IRCPPS in the Links: Does Secrecy Make Good Policy?

The Monkey Cage considers the question:

...Greater openness by the panel, officially known as the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, would actually be harmful to the public interest. Private meetings are essential to give the committee’s six Republicans and six Democrats the freedom to step away from party orthodoxies, conduct serious negotiations and search for common ground, rather than engage in political posturing….

IRCPPS in the Links: Arendt, Foucault, and Occupy Wall Street

Xavier Marquez writes in Abandoned Footnotes about his forthcoming article in Polity:

Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault developed different but complementary theories about the relationship between visibility and power.  In an Arendtian “space of appearance,” the common visibility of actors generates power, which is understood as the potential for collective action.  In a Foucauldian “space of surveillance,” visibility facilitates control and normalization.  Power generated in spaces of appearance depends on and reproduces horizontal relationships of equality, whereas power in spaces of surveillance depends on and reproduces vertical relationships of inequality.  The contrast between a space of appearance and a space of surveillance enhances both Arendt’s and Foucault’s critiques of modern society by both clarifying Arendt's concerns with the rise of the “social” in terms of  spaces of surveillance, and enriching Foucault's notion of “resistance.”

IRCPPS in the Links: Herman Cain, Outlier or the "New Normal"?

The Monkey Cage considers a Nate Silver article on Herman Cain's chances of clinching the nomination:

...I think I look at Silver’s data differently than he does. Cain is an outlier in the relationship between poll standing and insider support. But that’s not the relationship that matters. What matters is the relationship between these factors and winning the nomination. Figuring that out is hard, though, precisely because they are so related to one another. Polls and elite support (and media coverage, and money raised) are what we call multicolinear. In such a case, it’s hard to say if raising more money is more important than getting insider support, because the people who get one also get the other, and then they win...

Report: APSA Task Force on Political Science in the 21st Century

via APSA:

...the Task Force assessed the practice of political science to determine whether it is living up to its full potential as a scholarly discipline to enrich the discourse, broaden the understanding, and model the behavior necessary to build strong nation-states in a rapidly changing world where population shifts and related issues regarding race, ethnicity, immigration, and equal opportunity structure some of the most significant conflicts affecting politics and policymaking....

Call for Applicants: Erasmus Mundus Doctoral Fellowships

via ISA:

The GEM PhD School invites applications for 3-year long Erasmus Mundus Doctoral Fellowships offered by the PhD School on Globalisation, the EU and Multilateralism (GEM PhD School), which is coordinated by the Institut d’Etudes Européennes de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles and funded by the European Commission. The fellowships cover the period ranging from September 2012 to September 2015. Interested parties are invited to APPLY ONLINE by way of the School's Automated Registration System. The GEM PhD School includes 9 leading universities from across the globe engaged in a transnational education, research and mobility exercise. Applications should be received by January 16, 2012. The school also has 10 PhD scholarships set aside for non-EU applicants.

Call for Papers: 2012 Montreal Political Theory Manuscript Workshop Award

via Public Reason:

Call for applications: The Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP), spanning the departments of political science and philosophy at McGill University, l’Université de Montréal, Concordia University, and l’Université du Québec à Montréal, invites applications for its 2012 manuscript workshop award. The recipient of the award will be invited to Montreal  for a day-long workshop in April/May 2012 dedicated to his or her book manuscript. This “author meets critics” workshop will comprise four to five sessions dedicated to critical discussion of the manuscript; each session will begin with a critical commentary on a section of the manuscript by a  political theorist or philosopher who is part of Montreal’s GRIPP community. The format is designed to maximize feedback for a book-in-progress. The award covers the costs of travel, accommodation, and meals.

Call for Papers: CISS/Keynote 2012 Conference

via ISA:

The program chair of the Joint CISS/Keynote Conference invites paper and panel proposals on the theme Between the Global and the Local: Actors, Institutions and Processes. This international conference will take place June 24 - 26, 2012 in Prague. The conference seeks to address key dimensions of the interplay between the global stage and local in the context of the unique and, in many respects, unprecedented challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Proposals should be received by November 30,2011. Please see the conference WEBSITE for more information.

Around Academia: Graduation Rates of Athletes vs. Non-Athletes at NCAA Universities

via Duck of Minerva:

...Are student-athletes better prepared to complete a college degree in a reasonable amount of time than the general student body? Given the stereotypes many people share about "jocks," this may seem like a startling question. Yet, the NCAA released evidence this week that claims to demonstrate that student-athletes graduate at a very high rate, often at much higher rates than other students at the same institutions...

Call for Papers: 4th Annual Conference on Governance and Democracy

Received via e-mail:

4th Annual Conference on Governance and Democracy 

Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut
Department of Political Science, City University of New York 

March 2nd-3rd, 2012 

Conference and Workshop for Graduate Students

Call for Papers: Queer Interventions and Intersections

Received via e-mail:

Call for Submissions 

Trans-Scripts, an interdisciplinary online journal in the
Humanities and Social Sciences at UC Irvine 

Volume II: 2012, “Queer Interventions and Intersections”
Journal Publication Date: April 15, 2012 

Deadline for the submission of papers: January 1, 2012

Call for Applicants: NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant Changes

Received via e-mail:  

Dear Colleagues,

Please note that the Political Science Program at the National Science Foundation has updated award information for Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants. You will find a description of the grants on the program's website (http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/ses/polisci/ddrip1.jsp).

The most notable change is that the maximum award amount is now $14,000 plus indirect costs. Total awards with indirect costs may exceed that amount. The changes do not apply to proposals submitted for the September 16, 2011 deadline, but will apply to proposals submitted by January 15, 2012 and beyond.

IRCPPS in the Links: Micro Transitions and the Arab Spring

The Monkey Cage offers a guest post by Ellen Lust:

...The Arab awakening thus raises once again a question at the heart of the study of comparative democratization: Why now? Why has the Arab world, which appeared so resistant to change, seen such widespread unrest and transformation?  Specialists on Africa, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union engaged in the same soul-searching after similar transformations shook those regions. That this question animates discussions today, as it did then, reminds us that we have far to go before we understand the conditions promoting such significant ruptures in seemingly stable authoritarian regimes.

IRCPPS in the Links: The Tunisian Elections

The Monkey Cage has a series of good posts about the recent Tunisian elections:

...As observers have quickly noted, Tunisia’s transition now appears deeper and more robust than the nearest regional analogue: Egypt. This year’s first free Arab vote took place on March 19, when eighteen million Egyptians voted on a set of eight amendments to the Egyptian Constitution. The referendum proceeded without violence or fraud, but it turned out to be an exercise in pseudo-democracy—the freest and fairest fake election in Egyptian history. Afterward the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces unilaterally altered an additional fifty-five constitutional articles while safeguarding the document’s most autocratic provisions. Election results also signaled the relative marginality of Egypt’s liberal activists, who vigorously opposed the motion on the ballot, but garnered less than one in four votes for their positionSince March, Egypt’s junta has signaled it intends to retain as much power as possible, dimming hopes for real regime change....

Call for Papers: Politics and the Life Sciences

via ISA:

Politics and the Life Sciences, a peer-reviewed interdisciplinary journal published by the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, is issuing a general call for research papers.  PLS covers a broad range of topics, including evolutionary and laboratory insights into political cooperative behavior, group conflict, war and terrorism; neuroscientifically based studies of political emotion and cognition; nonverbal analysis of leader displays; political analysis of life-sciences research, health policy, environmental policy, and biosecurity policy; and, philosophical analysis of life sciences problems, such as bioethical controversies. In addition to research articles, the journal also publishes reviews, analytical perspective pieces, book reviews, and invited theme essays. Contributors include political scientists and political behaviorists; biosecurity and international-security experts; communication researchers; life scientists, clinicians, health policy scholars, and bioethicists; moral and evolutionary philosophers; environmental scientists and ecological economists; political-behavioral and environmental historians; science policy scholars and historians of science; and legal scholars. To submit, please send a blind copy of your paper, with a separate cover sheet listing contact information, as an e-mail attachment to Laurette Liesen, Contributing Editor for Submissions and Peer Review, liesenla@lewisu.edu. Submissions should include an abstract, along with a set of key words relevant to the article. Please see the journal WEBSITE for more information.

Call for Applicants: "Rethinking Diplomacy": residential fellowships for 2012-13 at the Institute for Historical Studies, UT-Austin

via PSRT-L:

For the 2012-13 theme, the Institute for Historical Studies at TheUniversity of Texas at Austin envisions a fundamental and substantivere-thinking of scholarly approaches to diplomacy as a worldwide,multi-disciplinary, historical practice.

Humor: Stuff Political Scientists Like - Faculty Meetings?

via Duck of Minerva:

...Political science faculty meetings last so long because all political scientists love the sound of their own voice. No matter the topic, they must weigh in. They suffer from a kind of non-profane Tourette’s syndrome, an audio narcissism...

IRCPPS in the Links: Why Don't Dictators Move to Florida?

...or at least retire, anyway?  Dart-throwing Chimp:

Most theories of authoritarian rule solve this problem by fiat. Rulers are simply assumed to value staying in office over everything else, and at virtually any cost. If we start with that assumption, Gaddafi’s behavior is not puzzling at all–but recently “retired” Tunisian president Ben Ali‘s is. Recall that Ben Ali fled his country just a few weeks after Tunisia’s popular uprising started to gain steam, before it was apparent whether or not the challenge could be sustained. Clearly, retirement is an option for some dictators.

IRCPPS in the Links: Political Science TED Talks

An interesting collection of 12 political science themed TED Talks.

Call for Papers: Imagining India As A World Power

via ISA:

The AMBIVIUM INSTITUTE with the MAHARAJA AGRASEN COLLEGE, University of Delhi, invites paper and panel proposals for an international conference on the theme Imagining India as a World Power: Asian Politics, the Indian Ocean, and Balancing Forces. The conference will take place from March 1-2, 2012 in New Delhi, India. Proposals of no more than 300 words with full name, title, affiliation, and contact information should be sent to 2012India@ambivium.org no later than January 06, 2012. Accepted participants will be provided accommodation, meals, and conference materials during the two-day event. All conference papers will also be considered for publication by the India Journal of Social Enquiry from Delhi University after the conference. Registration Fee of $95.00 will cover materials and logistics for the conference, participants are responsible for their own airfare from and to Delhi, India.

Call for Papers: The Santa Barbara Global Studies Conference

via ISA:

The University of California, Santa Barbara is holding an interdisciplinary global studies conference on a wide range of topics for scholars, both established and in the graduate stage, from the West Coast and beyond, under the general theme of "Crisis" as salient feature of current global conditions. Crisis may thus be understood at every level, from the economic and financial to the environmental to problems of legitimacy and human security, etc.  The conference invites papers and panels that engage with crisis from diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives from across the humanities and social sciences. The conference will take place February 24-25, 2012 in Santa Barbara, California and is hosted by the Orfalea Center and the faculty of Global & International Studies at UCSB. Proposals should include a 200-300 word abstract for a 15-20 minute presentation along with a completed registration form by Wednesday, November 30, 2011. Submit registration form by email attachment to: sbgsc@orfaleacenter.ucsb.edu. More information and updates are available at the CONFERENCE WEBSITE.

IRCPPS is Back

Thanks to the people of Louisiana for a great trip to New Orleans, Lafayette, Shreveport, and points between!