As an inaugural launch of the 1st Asian Summer School on Political Parties and Democracy, the Summer School will tackle the most pressing issues faced by democracy, the Global Democratic Recession. The number of democracies may still be higher compared to the past decade but the recent trends are showing some backsliding. In this Summer School, young Asian scholars together with world renown experts will investigate both the internal and external factors that may have contributed to this recession and determine potential pathways for democracy to become more resilient.

The Regional Programme Political Dialogue Asia brings you the 1st Asian Summer School on Political Parties and Democracy in cooperation with the University of Nottingham-Malaysia, the OSCE Academy, and the Centre for the Study of Parties and Democracy. ​​​​​​​This Summer School will bring together an international team of academics and practitioners to train and instruct a group of 14 MA/PhD researchers, practitioners and civil society leaders in the field of political parties and democracy.

Aims

The main aims of the School include to:

• to provide instruction and discussion on a wider range of analytical perspectives in the study of political parties, party systems, elections and democracy;
• to develop a multinational forum for both junior scholars and practitioners to critically discuss their research projects and the development of the subfield;
• to assist PhD/MA researchers to develop their dissertation projects at the cutting edge of the field, contributing to innovation in conceptualisation, measurement, analysis and theory;
• to prepare PhD/MA researchers for the requirements and criteria of international academic publishing, and to encourage them to submit their work to academic journals;
• to help practitioners to understand the main academic findings regarding party politics and democracy promotion;
• to build on the most recent developments and challenges of political party development and democracy promotion presented by the “Global Agenda for the Renewal of Representation”
• to stimulate international collaboration in the field of parties, party systems, elections and democracy and to encourage PhD/MA researchers and practitioners to take part in such collaboration.

The School is open for PhD/MA researchers, practitioners and civil society leaders in the field of political parties, elections, representative democracy and closely related areas (e.g. corruption) from and working on Asian member states and other territories (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Maldives, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, and Hong Kong). The maximum number of fellows is 14. Organizers will attempt to achieve both a gender and a regional (i.e. South and South-East Asian as well as Central and Eastern Asian region) balance.

Your APPLICATION should be appropriately filled in (please do answer all the questions!) and electronically submitted by Monday 28 May 2021, 11.59 p.m. CET (inclusively), containing at the same time a 500-word abstract (and up to 5 keywords) of your proposed paper. No other documents (e.g. CV, passport) needed at this stage.

Shortlisted fellows will have to send the first paper drafts by 1 August 2021, 11:59 p.m. CET. Then the final selection of fellows will be made. Shortlisted fellows might also be contacted for a Skype interview before final acceptance.

For more information click "LINK TO ORIGINAL" below.