The 5th quarterly newsletter of the ECPR Standing Group on Methods of Normative Political Theory
Click here to download the March 2024 newsletter as a pdf
On behalf of the Standing Group on Methods of Normative Political Theory, we are happy to announce that the quarterly newsletter of the Methods of Normative Political Theory will appear at the beginning of March, June, September, and December. The newsletters will remain accessible on the standing group’s website. We are happy to receive your updates regarding new publications, calls for proposals, events, Summer / Winter PhD Courses and job advertisements pertaining to methods of political theory by email to normativepolsmethods@gmail.com.
In case you are struggling to work out what ‘methods’ your work involves and would like a visiting lecturer to come in and give a talk on ‘methods and methodology’ at your department, feel free to contact our Standing Group Chair, Jonathan Floyd, who is happy to help.
Upcoming Academic Events
ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops
25-28 March 2024
Leuphana University, Lüneburg
This year, Standing Group endorsed the workshop proposal Critical Methods in the Face of Crisis – Analytical and Critical Political Theory in Dialogue of Svenja Ahlhaus (University of Münster) and Janosch Prinz (Maastricht University). The workshop thematically focuses on the methods of critique in analytical and critical political theories in times of crises. Crises, such as of climate and democratic representation, have led to renewed interest in critique across different traditions of inquiry. However, political theorists have thus far failed to grapple sufficiently with these current crises. This failure points to the need to develop critical methods tailored to these particular circumstances. The goal of this Joint Sessions workshop is to develop critical methods suited to address the current crises by taking the exchange between analytical political theorists and critical theorists and their respective methods of critique to a new level. The workshop has received more than 30 paper proposals. To know more about the workshop program please click here.
ECPR General Conference
12-15 August 2024
University College Dublin, Ireland
The 2024 ECPR general conference in Dublin, will take place this August. The section proposal “Methods on Normative Political Theory”, endorsed by the standing group, has successfully found its place in the program. Section chairs, Simon Stevens (De Montfort University) and Esma Baycan-Herzog (University of Geneva) proposed 7 different thematic panels exploring methodological topics on experimental methods, public political philosophy, political theory and other disciplines, fictional narratives and storytelling, general vs theme-specific methodologies and more. The submission closed on 18 January 2024 and the full programme of the section will be published soon.
Re-Thinking Liberal Democracy Workshop
7-8 March 2024 (registration is open)
Universität Potsdam, Germany
Keynote Speaker: Veith Selk, Technische Universität Darmstadt
For more information, click here.
Recent publications
Ackerly, Brooke, Luis Cabrera, Fonna Forman, Genevieve Fuji Johnson, Chris Tenove, and Antje Wiener. “Unearthing Grounded Normative Theory: Practices and Commitments of Empirical Research in Political Theory.” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, February 23, 2024.
Bertea, Stefano. “A Defence of Robust Idealism in Political Philosophy.” Moral Philosophy and Politics 10, no. 2 (October 1, 2023): 249–66.
Bojanowski, Jochen. “Bad Facts and Principles: Finding the Right Kind of Fact-Insensitivity.” Moral Philosophy and Politics 10, no. 2 (October 1, 2023): 267–83.
Ingham, Sean, and David Wiens. “Making Fair Comparisons in Political Theory.” American Journal of Political Science, 2024.
Kirshner, Alexander S., and Jeff Spinner-Halev. “Why Political Philosophy Should Be Robust.” American Political Science Review, October 16, 2023, 1–13.
Knight, Carl. “Reflective Equilibrium.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman, Winter 2023. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2023. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/reflective-equilibrium/.
Perez, Nahshon. “Empirical Political Theory: A Template for a Research Design and a Qualified Defense.” Political Studies Review, 2024.
Rutledge-Prior, Serrin, and Edmund Handby. “Political Representation, the Environment, and Edmund Burke: A Re-Reading of the Western Canon Through the Lens of Multispecies Justice.” European Journal of Political Theory, forthcoming.
Southwood, Nicholas, and Robert E. Goodin. “Two Kinds of Requirements of Justice.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association. February 19, 2024.
Wolff, Jonathan, and Avner de Shalit. City of Equals. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.
Editorial Team
Ilkin Huseynli is a doctoral candidate in political philosophy at the University of Milan under the supervision of Ian Carter and Nicola Riva. His thesis focuses on social freedom and investigates if the concept of interpersonal freedom is normatively relevant. Ilkin responds positively and aims at articulating why this is so, as well as in what ways this relevance can be understood. His works have appeared in The Pluralist, Journal of Political Power, and edited volumes by Springer and Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles.
Esma Baycan-Herzog is a Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Geneva and an affiliated member of the Swiss consortium of research NCCR—On the Move. In spring semester 2024, she will be visiting Chaire Hoover, Université Catholique de Louvain as an honorary fellow. Her research interests include ethics and politics of migration; political theory methodology; multiculturalism; ethics of digital societies; (sub-state) nationalism; legitimacy of international institutions and experimental political theory. Her current and future editorial experience includes special issues in journals such as Ethnicities and Ethics and Global Politics. Her extant and future publications found their home at venues in journals such as Ethnicities, Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, Ethical Perspectives, as well as contributions to edited volumes published by Brill, Nomos and ECPR Press.
Edmund Handby is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Political Science at Duke University. His research examines methodological questions in the history of political thought, empirically informed political theory, and politics, philosophy, and economics. His work has appeared in The Journal of Politics and The Journal of the Philosophy of History. He has also guest-edited a special issue on Jonathan Floyd’s ‘Is Political Philosophy Impossible’, out in Political Studies Review.
