Call for Papers: Conference on Comparative Research on Political Elites

We invite scholars at any stage of their career to submit abstracts and papers for a two-day conference on Comparative Research on Political Elites. The conference will take place at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany from 29 to 30 November.

Political elites play a key role in setting the political agenda. Knowledge about representatives in major legislative and executive branches of government is central for a deeper understanding of politics and policy-making processes. The aim of the conference is to bring together scholars who work on various aspects of elite behavior and preferences. Possible topics cover, but are not limited to, research on career paths, ideological positioning, representation, and methodological innovations in studying political elites. Work in progress is as welcomed as finished articles. We seek to invite both advanced scholars as well as researchers in the early stages of their career.

As part of the conference, we offer a kick-off workshop on the Comparative Legislators Database, a comprehensive database that provides an open and easily accessible one-stop shop for rich and integrated data on political elites. An initial version of the database has been published and made accessible via the legislatoR R package. We encourage everyone to make use of the data for own comparative research on legislative elites. The data can be easily integrated with existing databases, such as BTVote, ParlSpeech, Eggers/Spirling, Voteview, or the Congressional Bills Project.

Submissions

Please submit an abstract of max. 300 words with a paper title and the name and affiliation of all authors to munzert@hertie-school.org.

Deadline for abstract submission: September 22, 2019
Notification of acceptance: September 30, 2019
Deadline for paper submission: November 22, 2019


Funding

There will be no registration fee. Travel and accommodation support of up to EUR 300 for PhD students and PostDocs will be offered to one author for each accepted paper. By providing resources for the participation of more junior scholars, we hope to further encourage their participation. In the case of co-authored work, the authors themselves should decide who will receive this support if their paper is accepted. Conference meals, including a conference dinner, will also be covered.


Further information

Please direct any questions concerning the workshop, paper submissions, and/or funding to: munzert@hertie-school.org.

Simon Munzert and Sascha Göbel