Die Universität Bremen lädt am 17. und 18. November zu einem Workshop mit dem Thema „Ideas in Social Research“ – Einsendeschluss für Paper-Vorschläge ist der 10. Oktober. Angesprochen sind verschiedene sozialwissenschaftliche Teildisziplinen, doch auch und insbesondere für Politiktheoretiker und Ideengeschichtler könnte die Veranstaltung interessant werden.Weitere Infos nach dem Klick. Die Veranstalter schreiben:

Studying ideational influence has been one of the most interesting developments of social research in recent decades. Ideas have been addressed as the sources of social and institutional transformation, the points of reference for studying processes of decision-making or for detecting discursive frameworks in public debates on policy change. Simultaneously, ideational research in different fields has stimulated the development of sophisticated research tools and analytical frameworks, often with regard to quite specific policy fields or social phenomena.

And yet, the discussion about ideas in all fields of social research has been challenged by similar and often very basic questions: What are ideas? Where do they come from? How do they matter? How do they travel? What is the relation between culture, values, discourse and ideas? (How) can we use ideas in social sciences?

The workshop starts from these common challenges to discuss ideational frameworks in social sciences from different theoretical perspectives and research areas. Therefore, researchers of public policy, political economy, European studies, and international relations, welfare state research, institutional evolution or political theory and sociology are welcome to participate in the workshop. We invite PhD students and other researchers working on these questions to send an abstract (max. 500 words) until October 10th 2011 to ideas.workshop@bigsss.uni-bremen.de. Both theoretical accounts of ideational approaches and papers applying these analytical tools to empirical analyses are welcome. Presentations will be grouped according to subject areas into different panels with senior researchers as commentators. The workshop also includes general sessions of literature discussion with all researchers. Senior researchers at the workshop are:

Prof. Silke Bothfeld, Hochschule Bremen
Prof. Thomas Diez, Universität Tübingen
Prof. Jane Jenson, University of Montreal
Prof. Frank Nullmeier, Universität Bremen
Prof. Craig Parsons, University of Oregon
Prof. Sven Steinmo, European University Institute

You will be informed about the acceptance of your paper by October 20th. Workshop participation is free of charge. Participants have to cover their own accommodation and travel costs.

For further information and questions feel free to contact the organizing team:
Marzena Kloka, Alexander Schellinger, Dorota Szelewa and Philine Weyrauch at ideas.workshop@bigsss.uni-bremen.de.

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