panels offered inPortuguese and English. The registration fee for participants is 300pesos (90 pesos for SAAP members).

Congress details are available in Spanish on the SAAP website athttp://www.saap.org.ar. Email contact information (inSpanish, Portuguese or English): 10congreso@saap.org.ar

Annual Conference of theRussian Political ScienceAssociation “Changing Russia: Political Agenda andStrategies”

Moscow, November 25 and 26, 2010

On November 25 and 26, 2010, the Russian Political ScienceAssociation will host its annual conference titled “Changing

Russia: Political Agendas and Strategies.”

The conference takes place at the Russian Academy of Sciences’Institute of Information on Social Sciences, located at 51/21Nakhimovsky Prospect in Moscow.

Against a backdrop of modernization, an analysis of politicaldevelopments in Russia in the 21st century will provide the focusfor the conference. A full spectrum of issues will be covered,including political developments and processes in Russia andbeyond, as well as institutional changes and relations between cit-izens and political elites.

Conference discussion topics:● Shaping the political agenda in the mid- and long-term● The symbolism of politics and political communications in an

ever-changing Russia● Social factors shaping political power and relations between

citizens and power elites

● Political practices and institutional order in Russia ● Public policy, civil society and human rights in the context of

political modernization● Russia within the broader framework of global political trends● The role of information technologies in modernization

processes● Research methods and modeling of political processes

Details are available at www.rapn.ru and rapn_conf@rapn.ru.

European Confederation ofPolitical Science Associations(ECPSA)

The European Confederation of Political Science Associations’website (http://www.ecpsa.org/) provides information on

undergraduate and graduate courses in Europe as well as civic edu-cation in EU member countries.

ECPSA was founded in 2007 to promote the discipline’s interestsand pursue its professional goals across Europe. It seeks to makepolitical science more meaningful in public debate and policy-making.

Among other things, the union of national associations is a reactionto increasing harmonization on the higher education landscape inEurope. ECPSA creates a framework for cooperation and exchangerelated to all aspects of political science as an academic disciplineand to its professional organization.

ECPSA has put forward a mission statement, which is available onits website at http://www.ecpsa.org.

For details, please contact Felix W. Wurm, secretary general of theGerman Political Science Association (DVPW, c/o. UniversitaetOsnabrueck, FB 1 – Sozialwissen¬schaften, D-49069 Osnabrueck,++49/541/969-6264, dvpw@uos.de).

Romanian Association ofPolitical Science / Institute ofPolitical Sciences andInternational Relations(ISPRI)

The annual conference of the Institute of Political Sciences andInternational Relations (ISPRI) is slated for the third quarter of

2010. The conference gives ISPRI researchers an opportunity topresent and discuss the results – be they definitive or partial – oftheir research, particularly as they relate to research themesadvanced by the Institute.

In March 2011, ISPRI’s international relations section will hold aworkshop titled “The General Equilibrium of Forces at theBeginning of the 21st Century.”

In May 2011, ISPRI will stage a bilateral conference for Romanianand Russian researchers titled “Relations Between Russia andRomania in the Current Geopolitical Context.”

Details are available at www.ispri.ro.

VALTIOTIETEELLINEN YHDISTYS

STATSVETENSKAPLIGA FÖRENINGEN

FINNISH POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION

www.ipsa.org

Research Committee NewsNouvelles des réseaux de chercheurs

James Warner Björkman – Chair of RC 25bjorkman@iss.nlJames Warner Björkman is Professor Emeritus ofPublic Policy and Administration at the Institute ofSocial Studies, The Hague. He has been Pro-fessorof Public Administration and Development atLeiden University as well as Visiting Professor at

the University of Namibia (Windhoek) and in Ljubljana, Slovenia.From 1987 to 1990, he served as director of the American StudiesResearch Centre in Hyderabad, India, while conducting a compar-ative study of national health policies in South Asia. He hasauthored and/or edited 15 books as well as over 80 articles on com-parative methodology, social policies, health planning and imple-mentation, professionalism in the welfare state, accountability inpublic policy, and policy learning.

Fred Lazin – Chair of RC 5lazin@bgu.ac.ilFred Lazin has been an active member of RC 5since 1981, and in 1985 he joined the committee’sboard. The holder of a Ph.D. from the University ofChicago, he is the Hurst Family Professor of LocalGovernment at Ben Gurion University in Israel.

Fred has also taught at NYU, UCLA, GWU, Cornell, Tufts andCUNY, and he has been a visiting scholar in Sweden, France,China, the Czech Republic, Canada and the U.S. He is this year’sAbensohn Visiting Professor at Amer-ican University. He hasauthored over 60 scholarly articles and chapters in books, as wellas written or edited 10 books. In 2007, he edited Local GovernmentReforms in Countries in Transition: A Global Perspective. His lat-est book (2010) is titled Higher Education and Equality ofOpportunity: Cross-National Perspectives.

Linda Cardinal – Chair of RC 50Linda.Cardinal@uottawa.caLinda Cardinal holds the Chaire de recherche sur lafrancophonie et les politiques publiques at theUniversity of Ottawa. Her research interests lie inthe area of linguistic minorities as well as identityand citizenship in Canada and Québec. She is also

interested in the theory of social movements and the history ofideas. After publishing numerous articles and directing severalworks related to these themes, she recently co-edited Le fédéralismeasymétrique et les minorités linguistiques et nationales (Prise deparole, 2008) and Managing Diversity: Practices of Citizenship(University of Ottawa Press, 2007). From 2008 to 2009, she servedas President of the Société québécoise de science politique. She wasalso editor of Politique et sociétés, a Québec-based journal of polit-ical science, from 2001 to 2004.

At its 18th World Congress in Munich (1970)some 40 years ago, IPSA decided to institu-

tionalize worldwide research activities in our disci-pline by establishing research committees. The sheer variety ofresearch committees has proven to be one of IPSA’s greatest assets.In this issue and in the next, Participation pays tribute to their workby introducing ten scholars currently chairing some of our mostvibrant RCs. Presenting a broad spectrum of nationalities acrossseveral continents and themes explored and taught under theumbrella of political science, these portraits speak to IPSA’s globalreach and to the sheer scope of our discipline.

Readers are sure to notice the conspicuous absence of two ofIPSA’s most prolific research committee chairs, Michael Stein (RC28) and John Trent (RC 33). When it comes to political science,both are old hands – one a former RC representative (2000-2006),the other a former IPSA Secretary General (1976-1988) – whosephotos have often appeared in these pages. Messrs. Trent and Steinare also co-editors of the World of Political Science series. The cur-rent issue of Participation therefore introduces Hal Colebatch,Australia (RC 32), Sharda Jain, India (RC 39), Jim Björkman,Netherlands (RC 25), Fred Lazin, Israel (RC 5) and LindaCardinal, Canada (RC 50). The next issue will also feature fivescholars serving as chairs on some of our most active RCs.

Hal Colebatch – Chair of RC 32hal@colebatch.comHal Colebatch has carried out research and taughtin a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific regionas well as in Africa and Europe. His focus is on thediscourses and organizational structures of gover-nance, and the manner in which concepts such as

“policy” are woven into the fabric of governing. This abiding con-cern with the process of governing is, by its very nature, cross-dis-ciplinary. This is reflected in the fact that Hal has served as co-chair of both RC38 (Government and Business) and most recentlyRC32 (Public Policy and Administration). His book Policy (OpenUniversity Press) has been translated into four languages.

Sharda Jain – Chair of RC 39shardajain1@rediffmail.comSharda Jain, Associate Professor of Political Scienceat University of Delhi, has to her credit a rich teach-ing experience spanning nearly four decades. A tire-less researcher and author of books, research papersand articles, Sharda Jain has been an active member

of IPSA since 1997. The two-day joint regional conference of RCs25 and 39 in Delhi in October 2007 – where some 16 quality presen-tations were given – was an eloquent testimony to her dedication toIPSA’s mission and to her passion for the discipline.

Participation Vol. 34, no 2National Association News | Nouvelles des associations nationales Participation Vol. 34, no 2

18 19Bolivian Political ScienceAssociation

Call for institutions interested in establishing aworking partnershipBolivia, the “Process of Change” and theImpact of the Indigenous World on the State

Since 2006, Bolivia has undergone a process of change led by thegovernment of Evo Morales, the first indigenous president in

the history of the republic. This process has had a profound andunavoidable influence throughout the Andean region – particularlyin southern Peru, within the indigenous organizations of Chile andEcuador, and in popular sectors in Paraguay.

In theory, indigenous groups are supposed to be included in thisongoing political process, thus ending decades of social discrimi-nation for this important segment of the Bolivian population.

The new State Constitution approved in January 2009 recognizes awide range of rights for the indigenous population and ensurestheir appointment, via ethnic quotas, to the highest positions instate executive, judicial and electoral bodies.

The process of change has also generated social and political polar-ization, however, in a country where the majority identify them-selves essentially as mestizo. Positions for and against the processhave become increasingly radicalized, with little in the way of a“middle ground.” In this sense, it is extremely difficult, from theinside, to assess the almost five years of government under Moralesand the “Movimiento al Socialismo.” An objective external assess-ment is required to gauge the impact of the following criticalissues:

a) The human rights situation and political guarantees offeredwithin the process of change initiated by the government ofEvo Morales.

b) The influence of indigenous identity in the promotion of dem-ocratic justice, as well as inclusion in the process of changecarried out by Evo Morales.

The Bolivian Political Science Association casts an open invitationto research institutes and foundations from Latin America, NorthAmerica and Europe to submit expressions of interest in workingjointly with the association on the issues mentioned above.

Interested parties are asked to forward their proposals to the fol-lowing email addresses by November 30, 2010.

mvarnoux@abcp.org.bo

marcevxg@yahoo.es

smaria_paz@hotmail.com

The ABCP will send the corresponding terms of reference to allorganizations interested in carrying out joint research on the issuedcited above.

South African Association of Political Studies

Biennial Conference

The South African Association of PoliticalStudies (SAAPS) held its biennial confer-

ence from September 1 to 4. The event washosted by the University of Stellenbosch in

South Africa. For the first time, SAAPS extended travel grants tofive participants from Africa and five from India to encourageSouth-South cooperation. The conference was very well attended,with participants coming from Europe and Australia as well.

The theme of the conference was "Democracy in the First TenYears of the 21st Century." Serving as keynote speaker on this topicwas Prof. Dirk Berg-Schlosser of Philips University in Marburg,Germany.

Paper topics included African politics, comparative politics, gen-der, social movements, South African politics, public policy, andpublic opinion. A roundtable on European studies in Africa wasalso held. An expert panel on South African politics gave provoca-tive contributions concerning "the state of democracy in SouthAfrica."

Participants were also offered an optional tour of the wineries inthe vicinity of Stellenbosch, a town located in the mountains some40 minutes from Cape Town.

This thought-provoking conference served to create new scholarlynetworks.

Chilean Political Science Association

9th Chilean Congress ofPolitical Science

The Chilean PoliticalScience Association

(ACCP) will hold theninth edition of itsChilean Congress ofPolitical Science. Thisevent is intended to pro-mote a greater under-standing of the political,economic and socialchallenges facing LatinAmerica, under the

theme “200 Years of Politics.” The Chilean Congress of PoliticalScience takes place at the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago,Chile, from November 11 to 13, 2010.

Bolivia and Ecuador celebrated bicentennials in 2009, andArgentina, Chile, Colombia and Mexico are set to follow suit thisyear, followed by Paraguay and Venezuela in 2011. While the con-gress will focus on the ongoing challenges Chile faces, our LatinAmerican colleagues are also invited to reflect on the evolution,challenges and legacy of 200 years of politics across the region.

Persons interested in attending the congress must be members ingood standing of ACCP and must defray a registration fee. Fordetails, please visit the ACCP website at www.accp.cl.

Rainer EISFELDRC Liaison Representative

Representing a Global Community of Commit-tedScholars: Introducing Ten IPSA RC Chairs (Part 1)

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Research Committees News | Nouvelles des réseaux de chercheurs Participation Vol. 34, no 2

RC1 – Concepts and Methods(C&M)

Enhanced role for members on new C&M website

The Committee on Concepts and Methods (C&M) is pleased tounveil its redesigned website (www.concepts-methods

.org). Featuring an attractive graphic appearance and a full set ofnew functional modules, the revamped site gives C&M membersmore opportunities to interact with the C&M community: The new“My C&M” intranet allows committee members to:

• View and edit their personal profile (name, institution, coun-try, city, email, website, research interests, and password);

• Post information on publications, research projects, calls forpapers, conferences, career developments and the activities ofacademic groups and networks;

• Publish syllabi of university courses on political concepts,measurements and language;

• Submit entries and comments to Les Intraduisibles: TheDictionary of Untranslatable Terms in Politics;

• Consult the full list of C&M members and their profiles;

• Run as candidates and vote in tri-annual board elections.

A word of thanks goes out to our generous sponsors for helping tomake this innovative C&M website a reality: The University ofMassachusetts Amherst, CIDE Mexico City, and Glück Design.

RC 02 – Political Elites

RC 02 is currently preparing a panel on the “Consolidation ofThird-Wave Democracies in the South and the North: The

Role of Elites” for the IPSA conference on “Whatever Happenedto North-South?” in Sao Paulo next February. Panel organizerHeinrich Best (University of Jena) he has received numerous paperproposals, and panel participants will be announced shortly.

The committee is also preparing five panels related to research onpolitical elites for ECPR’s Reykjavik conference in August 2011. Anumber of paper proposals have already been received, and prep-arations led by Ursula Hoffmann-Lange (University of Jena) andJohn Higley (University of Texas at Austin) are nearing completion.

John Higley has finished editing a number of papers from RC 02committee panels presented at last year’s IPSA congress in Santia-go, and he has since forwarded them to a journal for publicationunder the heading “Circulations and Qualities of Political Elites.”

This past July, several committee members presented papers onelites at political sociology sessions held during the ISA congressin Gothenberg, Sweden.

RC 06 – Political Sociology

RC 06 working groups:

Working group on religion and politicsConvenors: Piero Ignazi, University of Bologna(piero.ignazi@unibo.it) and Spencer Wellhofer, DenverUniversity (ewellhof@du.edu)

Working group on members and political party activists (MAPP)Convenors: Wolgang Rudig (w.rudig@strath.ac.uk) and Emilievan Haute (evhaute@ulb.ac.be)http://de.ulb.ac.be/cevipol/en/projets-recherche.html

Working group on contentious politics & social movementsDr. S. Seferiades, Panteion University - Athens(ss361@cam.ac.uk, ssefer@ath.forthnet.gr)

Working group on consequences of political inequalityConvenor: Joshua Dubrow, University of Ohio State University(dubrow.2@osu.edu)

Working group on political inequality (POLINQ)http://politicalinequality.wordpress.com

The working group on political inequality (POLINQ) is organizedaround the concept of political inequality as a distinct form ofsocial stratification and a subfield of political sociology. Its pur-pose is to (a) publish research in first-rate social science journals aswell as high-quality monographs on issues of political inequality;(b) encourage members and affiliated professionals to write fund-ing proposals aimed at securing grants, fellowships and otherawards related to political inequality; (c) stage conferences andsimilar events dedicated to presenting first-rate research on politi-cal inequality; (d) foster international collaboration between schol-ars interested in issues of political inequality; and (e) encourageofficial membership in ISA RC 18 and IPSA RC 06 among mem-bers of the scholarly community.

CPS presented the following panels at the 17th ISA WorldCongress in Gothenburg from July 11 to 17, 2010

Panel 1 Consequences of political inequality

Panel 2 Sacred and religious dimensions in contentious politics

Panel 3 Religion and politics: Institutional challenges

Panel 4 Measurement and causality

Panel 5 Party members and activists: The state of the art com-parative perspectives

Panel 6 Party members and activists: The state state of the art methodological challenges

Panel 7 Party members and activists: The state of the art partychange

Panel 8 Party members and activists: The state of the art partyelites

Panel 9 Individual class membership, political attitudes andbehaviour

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Participation Vol. 34, no 2 Research Committees News | Nouvelles des réseaux de chercheurs

Panel 10 Social class, social structure and politics

Panel 11 Religion and politics (II)

Panel 12 Religion and politics (III)

Panel 13 Comparative class and religious voting

Panel 14 Church/state relationship and party strategy

Panel 15 Religion and politics (I)

Panel 16 Business meeting

RC 08 – Legislative Specialists

At the IPSA conference in Luxembourg last spring, committeemember Werner Patzelt, working alongside Christopher Lord,

convened a well attended panel exploring democratic representa-tion in the European model of governance. The panel featuredstimulating papers presented by Petra Guasti (Academy ofSciences of the Czech Republic), Eric Miklin (Free UniversityAmsterdam), Johannes Pollak (Webster University Vienna),Dionysia Tamvaki and Christopher Lord (University of Oslo), andRichard Rose (University of Aberdeen).

Ongoing activities:

1) Irina Khmelko and Werner Patzelt are preparing a specialissue of JEEAS (Journal of East European and AsianStudies) outlining and explaining the development of legisla-tive institutions some 20 years after the annus mirabilis inseveral Central and East European countries. Most of the con-tributors are from RCLS.

2) David Olson and Gabriela Ilonszki are in the process of edit-ing and reviewing chapters for a volume titled The SecondDecade: Post-Communist Parliaments. The book willexplore a range of parliamentary systems, from stable demo-cratic parliaments to parliaments dominated by the executivebranch, i.e. the president.

3) Irina Khmelko is preparing an RCLS panel for the SouthernPolitical Science Association’s annual conference, whichtakes place in New Orleans in January 2011. RC 08 present-ed two highly successful panels at the SPSA 2010 annualmeeting in Atlanta (USA), also holding a business meeting.The committee plans to present three panels and a businessmeeting at SPSA’s 2011 meeting in New Orleans. The com-mittee will review issues pertaining to the organization of theconference, which will see legislative scholars and practi-tioners take part in a discussion on modern legislatures.Examples of issues the committee is considering include rep-resentation, party development, electoral connection, legisla-tive effectiveness, and legislative-executive relations.

Please join the committee in New Orleans in January 2011 or emailyour thoughts to Dr. Irina Khmelko at Irina-Khmelko@UTC.edu.One-line emails voting “yes” to the idea of the conference are wel-come, as are emails citing subjects you would like to see coveredat the conference.

RC 09 – Comparative JudicialStudies - 2011 interim meeting

University of California-IrvineJuly 21 to 23, 2011

Paper and panel proposals for the 2011 meeting of the ResearchCommittee on Comparative Judicial Studies are now being

accepted. The meeting is open to all scholars interested in the com-parative study of law and courts. The theme of the 2011 meeting is“The Judicialization of Politics from International and ComparativePerspectives.” Comparative literature on international law andcourts robustly describes the contours and different forms of judi-cialization in a variety of polities. The literature has also sought toexplain the causes of judicialization in politics, including thedynamics behind court empowerment, the reasons for which peo-ple turn to courts to resolve disputes, and court involvement in thepolicy process.

Emerging out of this research stream is an examination of theimpact of judicialization. Paper and panel proposals devoted to thefollowing topics are especially welcome:

● The impact of judicialization on processes of design, debate,passage, and policy implementation

● The impact of judicialization on policy content, outcomes andeffects

● Variation in the impact of judicialization on policy and the pol-icy process over time and across borders

● Causes of variation in the impact of judicialization

● Judicialization of politics by other means.

Papers with an international dimension will be included in panelson the following subjects:

● The effects of judicialization on emerging international legalregimes

● Judicialization as a barrier to or source of international harmo-nization

● Judicial balancing and legal reasoning in comparative andinternational perspectives

Comparative papers on courts are also welcome, including papersinvolving but not limited to the following topics:

● Comparative conflict resolution in non-traditional settings

● Courts and comparative elections

● Law and religion in different cultural contexts

● Comparative impact of judicial policy-making

● The judicial role in emerging democracies and authoritarianstates

● Relationships and differences between constitutional courtsand supreme courts

Research Committees News | Nouvelles des réseaux de chercheurs Participation Vol. 34, no 2

22● Comparative studies of sub-national courts

● Constitutional courts in emerging democracies

● The protection of rights in parliamentary systems and constitu-tional democracies

Please forward your 200-word abstracts by email to our conferenceco-convenors and hosts: Professors James Kelly (james.kelly@concordia.ca), Tony Smith (tonysmithuci@gmail.com) and DianaKapiszewski (dianakap@uci.edu). The submission deadline isNovember 15, 2010.

The co-convenors expect to develop one edited volume on compar-ative law topics and a second on international law topics, based onthe papers presented.

RC 10 – Electronic DemocracyCall for papers

Workshop on electronic direct democracyJune 2 to 4, 2011 Portoroz, Slovenia

Innovative new participatory instrumentsmove to more strongly discursive-interac-

tive procedures corresponding to models ofdeliberative politics and communitarian democracy. New informa-tion and communications technologies (ICTs) can play a vital rolein these evolving public spaces. The Internet has given renewedimpetus to a worldwide boom of direct democracy. What types ofelectronic direct democracy instruments are being developed?What criteria are used to evaluate these instruments? Where arethese new ICTs implemented? Do innovations such as electronictown meetings, web forums, e-conferences and e-participatorybudgeting enhance deliberation? What are the pros and cons ofonline political forums, and what does the future hold in thisregard?

The workshop will be given as part of the Slovenian PoliticalScience Conference.

The deadline for paper proposals and ab-stracts (200 words) isDecember 31, 2010.

Please contact:Prof. Norbert Kersting, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa(Kersting@sun.ac.za) or local organizers Prof. Miro Haãek,University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (Miro.Hacek@fdv.uni-lj.si) orLea Smerkolj (lea.smerkolj@fdv.uni-lj.si).

For more on RC 10, please visit the new website athttp://rc10.ipsa.org/.

RC 11 – Science and TechnologyPolicyFuture prospects and opportunities

RC 11, one of the most senior IPSA research committees, is cur-rently looking to increase its membership and activities, with

a focus on policy issues related to science and technology. Thecommittee has contributed in various ways to the development ofpolicy studies in science and technology. More recently, it has lim-ited its activities to the presentation of panels at IPSA congresses.In Santiago, RC 11 sponsored two well attended sessions. The firstdealt with the role of science and technology in sustainable devel-opment, while the second, co-sponsored by RC 46 on GlobalEnvironmental Change, examined the role of NGOs.

RC 11 recently held elections, and the following officers werenominated:

Chair: Joseph S. Szyliowicz, University of Denver

Vice-Chair: Stephan Albrecht, University of Hamburg

Secretary: Sergio Emiliozzi, University of Buenos Aires

Treasurer: Pierre Delvenne, Université de Liège

We plan to broaden the scope of RC 11 activities with the objectiveof strengthening ties with political scientists in the internationalIPSA community – specifically those working on policy issuesrelated to science and technology – as well as disseminating rele-vant information and promoting scholarly research on these impor-tant topics. New members are therefore welcome, as are sugges-tions on specific projects we might sponsor independently or inconjunction with other RCs or organizations. Projects may includeworkshops, symposia and joint conferences. Our vice-chair,Professor Stephan Albrecht of Hamburg University, has alreadyoffered to host a meeting at that institution, provided that fundingcan be arranged. We are also setting up a website to facilitate inter-action.

This is an exciting time, as we have an opportunity to strengthenRC 11 and create a strong intellectual community within IPSA onissues related to science and technology. I therefore urge all IPSAmembers interested in this important and exciting field of study tocontact me.

Joseph Szyliowicz, Chair: jszyliow@du.edu

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Participation Vol. 34, no 2 Research Committees News | Nouvelles des réseaux de chercheurs

RC 12 – Biology and Politics

RC 12 on Biology and Politics sponsored one panel at the 2010American Political Science Association meeting in

Washington, D. C. The committee will also present a panel at themeeting in San Francisco, California from September 1 to 4, 2011.

On June 4 and 5, members of RC 12 attended a conference on“Evolutionary Theory in Political Science” at the EuropeanUniversity Institute in Florence, Italy. Dr. Sven Steinmo served asits the chief organizer.

Finally, the Association of Politics and the Life Sciences will holda meeting at Indiana University (Bloomington, Indiana) onOctober, 2010. Nobel laureate Dr. Elinor Ostrom is slated to givethe keynote speech. Several members of RC 12 are expected toattend.

RC 16 – Socio-Political PluralismElection of an executive board

RC 16 on Socio-Political Pluralism held the belated election ofits executive board this summer. The following officers were

elected:

Chair: Krzysztof Jasiewicz, Washington and Lee University(USA)

Vice-Chair: Raymond Hudon, Université Laval (Canada)

Secretary and Treasurer: Christian Leuprecht, Royal MilitaryCollege of Canada

Board Members: Philip G. Cerny, Rutgers University (USA)

Mariusz Krawczyk, Ryukoko University (Japan)

In conjunction with the election, a referendum on the abolishmentof committee dues was held. Some 62% of voting membersfavoured their elimination.

RC 16 plans to sponsor a panel on “The New Populism: A Threatto Pluralist Democracy or a Corrective Mechanism?” at the jointECPR/IPSA conference titled “Whatever Happened to North-South?” The city of Sao Paulo plays host to the conference inFebruary 2011.

RC 19 – Gender Politics and Policy

RC 19 has enjoyed a very productive year since the Santiagocongress. The book Fed-eralism, Feminism and Multilevel

Governance was released by Ashgate in July. Edited by sectionpresident Melissa Haussman, former president Marian Sawer andsection member Jill Vickers, the book is the first to combine thesethree concepts. It covers countries in Eastern and Western Europeas well as in Asia, Africa and North America, and it is advertisedon the IPSA website. Several chapters were written by RC 19members, based in part on their Santiago presentations.

RC 19 membership is on the rise (a good thing!) and people activein other national and international associations continue to join – afine example of scholarly networking.

RC 19 and 52 on Gender andGlobalization presented a jointpanel at the recent IPSA confer-ence in Luxembourg in March2010, the only panel devoted sole-ly to gender. We wish to thank thelocal organizers, Philippe Poirierand Patrick Dumont, for doingsuch a masterful job of staging theconference and hosting us. Thetheme of our panel – “Is there aGender-Based Model of EuropeanGovernance?” – was reflected inthe overall theme of the confer-ence, namely “Is there a EuropeanModel of Governance?” On thepanel were scholars from differ-

ent parts of the world who’ve done extensive work on this issue intheir respective countries over the years. Serving as panel chair andpanel co-convenor/ discussant were Melissa Haussman and MarianSawer, respectively. Other fine panellists included YvonneGalligan, IPSR co-editor (Queen’s University, Belfast), AnneMaria Holli (University of Helsinki), Allison Woodward (VrieUniversitat, Belgium), Maria Bustelo (Universidad Computense,Madrid), and Nancy Kwang Johnson, President of RC 52(University of New York-Tirana) and her departmental colleagueJuna Miluka.

In June 2010, RC 19 co-sponsored panels at the Canadian PoliticalScience Association meeting, together with the gender & politicssection of CPSA and the IPSA federalism section. Melissa Hauss-man organized two panels related to the recent Ashgate book.

In September 2010, Melissa took part in a panel organized byProfessor Jill Vickers and Carol Weissert, editor of Publius, theAPSA journal on federalism. Other RC 19 and 52 section memberstaking part were Sabine Lang (University of Washington), DeborahLoPreite (Carleton University), Cheryl Collier (University ofWindsor) and Jill Vickers (Professor Emerita, Carleton University),who served as discussant. A number of us also attended a Sundayworkshop at APSA, convened and co-chaired by Jill Vickers andLouise Chappell (University of New South Wales). ProfessorsChappell and Vickers are co-directors of the Feminist InternationalNetwork on State Architecture (FINSA), founded at ECPR’s firstgender and politics conference in Belfast in January 2009. Amongthe other panellists were RC 19 executive member Petra Meier(University of Antwerp), IPSA 19 and ECPR members FionaMackay (University of Edinburgh – also director of the FeministInternational Institutional Network or FIIN, the precursor ofFINSA), Professor Susan Franceschet (University of Calgary),Laurel Weldon (Purdue University and immediate past president ofAPSA’s gender and politics research division), ECPR and IPSA 19member Lee Ann Banaszak (Pennsylvania State University), andECPR member Karen Beckwith (Case Western ReserveUniversity). Discussants included Professors Vickers, Chappell andMackay, and well-known mainstream federalism scholars RichardSimeon (Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto) and AlanFenna (Curtin University, Australia).

IPSA 19 members will also participate in dedicated panels atupcoming conferences, including IPSA’s 2011 conference in SaoPaulo, Brazil, and the ECPR conference in Budapest, Hungary inJanuary 2011.INQUIRIES

Isabel BrinckIsabel.brinck@ipsa.org+ 1 514 848 8717

RC 27 – Structureand Organization ofGovernment (SOG)

2010 conference on “Crisis as Opportunity:State, Markets and Communities in TurbulentTimes” – Hertie School of Governance –November 4 and 5

The next regular conference of IPSA ResearchCommittee 27 on the Structure and Organization

of Government (SOG) will be held on November 4and 5 at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Its theme is“Crisis as Opportunity: State, Markets and Communities inTurbulent Times.” The aftermath of the financial crisis has trig-gered a debate on the future of governance and the relationshipbetween states, markets and civil societies, both across majorOECD countries and beyond. While the state is called upon tointervene, its capacity to regulate global markets and provide pub-lic services is compromised by financial austerity imperativesstemming from industry bailouts, demographic pressure and envi-ronmental vulnerability. This is the ideal time, therefore, to recon-sider the role of the state in terms of its internal architecture as wellas its relationship to the rest of society and the division of labour.Seven panels will be presented on a range of related issues:Framing, managing and coping with the financial crisis; the state asregulator – new directions post-crisis; post-crisis regulatoryregimes in health care and food safety; transnational standards ofgood governance; governance and civil society; the impact of theEuropean Union on domestic governance; and pre- and post-crisisreforms in public administration.

Visit our website at http://www.sog-rc27.org/.

RC 28 – Comparative Federalismand Federation2010-2011 Events

The year 2010 has been a very active one for RC 28. It beganwith IPSA’s Luxembourg conference on March 19 and 20 on

the theme “Is There a European Model of Governance: AComparative Perspective.” As well as preside over a joint panel on“European National and Regional Parliaments and EU Law-Making,” we organized and co-chaired a second panel on “TheRole of Sub-National Authorities in Multi-level Systems” and pre-sented eight papers on related topics in other sessions. At theBritish Political Science Association Conference held at theUniversity of Edinburgh from March 29 to April 1, we jointlyorganized one session and presented five papers on various topicsrelated to comparative federalism, devolution and multi-level gov-ernance. From September 16 to 18, ten of our members chaired orpresented papers in different sessions given at a conference inPhiladelphia, USA, on the theme of “Federalism and the GlobalCrisis: Impacts and Responses.” The conference was jointly organ-ized with the International Association of Centers of FederalStudies (IACFS). Our annual business meeting was held in con-junction with the conference.

Another eventful conference year is in store for 2011. Membersreceived a call for papers for presentation at the IPSA-ICPRConference on “North-South Relations.” Hosted by the city of SaoPaulo (Brazil), the conference runs from February 16 to 19. Topicsof interest include multi-level governance and regional integrationworldwide, competing models of regional integration in LatinAmerica from a comparative perspective, and collective politicalactors in multi-level political systems. From August 25 to 27, wewill work jointly with the ECPR Standing Committee onFederalism and Regionalism on the organization of several ses-sions related to “Themes and Challenges to Multi-level andRegional Politics.” We’ve also been invited to help organize andparticipate in pre-congress IPSA workshops planned for the springand fall of 2011. Workshops will be held in Montreal and Valencia,Spain, on the themes of “Multi-level Governance and theReconfiguration of Politics” and “The Role and InternationalResponsibility of Sub-State Entities in International Politics.”

In the last year, several of our members have authored or co-editedbook-length publications on federalism or multi-level governance.Among them are Robert Agranoff, the author of LocalGovernments and their Intergovernmental Networks inFederalizing Spain (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’sUniversity Press, 2010), Robert Williams, author of The Law ofAmerican State Constitutions (Oxford University Press, 2009),Alain G. Gagnon, editor of Contemporary Canadian Federalism(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009) and Sonja Walti, co-editor of the Handbook on Multi-Level Governance (Cheltenham,U.K.: Edward Elgar, 2010 forthcoming). The Walti handbook wasco-edited with Henrik Enderlein and Michael Zurn.

Under the editorship of Sonja Walti, we are also planning to pro-duce a volume featuring several outstanding papers on federalismand multi-level governance presented by our members at recentconferences.

RC 32 – Public Policy andAdministrationProfessionalism, participation and policy work

RC 32 on Policy and Public Administration has focused itsattention on policy as a field of specialized practice – not only

policy analysis as a technical skill, but also institutional design,negotiation within complex organizational forms, and discourseacross multiple and divergent forms of knowledge. Policy hasbecome a field of expert work in its own right. AmsterdamUniversity Press is poised to publish a book on the subject, titledWorking for Policy. The book is an outgrowth of our discussions onpolicy matters.

The emergence of policy as expert work is reflected in the growthof graduate programs as well as practitioner discourse, such as theUK Cabinet Office’s Professional Policy-Making for the 21st Centu-ry. At the same time, however, there has been increasing pressureto include the public in policy development and to recognize non-professionals and give them an equal place at the table. This raisesthe question of how non-professional “outsiders” can participate inthe policy process. How can they relate their knowledge and con-cerns to the perceptions and processes of professionals?

Final notes: A number of practitioners are expected to attend theWomen’s Worlds Conference in Ottawa, the Canadian city I callhome. This interdisciplinary conference runs from July 2 to 6, 2011– early July is a beautiful time of year in Ottawa! – and the call forpapers runs until October 11. Papers, panels and roundtables maybe proposed on four central themes: Breaking cycles, breakingceilings, breaking barriers, and breaking new ground. The overalltheme of the conference is “Inclusions, Exclusions, Seclusions:Living in a Globalized World.” Details are available atwww.womensworlds.ca.

The call for papers for IPSA’s 2012 congress in Madrid will be outin the next few months – look for it!

If you have any items for our updates, please forward them to meat Melissa_haussman@carleton.ca.

Other websites of interest to our members are RC 07 on Womenand the Global South (http://rc07.ipsa.org); the AmericanPolitical Science Association website (Division on Gender andPolitics) and the ECPR website (Gender and Politics Caucus). Allbut a few of the national and regional political science associationsunder the IPSA umbrella have a gender and politics caucus, thoughsadly, not all do.

RC 26 – Human Rights

Conference on “Human Rights, War and Peaceafter the Cold War”

RC 26, the Korean Association of International Studies and theKorea Future Foundation cordially invite you to submit pro-

posals for a conference on “Human Rights, War, and Peace afterthe Cold War,” which will be held in Seoul, Korea from June 16 to18, 2011.

Human rights and peace are two closely related concepts. In addi-tion to their inclusion among the missions of the United Nations(UN), they appear to have a causal relationship. International orcivil wars may be triggered by discrimination, abuse of humanrights or attempts to assert the right to self-determination.Regardless of the cause, however, wars create conditions for theviolation of human rights, from freedom of movement and expres-sion to the right to food, shelter and life; more often than not, theseviolations have a far more profound impact on women. Invariably,they also give rise to refugee crises, with the internally displaced,increasingly, among the world’s most vulnerable people.

The solidarity rights articulated in the 1970s included the right topeace, and in 1984 the UN adopted “The Declaration on the Rightof Peoples to Peace.” The end of the Cold War brought the prom-ise of peace as well as a peace dividend and the expectation, on thepart of many, that a new era of respect for social and economicrights would follow.

Sadly, though, rather than lead to a safer or more peaceful world,the end of the Cold War merely marked changes in the types ofwars being fought. The number of internal armed conflicts andcivil wars has surged, and, according to some estimates, there are

twice as many internally displaced people today as there are inter-national refugees. Just as worrisome is the fact that internationalconflicts and wars are no longer limited to those between states, butalso those pitting states against networks of armed internationalgroups. In addition to casualties and violations stemming from theact of war, human rights groups are concerned that repressive poli-cies once justified on the basis that they contained communism arenow cited as a necessary tool in the “war on terror.”

For human rights scholars and practitioners alike, this three-dayconference will provide a discussion forum on human rights issuesrelated to peace and war in the post-Cold War era. Topics mayinclude, but will not be limited to, the relationship between inter-national humanitarian and human rights laws, the effectiveness ofefforts by global and regional human rights regimes to prevent oraddress human rights violations in war zones, the impact of recentUN resolutions (e.g. Security Council resolution no. 1325) andtreaties, the role and impact of the International Criminal Court,the role of international and national non-governmental organiza-tions (NGOs), and the relevance and likely impact of new normssuch as “the responsibility to protect” and “human security.” Theseissues can be explored at the theoretical level or in relation to spe-cific conflicts and events via individual or comparative case stud-ies. Papers on East Asian human rights issues are especially wel-come. Regardless of their thematic focus, however, all papers areexpected to address human rights as a central theme.

Given in English, this inter-disciplinary conference is open to allresearchers interested in human rights.

Researchers are asked to submit a 250- to 300-word abstract of thepaper they intend to present by October 15, 2010. Proposals forpanels featuring three to four closely connected papers are wel-come but should include both panel and paper abstracts. Abstractsshould be submitted to each of the following members of the pro-gram committee:

- Professor Sukhee Han (shan65@yonsei.ac.kr)

- Professor Anja Mihr (A.Mihr@uu.nl)

- Professor Füsun Türkmen (fturkmen@gsu.edu.tr)

The organizing committee will notify applicants by January 15,2011. To be included in the program, accepted papers should besubmitted by May 1, 2011. Conference registration is open andfree, though all participants are expected to defray their ownexpenses for travel, lodging, food and other accommodations.Pending funding from the IPSA Secretariat, a modest travelallowance may be provided to two or three paper presenters fromlow-income countries.

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Also discussed was the feasibility of holding two additional work-shops, one in early 2012 on “Rethinking Political Developmentfrom the Perspective of Green Energy” in 2012 and another on“Leadership” in 2013. Efforts will be made to offer one or morejoint sessions in collaboration with other RCs, such as RC 02 onPolitical Elites, for the Madrid Congress.

RC 41 – Geopolitics

Sao Paulo Congress

On the heels of a successful Moscow workshop in October thatsaw some 30 papers presented, RC 41 on Geopolitics is now

gearing up for the IPSA-ECPR joint conference titled “WhateverHappened to North-South?” The Brazilian Political ScienceAssociation hosts the event at the University of Sao Paulo inFebruary 2011.

Our panel proposal, titled "Regional Balancers: The Role of PivotalState Actors in Sub-systemic Integration and Balancing Process"has been formally accepted by the program chairs.

This panel will take a closer look at the pivotal role of emergingplayers like Turkey, Russia, Iran, India and Pakistan, Vietnam,Argentina and Brazil, in a context where the balance of power hasshifted from American unipolarity to a decentralized world markedby the ascendancy of middle powers and renewed regional rivalry.We will explore the dynamics of (a) regional integration, develop-mental cooperation, conflict management and conflict resolution;and (b) regional balancing by such traditional means as allianceformation, arms-racing, diplomacy and economic statecraft.

RC 47 – Local-Global Relations

At the 1994 IPSA congress in Berlin, a group of political scien-tists organized a working group on local-global relations,

which would go to become IPSA Research Committee 47. Thegroup’s first two chairmen were Henry Teune (University of Penn-sylvania, USA) and Chung-Si Ahn (Seoul National University,Republic of Korea), with Krzysztof Ostrowski (Academy ofHumani-ties, Pultusk, Poland) serving as secretary from the outset.At the IPSA Congress in Santiago (2009), the committee elected anew board made up of chair Jerzy Wiatr (European School of Law& Administration, Warsaw, Poland), vice-chair Henry Teune, sec-retary Krzysztof Ostrowski and board member Natalya Velikaia(University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia).

The committee grew out of a collaborative international study ondemocracy and local governance (DLG) launched in 1990, whichspawned research projects in 31 countries. Each of the researchcommittee’s founders and officers was involved in this project, andother members have since joined the committee. The results of theDLG are regularly presented for discussion at RC 47 sessions dur-ing IPSA congresses and at special meetings. The committeeserves as a platform, therefore, enabling the largest and oldest com-parative study in political science to reach a wider audience.

To follow up on its three sessions in Santiago, RC 47 was invitedto organize a meeting for the Slovenian Political ScienceAssociation’s annual conference, held in Portoro˝ (Slovenia) fromMay 27 to 29, 2010. The committee expects to hold another meet-ing in conjunction with the annual conference of the Central

European Political Science Association, which takes place inVienna in the fall of 2011. It also intends to jointly organize ses-sions with the Central European Political Science Association forIPSA’s 2012 congress in Madrid.

RC 48 – Administrative Culture

Conference in October 2011

“Administrative Culture Change - A Time Dimension”

New Delhi-Indian Institute of Public AdministrationIndraprastha Estate, Ring Road New Delhi-110002India

Social scientists are asked to submit papers by July 30, 2011.Papers may be forwarded in CD-Ram word format to Professor

R.D. Sharma (rd_sharma_in@yahoo.com), Summer Resort, locat-ed Near Luxmi Narayan Temple Sanjauli, Shimla-171006. Allpapers should reflect issues of concern to the author’s country oforigin. Sociologists and psychologists are also invited to submit.All papers must be presented at the 2012 Madrid World Congressof Political Science.

Also welcome are papers on administrative or bureaucratic cultureas well as norms, values, attitudes, belief systems, customs, stylesand orientations.

RC 49 – Socialism, Capitalism, andDemocracy

June 2010 meeting in Vienna

RC 49 on Socialism, Capitalism and Democracy held its annualconference on the Webster University campus in Vienna from

June 18 to 20. The theme of the conference was "Capitalist Crisisand Socialist Revival," and the following papers were presented:

● Terrell Carver, University of Bristol, The Politics of ideologie-Kritik: Socialism in the age of neo/post-Marxism

● Simone Chun, Suffolk University, Capitalist crisis, organicintellectuals and socialist revival in the 21st Century

● John C. Berg, Suffolk University, The Left and Obama inAmerican politics

● Uffe Jakobsen, University of Copenhagen, Looking for ‘gold-en days’ in order to overcome current crises. The defeat ofNazism, the rise of communism and the alternative of socialdemocracy in post-Second World War Denmark

● Nataliya Velikaya, Russian State University for the Humanities,Moscow, Socialist values, the revival of Russian politics and thepeculiarities of the Russian Left

● Eero Loone, University of Tartu, The Estonian anomaly: Nosocialists

Finally, Dr. Arthur Hirsch, Director of Webster University-Vienna,gave a talk on contemporary politics in Austria.

To discuss this issue, RC 32 convened a panel at the interpretivepolicy analysis conference in Grenoble in June 2010 on:

• The impact of tensions between professionalism and partici-pation on the framing of policy work in government;

• Relationships between technical professionals such asmedicos or climate scientists and policy professionals;

• The manner in which policy activities initiated by advocacygroups outside government are shaped by themes of participa-tion and professionalism.

Emerging out of these discussions were the following themes:

• Though the panel had been framed in relation to the tensionbetween policy professionals and non-official activists, theresearch reported had much more to do with the policy activ-ities of functional professionals – how “problem specialists”learn to operate in the organized world of governing.

• The modes of participation available include electoral partic-ipation, established modes of stakeholder consultation, andforms of civic involvement, with policy practitioners mobiliz-ing these in a various ways.

• Policy issues become professionalized, demanding spe-cialised knowledge and acquaintance with procedures, andthese impose specific demands on non-official participants; itwas argued that “technologies of governing” such as transfer-able emission quotas and citizens’ juries take on a momentumof their own, sustained by “epistemic communities” of sup-porters.

• Engagement in policy issues shapes professional identity, andwe heard a number of accounts of the way in which the man-agement of a policy issue generated recognition on the part ofthe appropriate experts.

• These issues can become problematic in times of regimechange, raising specific questions concerning how politicalscience can contribute to the development of policy work inthe context of regime reconstruction involving “transitionalpolities” in former Soviet states.

We found that we want to know more about how policy issues arequestioned and pursued, about the relationship between officialand experiential knowledge, and about the manner in which aca-demic constructs are used in policy construction. We will continueto explore these questions at gatherings of researchers, teachersand practitioners in 2011.

A more comprehensive account of these discussions will be postedon the RC 32 website (under reconstruction) in the coming weeks.In the meantime, any questions may be forwarded to Hal Colebatch(chair) at h.colebatch@unsw.edu.au.

RC 37 – Rethinking PoliticalDevelopment

As chair of RC 37, Dr. ZillurR. Khan accepted an invita-

tion to take part in the secondmeeting of the Global PolicyForum, titled “The Modern State:Standards of Democracy andCriteria of Efficiency.” The meet-ing was held in the millenary cityof Yaroslavl on September 9 and10, 2010, under the aegis ofDmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation. Speakingat the plenary sessions were current and former heads of state/gov-ernment from India, Italy, Japan, Russia, South Africa and SouthKorea.

Dr. Khan participated in the section on “standards of democracyand the diversity of democratic experiences.” As well as assess theeffectiveness of various practices related to the construction andfunction of a democratic state, the forum raised the tantalizingquestion of whether each state has a right to embark on a path ofdemocratic development.

In his oral presentation – based on a paper he prepared for theforum titled “Transforming leadership and Institution Building inthe Democratizing Process” – Dr. Khan covered issues of dueprocess, notions of fair and equal justice, checks and balances, andjudicial independence. Citing justice as the basic principle of fair-ness in a workable democratizing process, Khan argued that inorder to break the vicious cycle of poverty, illiteracy, violence, andlack of health care and equal opportunity, leaders in the developedand developing worlds need to close ranks and work together tobring about a reformed education-literacy-health security system atall levels. Using a combination of conceptual frameworks culled inpart from the works of Plato, Kautilya, John Rawls and AmartyaSen, together with his case experiences in South Asia and America,Dr. Khan evaluated ways and means to close the gap between polit-ical ideals and operational reality in select democratizing countries.

Drs. Khan and Yan Vaslavskiy, Russian RC 37 representative andDeputy Head of the Executive Directorate of Global Policy Forum,also held a meeting to discuss future plans and projects involvingRC 37. They concluded that RC 37 should consider the main intel-lectual outcomes of the 2010 Global Policy Forum (titled "TheModern State: Standards of Democracy and Criteria ofEfficiency") when preparing future RC 37 workshops as well assessions for IPSA’s 2012 World Congress in Madrid, since theforum’s agenda coincides in many ways with key directions ofresearch being carried out systematically by the committee. Thecentral idea uniting the forum and RC 37 research activities is thatof justice in politics and international relations.

Drs. Khan and Vaslavskiy emerged with a clearer vision of theworkshop that will be presented in Orlando, USA, in November2011. For RC 37, this workshop will serve as a preparatory meet-ing, in part meant to set the agenda for the Madrid congress. Theyintend to hold more working meetings before the RC 37 workshopin Orlando, one of which may take place during the 2011 GlobalPolicy Forum in Russia.

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RC 50 – Langue et politique /Language and PoliticsAppel à communications / Call for Papers

Traditions étatiques et régimes linguistiques : Un état des lieuxState Traditions and Linguistic Regimes: State of the Art Université d’Ottawa / University of OttawaOttawa (Ontario), CanadaSeptembre 9-10, 2011 / 9-10 September 2011

La langue occupe une place importante au sein des diverses tra-ditions étatiques. Quel a été le rôle de la langue dans le

développement de ces traditions? Par surcroît, le développement del’État moderne a aussi donné lieu à la mise en place de régimes lin-guistiques distincts. On peut penser à l’influence des traditionsfrançaise, britannique, scandinave ou allemande sur le développe-ment des régimes linguistiques qui se mettent en place dans cesrégions depuis le XIXe siècle. Qu’en est-il dans les autres régionsdu monde? Quelles sont les composantes d’un régime linguis-tique? Comment un régime linguistique se met-il en place et est-iltransformé? Dans quel contexte? Dans quelles conditions ? Quelest l’avenir des régimes linguistiques existants ? Quel défil’anglais mondial pose-t-il aux langues nationales et minoritaires ?Ce colloque veut dresser un bilan des débats sur ces questions.

Comment avons-nous progressé dans l’analyse des régimes lin-guistiques? Comment évaluer l’état des langues dans le mondecontemporain? Privilégiant une perspective interdisciplinaire, nousinvitons les chercheurs à présenter leurs travaux en cours sur uneou l’autre de ces questions. Prière d’envoyer vos projets de com-munication au comité organisateur avant le 1er février 2011 àl’adresse suivante : linda.cardinal, @uottawa.ca.

Language occupies an important place in various state traditions.What role has language played in shaping these traditions? The

development of the modern state, moreover, has also given rise todistinct language regimes: The French, British, Scandinavian andGerman traditions have each exercised an influence on languageregimes since their development in the 19th century. But what aboutthe world’s other regions? What are the characteristics of a lan-guage regime, and how does it come to pass? What context or con-ditions are needed to transform a language regime? What does thefuture hold for current language regimes? How does global Englishpose a challenge to national and minority languages? This meetingwill address these questions. How has the analysis of languageregimes evolved? How should we evaluate the state of languages inthe contemporary world? Researchers are invited to present theirwork on these questions and are asked to forward their abstracts tothe organizing committee (linda.cardinal@uottawa.ca) byFebruary 1, 2011.

SAVE THE DATE: JULY 8 TO 12, 2012

In a globalising world, everywhere power is being reconfigured, creatingopportunities for change:

● New players are emerging on the world stage, reflected in G-20, the “BRIC” and in North-South relations.

● Climate change and the financial crisis have altered global dynamics.● Transnational governance is taking on new forms, such as the reformed

EU. ASEAN and Mercosur.● Within states, there is increased devolution and the recognition of sub-

identities.● State functions are increasingly being shared with non-state actors such as

corporations and non-governmental organisations and are affected bythe dynamics of an international society.

● Substantial changes are taking place in social life including gender rolesand the nature of the family.

● Religious cleavages refuse to disappear, and may be evolving into a majoraxis of political and social conflict.

● The Westphalian model of inter-state relations is not sufficient to copewith the challenges of global governance. This emphasises the importanceof the dialogue between political science and international relations.

The nation-state remains the key crucible of power in terms of elections, pub-lic policy and in international negotiations, but it faces new challenges.Territory and power no longer align. Boundaries and borders are shifting.

Boundaries can be geographical, social, cultural, religious or economic. Weneed to understand how they are created and interpreted. Every boundary isan expression and exercise of power and this raises normative issues, particu-larly those relating to justice and the divisions between public and private andat the global level between North-South and South-South relations. Thedebate about the centrality of trust in social and political life has been reacti-vated.

How we frame these issues depends in part on our disciplinary assumptions andmethodologies. We need to think again about how to conceptualise power, forexample in terms of legitimacy, sovereignty or questions of globalgovernance/locality. Boundaries within our discipline and with other disciplinesare shifting. Space and scale are becoming increasingly important in the think-ing of political science. What other tools or multi-method approaches do weneed to respond to these changes? Political science can play an important rolein informing the choices that come with the reshaping of power.

We invite you to share your research on the reshaping of power and shiftingboundaries at the World Congress of the International Political ScienceAssociation, in Madrid 2012.

Submit your paper and panel proposals as of May 2011.www.ipsa.org

International Political Science Association (IPSA)1590 Doctor-Penfield Avenue, suite 331Montreal (QC) H3G 1C5Tel: 1 (514) 848 8718Fax: 1 (514) 848 4095info@ipsa.org

ReorderingPower,ShiftingBoundaries