Working groups

The workshop focuses on the organization of legislative politics, broadly construed. Most modern democracies rely on legislative assemblies to fulfil a variety of core functions in the broader political system, such as authorizing expenditures, enacting legislation, forming governments, and overseeing implementation. In practice, however, the legislative branch’s institutional foundations and political powers can also vary significantly across time and space. How have these differences emerged and what consequences could they bring? We welcome both empirical and theoretical contributions on the structure and process of legislatures, their interactions with other political institutions, their functions in the political system, and the activities of their members. This includes studies focusing on legislative bargaining and delegation, the development of legislative rules and procedures, inter-branch conflict and cooperation, the preparation and confirmation of legislative policies, and many other salient issues. We are open to all methodological approaches and encourage participation from both junior and senior scholars alike. The workshop will be held in English.

Working group leaders: Mikael Holmgren (Örebro University) and Carl Dahlström (University of Gothenburg)
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This workshop is about our teaching and our students’ learning. The purpose of the workshop is to advance pedagogical development work by spreading good examples, providing an opportunity to reflect on our teaching practices and on the didactic methods of the social sciences, and offering a forum to discuss higher education pedagogy and policy. We welcome contributions that, in a broad sense, are of relevance to political science teaching and learning at the university level. That could mean, for example, reflections regarding one’s own teaching practices, descriptions and analyses of innovative teaching methods or other types of pedagogical development work, reflections regarding what we have learned from new teaching practices developed during the covid-19 pandemic or as a result of other work aimed at improving the quality of education. We also welcome contributions that critically interrogate, analyse, and discuss political and policy questions of relevance to higher education. 

Working group leaders: Daniel Drugge (Örebro University), Jörgen Ödalen (Mälardalen University)
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This workshop is open for all researchers interested in critical studies of power and the political. In short, this means that we welcome submissions that draw on critical approaches in the social sciences to explore political phenomena as they manifest in events, organizations, practices, structures and knowledge production in past or contemporary societies. Such approaches include, but are not limited to, post-structuralism, critical discourse analysis (CDA), Feminism, Foucauldian analysis, post-colonial studies, Marxism and post-humanism (for instance ANT, STS or new materialism). Papers are not limited to any specific sub-field of political science or any particular topic. That said, they often revolve around questions of (in)equality, the workings of power, subjectivities, otherness or questions of governing in an era marked by neoliberal forms of rule. We welcome theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions, in English or Swedish. The workshop will be held in English if there are non-Swedish speaking participants attending. If you are interested in joining but don’t have a paper to present, please contact the chairs. We can usually find room for you, particularly if you are a PhD-student.

Working group leaders: Maria Jansson (Örebro University), Anderas Öjehag (Karlstad University)
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This workshop is open to submissions from all varieties of political theory and political philosophy, including normative political theory, the history of political thought, theoretical engagements with problems in contemporary politics and public policy and reflection on fundamental political concepts, methods and phenomena. The circulated texts can be in Swedish or English, and the working language of the workshop is Swedish unless the paper-giver wishes to discuss his or her paper in some other language.

Working group leaders: Björn Hammar (Örebro University), Jouni Reinikainen (Stockholm University)
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We welcome all papers that address environmental issues, climate politics, natural resource use, sustainability, and others. Environmental politics is essentially about achieving a more sustainable society and is thus a nexus of issues that provoke a large variety of questions relevant to the field of political science. These questions can be studied by several sub-fields within the discipline, such as public administration, political theory, political economy and international relations. The papers can deal with issues like, for instance, democracy, participation, legitimacy, equity, power, the role of experts, diplomacy or social movements. The working group on environmental politics seeks to attract researchers with different theoretical, methodological and empirical approaches in order to achieve stimulating discussions on a wide variety of issues. Thus, we are keen on including a diversity of theoretical perspectives – including critical and normative approaches – and empirical objects of study across local, national and international politics. Contributions can be written in both English and Swedish and the workshop will be held in English if non-Swedish speakers attend.

Working group leader: Erik Hysing (Örebro University)
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The climate change crisis, the corona pandemic and the war in Ukraine have in different ways put a renewed light on the structures and mechanisms of international cooperation, coordination, and negotiation as well as global security and common values and norms. These global crises have challenged existing structures and will have an effect on international relations for a foreseeable future. At the same time, the international community is also dealing with various ongoing development processes, such as working towards the sustainable development goals or with challenges in specific policy areas. This workshop therefore welcomes papers on a wide range of topics, dealing with international relations in a broad sense. Themes can include, but are not limited to, foreign policy analysis, peace and conflict, development studies, globalization, global security, international public administration, international law, human rights, international political economy, norms, and structures, etc. We welcome papers that deal with theoretical or methodological developments within these fields. Papers can be written in English or Swedish, however, the default workshop language will be English unless all the participants are Swedish speakers.

Working group leader: Ann-Catrin Kristianssen (Örebro university)
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This workshop welcomes papers that compare political structures, processes, actors/groups, political culture, political attitudes, and behavior at the global, national or local level. The workshop is open for studies that apply different theoretical and methodological approaches. Papers that address methodological issues or challenges in comparative politics are also welcome. The workshop encourages papers that use comparative approaches to understand major trends or developments among political systems but also papers that explore the interdependence between political systems. Papers that analyze the challenges of democracy (e.g., democratic deconsolidation) or autocratization are of great interest to the workshop. The introduction of new databases is an important part of the development of comparative research. The workshop welcomes papers that introduce, develop, or analyze comparative databases. Contributions can be written in English or Swedish. The workshop will be held in English if non-Swedish speakers attend.

Working group leader: Thomas Denk (Örebro university)
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This workshop invites papers that address different research topics within the broad field of policy, governance, and public administration. Empirical and theoretical papers are welcome as well as normative papers (for instance on democratic governance or public administration ethics). The workshop is open to studies of both policy content and procedures, policy and governance processes, the roles and interactions between politicians and civil servants, problem framing and agenda setting, public decision-making in different respects, implementation and evaluation, and numbers of issues in relation to public management and administration. The workshop also welcomes studies on different decision-making levels (local, national, international) and multi-level governance. Different types of studies of major trends in governance and public administration are of course of great interest to this workshop, such as performance-based management, evidence-based practice, evaluation society, privatization etc. Papers using different approaches and methods are welcome: extensive-intensive approaches, comparative studies, quantitative and qualitative methods, as well as purely theoretical papers. The workshop is open to a broad set of theoretical applications and theorizing efforts, such as institutionalism, rational choice, power studies, discourse theories, and theories of democracy and legitimacy, just to mention a few well-known traditions.

Working group leaders: Jan Olsson (Örebro university) and Göran Sundström (Stockholm university)
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This workshop covers a number of topics are covered within the field of political behaviour, elections and political parties such as vote choice in elections, political turnout and participation, collective action, political recruitment and representation, political leadership, legislative behaviour, political parties' goals and organization, party competition, government formation and policy-making, and social movement activism and responsiveness. The overall aim of this workshop is to gather researchers interested in such issues. We welcome contributions with a wide range of theoretical perspectives and research methods within the overall theme of political behaviour, elections and parties. The workshop welcomes submissions from junior as well as established scholars who are interested in the topics outlined. Contributions can be written in English or Swedish. (The workshop will be held in English if non-Swedish-speakers attend.)   

Working group leaders: Martin Karlsson (Örebro university) and Niklas Bolin (Mid-Sweden university)
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In all types of societies, education is used to socialize (future) citizens and equip them with different types of knowledge. How political decisions and ambitions are then implemented and take shape, is also affected by the educational institutions as such and by prevailing societal conditions. The workshop welcomes papers that are interested in political perspectives on the role of education in society, and in the design, way of functioning and outcomes of civic education. Both theoretical and empirical papers are welcomed, and the focus can be on everything from overall educational policy aspects to classroom perspectives. Contributions can be written in Swedish or English.

Working group leaders: Cecilia Arensmeier (Örebro university) and Linda Ekström (Södertörn university)
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This workshop welcomes papers on a wide range of topics, dealing with European politics in a broad sense. Themes can include, but are not limited to European integration, the EU’s political system, the EU as an actor in international relations, its institutions and policies. We also welcome papers that deal with theoretical or methodological developments within these fields. Papers can be written in English or Swedish, however, the default workshop language will be English unless all the participants are Swedish speakers.

Working group leaders: Mats Öhlén (Dalarna university), Anna Michalski (Uppsala university), Per Ekman (Uppsala university)
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