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Applications are now open! Submit yours here by Wednesday 9 July.
Our Standing Group on Political Parties is excited to announce the return of its Summer School on theories, methods and practice perspectives in party politics.
The forthcoming Summer School of our Standing Group on Political Parties, will be organised by Kristina Weissenbach, Andreas Blätte, and Lilian Fiala, and hosted by the Department of Social Sciences, the Institute for Political Science, and the NRW School of Governance at the University of Duisburg-Essen.
Over five enriching days, the school will offer a unique platform for young scholars to explore the latest theoretical, analytical, and practical advances in party politics. Participants will engage with leading scholars including Richard Katz, Thomas Poguntke, Simon Franzmann and Patricia Correa Vila, among others. Feedback will be provided on ongoing PhD projects, working papers, or other research endeavours. You will not only receive valuable feedback on your project, but will also have the chance to win the Standing Group's Peter Mair Prize for the Best Paper!
Beyond academic exchange, the school fosters connections across regions and methodological traditions. Participants will have the chance to network with peers and senior scholars from Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and Europe, and join an interdisciplinary roundtable titled 'Undue Influence? Corruption in Party Financing and Its Impact on Democratic Trust', held in cooperation with the NRW School of Governance and featuring political practitioners.
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The Summer School welcomes applications from young scholars who are working on different aspects of political parties, offering them feedback on their PhD projects, research papers, or research project.
To apply, you must submit the following no later than 25 June 2025:
Partial or incomplete applications will not be processed. Late applications will not be accepted.
You will be informed about the outcome of your application by email by July.
The participation fee is €250, roughly £213, which includes a reception with dinner, coffee breaks, lunch each day and social activities.
You will be required to arrange and pay for your own travel, accommodation and subsistence.
To encourage students from diverse backgrounds and universities to attend, the standing group will offer a limited number of fee waivers.
To apply, please include in your Summer School application a statement outlining why you feel you require the fee waiver, along with evidence that you are not in receipt of any other funding for the event.
Participants should explore all available funding options provided by their university, including scholarships, grants, and bursaries, before applying for the fee waiver.
The engaging five-day programme comprises a series of lectures delivered by the field’s foremost experts, in-depth discussions of participants’ research projects, a practitioners’ roundtable and social activities.
This year, the summer school will place a special emphasis on the governance challenges and integrity risks in party politics, exploring how issues of corruption, transparency, and regulation shape the functioning of political parties in both young and established democracies.
The intense but exciting schedule will touch on major approaches to research on party politics at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels in young and established democracies covering different world regions.
Core themes explored throughout the week include:
Pogramme Highlights:
The confirmed instructors for the Summer School are:
Application deadline