The International Political Science Association (IPSA) is organizing an international conference that will be held on 4-6 December 2017 in Hannover (Germany). Chaired by Marianne Kneuer and Helen Milner, the conference will take place in Hannover’s spectacular Palace of Herrenhausen, surrounded by gardens that date back to the Baroque period. This conference is in line with the spirit of the 2008 Montréal Conference about the state of our discipline.

The conference, entitled “Political Science in the Digital Age: Mapping Opportunities, Perils and Uncertainties”, provides the opportunity for a reflection on the discipline and one of its most relevant challenges, namely digitalization. The conference aims to bring together officials and members of national political science associations (PSA) and members the IPSA Research Committees in order to further develop networks and cooperation among these groups. The conference will also be a platform for addressing challenges as well as developing ideas for future research within IPSA. The conference aims is to assess both the state of political science in the world’s different regions and to develop a perspective of the future of our discipline in the 21^st century. You can find more information on the event website at https://hannover2017.ipsa.org/

I want to warmly invite you to take this opportunity for disciplinary reflection and exchange between  PSAs. We expect a major contribution from PSA members of IPSA in this event. The program committee as planned several “Regional Perspective” panels during the conference and also meetings with the leadership of national associations. Therefore, we would like your association to present the state of the art of the discipline in your country/region either during a panel or a roundtable.

What we would like to have for the conference is an historical background of the emergence of political science as an academic discipline in your country. It should be followed by a quantitative assessment of existing political science departments and research institutions, along with your association’s membership and activities. A third part should briefly describe the kinds of degrees awarded and the number of students involved. The fourth part should give an idea about the major subfields of political science in which your members are active and which are the major epistemological and theoretical approaches which are being followed. Finally, you should provide a brief outlook about the future of political science (and its practitioners and students) in your country in line with the theme of this conference. This may sound like (and probably is) quite a bit of work, but it will allow us to obtain a major updated account of political science worldwide. If you would like to participate in one of the panels on “Regional Perspective”, please see the program on the website and send your abstract by May 1^st, 2017 to hannover2017@ipsa.org

Besides the program, there will also be a Presidents’ Luncheon where we can all address and discuss specific issues of interest for IPSA and national associations.

Moreover, I ask you to distribute the Call for Papers (pdf, 1896 kb) within your association network. We want to assure that interested scholars have the opportunity to participate in this conference. 

For more details about the conference, do not hesitate to write me or Anne Duhamel at hannover2017@ipsa.org

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