Concepts, Practices, Actions: Theories, Methodologies and Techniques of Analysing Politics Beyond the Nation State

This Section is endorsed by the ECPR Standing Group on Political Concepts. It is supported also by - the Standing Group on International Relations and - the Standing Group on Political Sociology In the last decade Political Science and its subdisciplines have experienced a growing interest into theories, methodologies and research techniques that are inspired by sociological or ethnographic approaches and backed by ontological and methodological premises of social constructivism, emphasising the notion of reflexivity. We discuss these approaches under labels such as the "practice turn“. In manifold respects, these approaches link to research traditions from other fields and subdisciplines such as rhetorical studies, conceptual and intellectual history, or discourse analysis. They all share an emphasis on studying actorship, political and linguistic action, practices, or micropolitics, most of them concentrate on the construction of meaning and power relations via different practices and the analyses of these dynamics. The usage of these approaches in the wider community of Political science, however, has been different as according to the respective cultures of the subdisciplines. Against this backdrop, the Section aims at bringing together approaches from all political science subdisciplines that concentrate on the study of concepts, practices and actions, in order to help establish a landscape of these approaches and their usage, to highlight upcoming challenges, and to build a future research agenda. In order to reach out broadly into the community, the Section is endorsed by the Standing Group on Political Concepts with support from the Standing Groups on Political Sociology and International Relations. Panels and Papers in the Section will aim at - contributing to developing an overview on the newer methodological developments in analysing Politics - discuss their strengths and particularities as well as need for further development - exemplify how they can analyse concepts and conceptual controversies, practices and actions - lining out future methodological, theoretical and research questions, areas of research, and challenges with regard to research methods, techniques and designs We aim to include Panels on the following topics: 1. Micropolitics, practices, language and action: methodologies and approaches 2. Analysing Micropolitics: questions, designs and techniques 3. Theorizing International Politics: Building generalization, abstractions and theories from empirical data 4. Beyond acknowledging reflexivity? Understanding political research as political practice 5. Political Agency in the EU and Beyond 6. Towards A Practice turn in EU Studies: New potentials for theories and methods 7. A practice turn in the European public sphere: actors, narratives and political processes 8. New Approaches in Analyzing Symbolic Representation 9. Hybrid Traditions: The Transatlantic Transfers of Political and Administrative Ideas 10. Political Science in parliamentary debates 11. Conceptualising hegemony 12. Truth and Politics in Political Concepts and Research Practices: Illustrations from Studies on Democratization 13. Quentin Skinner and the ‘Cambridge School’ of political thought and the history of ideas