More preliminary findings on Social Networks in Political Science: from our analysis of collaboration patterns in the British Journal of Political Science (BJPS) and Political Studies (PS), we conclude that co-publication is much more widespread and intense than in Germany (not a huge surprise). Yet, at least on the basis of these two journals, collaboration networks in British political science look rather fragile when compared to the sciences. Obviously, further research is needed.

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Like most social scientists I am a little bit obsessed with social networks. I’m also interested in the sociology of knowledge, which is a little more original. So some time ago, a colleague and I embarked on a project called “Networks in Political Science”, which rather unsurprisingly tries to apply network analysis to publications in Political Science. Our basic idea is that everyone seems to take subfields, theoretical schools and even citation circles for granted, but unlike in some other disciplines, little empirical work has been done so far. More specifically, we want to identify

• highly cited articles that form the core of subfields
• individual influential scholars
• sub-networks of scholars that cite each other and/or collaborate frequently, thereby forming an “invisible college” and
• individuals that are able to bridge sub-discplinary divides by publishing in a whole host of subfields.

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Over the last 25 years, the study of the extreme / radical / populist right
has blossomed as a sub-discipline of both party and electoral research.
As well as becoming the focus of significant case-specific and
comparative work in stable democracies, the end of communism and the
integration of the New Democracies in Central and Eastern Europe into
the European Union has further spurred interest in these parties and
their voters. Equally, additional subdisciplinary literatures including
political communication, political economy, public opinion and
political theory now constitute a core part of the corpus of work on
these organizations.

In a bid to bring together state-of-the-art research from these approaches, Liz Carter and I will organise a section titled “Perspectives on the Radical Right” during the ECPR’s 5th General Conference at the University of Potsdam in Germany in September 2009. The section will consist of eight panels, each with slots for 4-5 papers. A few days ago, a formal call for Panels within this section on the Extreme / Radical / Populist Right was issued. Panel chairs do not have to be members of ECPR institutions, so anyone interested in organising a panel can submit a proposal through the website. The deadline for panel proposals is September 1, 2008. A call for papers will be issued in November 2008.

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