The Standing Group on Political Networks of the European Consortium for Political Research – ECPR – invites proposals for papers and full panels to be included in the program of the 11th ECPR General Conference, to be hosted on 6-9 September 2017 at the University of Oslo, Norway.
This Section aims to bring together methodological, theoretical or empirical papers investigating the role of networks in political and policy processes. We particularly welcome contributions to the following panel topics:
- Social Movement Networks (contact: Mario Diani, mario.diani@gmail.com): The network perspective has emerged in the last twenty years as a flexible and powerful tool to analyze the diversity, dynamics, and complexity of collective participation. In spite of its constant growth, relevant issues remain open to further investigation – such as the link between the political context and the structure of movement networks; the complex mix of organizational and individual agencies within collaboration and conflict structures; the progressive redefinition of mobilization predictors. The Panel invites applications of network analysis to the study of social movements, protest and participatory networks from a range of perspectives, from mechanisms of individual recruitment to inter-organizational alliances, cultural and discursive dynamics.
- Dealing with political networks in times of big data (contact: Isabelle Borucki, isabelle.borucki@uni-trier.de): The analysis of social network site data is becoming increasingly important within political sciences. A huge digital socioscope is available with numerous possibilities for research as the footprints left by users can be collected from different API(s) and analysed. Political trends, reception processes and the democratic quality of online discourses could be estimated via social networks. However, despite the potential field of research opened by social network site data and social network analysis, it contains some caveats: The question remains how valid and reliable those data are, and what kind of inferences we can make from the network analysis. The Panel welcomes Papers addressing theoretical and/or methodological contributions related to the issue of political communication on SNS by using SNA.
- Climate Change Policy Networks (contact: Petr Ocelík, petr.ocelik@gmail.com; Karin Ingold, karin.ingold@ipw.unibe.ch): Climate change is a ‘wicked problem’ that involves a number of complexities including challenges to governance and policy making. Climate change governance can then be seen as an assemblage of diverse actors, who influence policy-making and policies centered on the climate change issue through patterned interactions that stretch across scales. Use of SNA provides key insights into the underlying relational structures of such assemblages and thus contributes to improve coordination and learning processes – a necessary condition for effective policy response. The call is open to substantive, theoretical, and methodological contributions on one-mode networks as well as to applications of two-mode or multi-level network analysis which connect political actors on different levels, or ecological units affected by climate change.
- Linking policy networks and policy learning: Social interactions, belief updates and policy change (contact: Cécile Riche, cecile.riche@uclouvain.be; Stéphane Moyson, stephane.moyson@uclouvain.be): Learning dynamics are social as much as cognitive: belief updates by one policy actor do not only depend on his or her cognition, but also on the nature of interactions he or she has with other policy actors. Despite this social nature of learning, only a few studies rely on SNA to examine policy learning dynamics. Which networks foster policy learning? Which forms of policy learning do they facilitate? How do networks contribute the transformation of individual learning into collective learning? Which methods of analysis are appropriate to study of the interplay between the cognitive and social nature of policy learning? How do learning, resource interdependences, and exchanges interact, within policy networks? What are the ultimate effects of this interaction on policy changes? We call for Papers addressing these questions from a conceptual or empirical perspective.
For more information, please consult the Section website here.
If you are interested in proposing a paper on one of the topics listed above, please contact the corresponding organizer by February 1st, 2017. Alternatively, you are also welcome to propose a standalone paper, or a full panel on another topic. Anyone wishing to propose a standalone paper will need to propose it to a specific Section then, if accepted, the Section chair will allocate it to the appropriate Panel. As for Panel proposals, they must include a minimum of four Papers and each Paper must include the Paper title, an abstract and author(s) details.
The procedure for submission is outlined here. Although the call for full panels and individual papers will remain open until 15 February 2017 on the ECPR website , proposals to specific panels should be mailed to corresponding organizer by February 1st in order to allow the time to coordinate the organizers’ efforts.
Please feel free to contact the Communication Committee (politicalnets.ecpr@gmail.com) for further information.
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Political Networks ECPR Standing group
Mailing list: politicalnetsecpr@googlegroups.com
Twitter: @politicalnets
Communication Committee: politicalnets.ecpr@gmail.com
Political Networks ECPR SG 