Political Theory In/ And/ As Political Science Junior Scholars Workshop

Paper proposals are now being accepted for the third Political Theory In/ And/ As Political Science Junior Scholars Workshop, to be held on April 1-2, 2022.

Uniquely among the social sciences, political science remains committed to the rigorous study of normative and ideational questions. Among normative domains of inquiry, political theory alone seeks to engage with the empirical social sciences. The academic study of poli- tics at its best takes seriously that politics is a domain of both persuasion and coercion, of both ideals and institutions. Key concepts such as “legitimacy” and “equality” inform the empirical analysis of politics, and even as aspirations should reflect the real circumstances of politics.

While the most enduring contributions to political science reflect this connection  between the normative and empirical, the demands of specialization and the intellectual division of labor can discourage younger political theorists from investing in the tools necessary to engage with empirical social science. To help counteract these tendencies and to encourage such border crossing research, an ongoing collaboration  among the political theory programs at Stanford, New York University, McGill, and Duke is sponsoring a series of Junior Scholars Workshops. The goal is to highlight exciting research by junior scholars and to contribute to the development of their scholarship.

We invite paper proposals from scholars with the Ph.D. in hand who hold postdoctoral fellowships, who have not yet held a tenure-track appointment, or who have held a tenure track appointment for less than four years. Four to six article-length unpublished political theory papers will be accepted for presentation at a works-in-progress workshop, at which faculty from the PTPS collaborative group will serve as commentators. Papers should recognizably draw on and/or contribute to empirical or positive modes of inquiry in political science. Co-authored papers are welcome, especially co-authored papers that represent a collaboration between normatively-oriented and empirically-oriented scholars. Authors will receive an honorarium of $750 for their participation (limit two coauthors).

The workshop began in 2018 held at McGill, and then at NYU in 2019. The 2020 conference was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the conference resumed at McGill.

To apply, please submit an abstract and curriculum vitae here. The deadline is January 7th, 2022.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact Lorenzo Manuali at lmanuali [at] stanford.edu (lmanuali[at]stanford[dot]edu).