2024 ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE, DUBLIN

The Standing Group on Political Culture endorses the section “Current Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives on Political Culture“, organized by Marlene Mauk and Martin Neumann

Current research in the field of political culture explores the connections between political ideas, discourses, and actions within their broader cultural and social contexts, as well as the impact of factors both internal and external to the national setting. Theoretical and empirical contributions aim to address pressing issues and challenges in contemporary politics, including but not limited to various forms of democracy and the tensions within them, the construction and representation of national identities, levels of trust or distrust in local, national, and supranational institutions, the origins and lasting effects of political violence as well as the role of Artificial Intelligence.

These issues encompass recent developments such as the rise of populist movements, the complex crises facing contemporary democracies, the growth of nationalist groups and identity politics, the influence of populism on political landscapes, and the rise of AI usage in political communication. To study these critical matters, interdisciplinary approaches are vital, as they offer the opportunity for a comprehensive examination of diverse yet significant factors influencing political culture.

This section aims to incorporate fresh perspectives from diverse disciplines like history, political philosophy, cultural studies, political science, and sociology into research and theory of political culture, by examining how political culture influences citizenship, the process of nation building, democratic stability and transformation, as well as public sentiment and political representation. We invite both theoretical and empirical papers using qualitative or quantitative methods and employing a comparative or case study perspective.

We invite both panel and paper submissions via the ECPR submission system:

The deadline for both panel and paper submissions is 18 January 2024.

For more information about the section and a tentative list of possible panels, please click here: Section (S14): Current Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives on Political Culture.

For questions, please contact the Section conveners directly: Marlene Mauk, Martin Neumann.

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2023 ECPR GENERAL CONFERENCE, PRAGUE

The Standing Group on Political Culture endorses the section “Contemporary Research in Political Culture“, organized by Martin Neumann and Stelios Tzagkarakis.

Contemporary research topics in political culture include the relationship between political ideas, discourses, and practices in their broader cultural and social contexts, and the impact of internal and external national context factors. The theory and the research on political culture tries to shed light on crucial problems and challenges in modern politics such as – among other things:

  • the different forms of and tensions within democracy
  • the construction and representation of national identities
  • the trust or mistrust on local, national and supranational institutions
  • the origins of political violence and its legacies

These include – but are not limited to:

  • recent populist movements in Europe and across the globe and the multidimensional ‘crises’ of contemporary democracies
  • the increase of nationalist groups and identity politics
  • the influence of populism in politics
  • violence within instances of genocide, armed conflict
  • internal political conflicts.

In studying all these crucial issues, interdisciplinarity is also important because it may create the opportunity for an in-depth analysis of diverse but significant parameters which influence political culture. Thus, the tools and methods of a variety of academic disciplines such as history, political philosophy, cultural studies, political science and sociology, could play a role in analyzing political culture.

This Section attempts to include new aspects of this research by analyzing the role of political culture on citizenship, nation building, political stability and change, as well as on public opinion and political representation.  It invites both theoretical and empirical papers using qualitative or quantitative methods and employing a comparative or case study perspective.

More information on the panels and papers included in the section will follow in April.

For more information about the section and a tentative list of panels, please click here: Section (S15): Contemporary Research in Political Culture.

For questions, please contact the Section convenors directly: Martin Neumann, Stelios Tzagkarakis.

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2022 ECPR General Conference, Innsbruck

The Standing Group on Political Culture endorses the section “Contemporary Issues of Political Culture”, organized by Marlene Mauk and Stelios Tzagkarakis.

This section attempts to include new aspects of political-culture research by analyzing the role of political culture on citizenship, nation building, political stability and change, welfare policies structure as well as public opinion and political representation. It invites both theoretical and empirical papers using qualitative or quantitative methods and employing a comparative or case study perspective.

The section comprises four in-person panels and one virtual panel:

For the full list of panels and papers, please click here: Section (S12): Contemporary Issues of Political Culture

For questions, please contact the Section convenors directly: Marlene Mauk, Stelios Tzagkarakis.

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2019 ECPR General Conference, Wroclaw

This year, the ECPR Research Network on Political Culture has organized a section on political participation research. The general theme has been developed into four panels as follows:

Section (S062): The Complex Spaces and Engines of Political Participation: Urban, Legal, Media and Virtual Spaces

Panels:

P274: Political Participation in the CEE Societies: From the Optimism of Accession to EU to Euroscepticism

P276: Political Perceptions, Political Preferences and their Role in Decision-Making Environments

P388: The Interrelated Dynamics of Urban Environments, Social Media and Political Participation

P420: The Role of Law and Institutions in the Legal Practice and Legal Requirements Dynamics

We invite all those interested in political culture studies to attend our panels and find out about ongoing research!

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2018 ECPR General Conference, Hamburg

Panel P019

Section: Methodological Advances in the Study of Civil War and Political Violence

In this Panel, we aim at bringing together research in various areas of political conflict and political culture which are currently employing new interdisciplinary methodologies. Some areas of core social and political culture research approached in this panel concern issues like friends and enemies in a small world, complex territorial approaches to state dynamics, and the relationship between social conflict and community identity. The papers presented in this panel share the approach of individual agents interacting in either small worlds or in large virtual worlds as groups, societies or states (polities). Approaches employ research methodologies based on the advanced technologies of the artificial, like agent-based systems, and advanced technologies of integrating data from complex sensors, like GIS-systems. As opposed to the limited power of data processing in the empirical (survey research) paradigm, these approaches reveal the power of such technologies to dynamically process huge amounts of data and extract patterns of preferences and their relationships. An agent-based system could thus model the dynamics of the relationship between data about the individual characteristics (vanity) and opinion propagation in a small world of individual agents. Agent-based models of territorial (border) dynamics could tentatively identify the drivers of colonial expansion and explain the state evolution from emergence to failure. The Panel aims at proving that ongoing research concerning political conflict as related to political culture phenomenology employs intensively the advanced technologies associated with the sciences of the artificial and develop toward new interdisciplinary approaches of the classic research issues, like polity, public opinion propagation, social influence, social and political conflict, and war.