PSA21 Annual Conference

The PSA is delighted to tell you that #PSA 21 is now underway, in partnership with Queen's University Belfast and SAGE Publishing. You can download a detailed PDF Programme here.

You can find the Conference website here: https://psa21.venu-iq.com/ 

It isn't too late to register! Use the links below to register for conference - if you need to register for a place which doesn't have a link next to it please email conference@psa.ac.uk to let us know.

Registration Links:

• Register as a PSA Member here
• Register as a PSA ECN Member here
• Register as a Non-Member here
• Register as an ECR Non-Member here

Information on PSA membership can be found here. 

Resilience. Expertise. Hope.

Our Keynote Panel (Monday 29 March from 5:30pm): Brexit and Northern Ireland  The Irish Times' Fintan O'Toole and Professor Katy Hayward (Queen's University Belfast) in discussion with Professor Richard English (Pro-Vice Chancellor Queen's University Belfast)

Our Keynote Lecture (Tuesday 30 March from 7:00pm): Professor Brendan O'Leary (University of Pennsylvannia) "Heath Robinson meets Lijphart: A guide to institutional layering in and over Northern Ireland". The discussion will be chaired by Queen's University Belfast's Professor John Garry.

The Covid-19 pandemic will have a lasting impact on all aspects of our lives and the societies in which we live, providing new challenges, but also opportunities, in terms of how we think about and study socio-economic organisation, democratic institutions and international governance, as well as the fundamental questions of justice and equality that provide the normative underpinnings to social scientific research. The 2021 PSA Conference seeks contributions that address these multifarious challenges and opportunities in the context of three overarching themes: Resilience, Expertise and Hope.

Resilience, Expertise and Hope will be crucial ingredients in our ability to adapt and respond in the wake of fundamental disruption. They will also prove invaluable in informing and shaping diverse and evolving research agendas in political science to make sense of and understand the global economy, global ecosystems and the climate, public health, international security, and many other interrelated issue areas that combine to generate the most pressing challenges of our age. Resilience is a key factor in determining the ability of any organisation, institution and society to manage and cope with severe stress, whether in the form of impending threat by disease, conflict, economic and environmental crisis, socio-political dissatisfaction and the pressures it generates, and so on. Without resilience we cannot cope and as history informs us, current crisis can quickly turn into future catastrophe. Expertise is a prime commodity, especially in times of upheaval and uncertainty. In an era of emergent populism and disinformation where expertise is increasingly suspect and experts often denigrated, we need to better understand the role of experts and what political conditions enhance or impede their voice and ability to contribute solutions to imminent challenges. Hope is essential in any moment where what may be construed as an existential crisis can trigger fatalism or a naïve sense of optimism. Without hope in our fundamental societal and political institutions and arrangements we proceed towards that critical phase in which, as in the words of Yeats, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity”. Hope can pull us back from the brink, and political science research at its very best can contribute in this regard too.

Convenors

The conference will be supported by the following academic convenors from Queen's University Belfast, School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics:

• Professor Alister Miskimmon

• Dr Stefan Andreasson

The academic convenors will be supported by an organising team as follows:

• Dr Timofey Agarin

• Dr Keith Breen

• Dr Maria Deiana

• Dr Viviane Gravey

• Dr Jamie Hagen

• Dr Muiris MacCarthaigh

• Dr Chris Raymond

Full biographies of the Convenors and Organising Team can be found here.