CALL FOR APPLICATIONS
We are pleased to announce that the call for applications is now open for the 1st Summer School of the ECPR Standing Group on Extremism & Democracy on ‘Concepts and Methods for Research on Far-Right Politics’, sponsored by the Centre for Research on Extremism (C-REX), the European Council for Political Research (ECPR), and the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS). The Summer School will take place in Florence, Italy, from 25 to 29 June 2018 and is open to 15 Master’s and PhD students of different disciplinary backgrounds in the social and political sciences, as well as early career researchers interested in the study of far-right politics.
The Summer School focuses on the study of the far right in its populist, radical, and extremist manifestations. Its aim is to bolster and promote knowledge on the theoretical, empirical, and methodological underpinnings of contemporary far-right politics. The School will focus on how to study and interpret the different manifestations of far-right politics across time, arenas, and national contexts.
The School will introduce students to concepts and theories explaining the conditions affecting far-right mobilisation and performance; and methods to tackle this phenomenon empirically. Despite the growing attention received by far-right political parties, social movements, and groups, we still lack a comprehensive conceptual and methodological toolkit to investigate its diverse expressions in the multi-organisational field. The School will thus address young scholars and students, and discuss how to apply established research techniques to the study of far-right politics, and create, retrieve, and manage available data. In sum, the School intends to create an interactive learning environment where graduate students will have the opportunity to:
- Learn and familiarise with the conceptual and theoretical foundations of far-right politics, and draw on comparative empirical expertise on far-right mobilisations, electoral performances, and violent manifestations;
- Understand the rationale and practices of a number of methods employed to study far-right politics, at the micro, meso, and macro levels;
- Develop the skills to confidently rely on mixed-method approaches and methodological pluralist practices in their own research projects;
- Present their ongoing research and receive feedback from leading scholars in the Field.