Other News

The January 2015 issue of the Review of International Studies (RIS) features two articles on the politics of materiality by PAIS researchers Dr Vicki Squire and Dr Nick Vaughan-Williams.

The RIS is the flagship journal of the British International Studies Association (BISA) and published by Cambridge University Press.

Both articles explore the insights and limitations of the so-called ‘new materialist’ turn in social sciences for the discipline of International Relations (IR), and showcase cutting-edge conceptual work in PAIS’ International Relations and Security and Political Geography research groupings.

Squire's article, ‘Reshaping critical geopolitics? The materialist challenge’, draws attention to the limits of an approach that emphasises the representational, cultural, and interpretive dimensions of geopolitics, while acknowledging the difficulties of an ontological shift to materiality for many scholars of critical geopolitics.

Vaughan-Williams' article, ‘New materialisms, discourse analysis, and International Relations: a radical intertextual approach’ (co-authored with Tom Lundborg, Stockholm University), examines the implications of new materialist thought for a more expansive understanding of ‘discourse’ in IR, but warns against recycling the language/matter distinction.

The latest issue of the RIS 41(1) can be accessed here: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=RIS

Dr. Renske Doorenspleet and Dr. Philippe Blanchard are associated with a new Leverhulme-funded DTC that will bring together the social and mathematical sciences.

This funding of £1 million aims to bridge the gap between mathematical and social sciences with a new doctoral scholarship programme starting in 2015/16. Warwick is one of only 14 institutions to be given the investment, which will fund 15 PhD students over the next five years, who will work across both disciplines, using quantitative methods to understand new sociological issues. This will be another opportunity for PAIS to collaborate with three of Warwick's top-REFed departments: Computer Sciences (2nd), Mathematics (3rd) and Statistics (3rd). Each of the fifteen PhD students enrolled over the next three years will be co-supervised by a staff from these departments, and one from PaIS, Sociology, Psychology or Business.

This is another step in enhancing PAIS' methodological expertise, after the new QStep degrees at BA (Sept. 2014) and MA level (Sept. 2015). In the long term, Warwick's QStep will pursue the training of stats-skilled social science doctoral students.

Since smaller academic departments still need access to the same level of strategic capacity as larger units, how best to deliver such capacity in an affordable and sustainable way? The answer: Collaborative working between Academic Departments and the central Administration. Find out more on the We've Simplified! page.

Following a recent European conference on football research, leading football writer Martin Cloake approached Dr. David Webber to write a piece for the New Statesman. Here David talks about his work on the cultural political economy of English football, and what insights Karl Polanyi might have for fans of the beautiful game in the wake of its own Great Transformation.

The full piece can be read here: http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/12/priced-out-matches-and-treated-commodities-football-fans-are-finally-starting

The new book Party Systems and Democracy in Africa, edited by Renske Doorenspleet of PAIS and Lia Nijzink, has been published.

Do party systems help or hinder democracy in Africa? This book paints a vivid picture of the one-party dominant systems in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa and how these impede the deepening of democracy. Drawing lessons from Benin, Ghana and Zambia, it also portrays the fluidity of African party systems and draw attention to the importance of party system change. This edited book is one of the results of a broader research Accountable Government in Africa Project, a South-North Partnership between the University of Cape Town's Department of Public Law with the universities of Dar es Salaam (law) and Warwick (politics and law), bringing together more than 40 scholars from more than 10 African countries, 4 European countries, and the USA.

For more information, see http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/party-systems-and-democracy-in-africa-renske-doorenspleet/?K=9781137011701