The 2007 SISP Congress: who studies what?
This article aims to reflect upon the state of Italian political science research. The attention will be focused upon the 2007 SISP Congress and the papers presented at the congress. The basic assumption is that the SISP Annual Congress is the most important social event, it involves most SISP members in the organization of thematic sections and panels, and hosts a high number of paper-givers. We might then expect that SISP members regard the Annual SISP Congress as a qualified context to present the results of their on-going research, to illustrate new research topics and ideas.
Two main issues are here addressed:
a)which is the profile of the SISP paper-giver? Is there any difference between senior and junior members’ participation1? Are professors and researchers more or less active than PhD candidates, grant holders and young scholars?
b)which are the researches currently conducted in Italian universities and research institutes represented within the Association? Are the traditional research topics of political science the most debated at the annual congress? Are there any emerging research issues?
To answer these questions I have reviewed the 2007 Congress Programme2. The first and main result is that papers are mostly presented by junior SISP members who profit of the SISP Congress to get some feed-back on their on-going research from the Italian Political Science community. Conversely, senior members present few papers, as if senior Italian political scientists opted for alternative contexts and conferences (for instance ECPR or IPSA) or organised thematic workshops hosted by their universities and institutes to share with other colleagues the results of their research. Or, more simply, junior SISP members can devote more time to research than senior members, who have to combine research with academic responsibilities (e.g. teaching or university organizational tasks such as chairing degree courses, directing a department, coordinating a PhD programme, etc.). The figures provided below suggest that this state of fact deserves further investigation and reflection.
The profile of the SISP annual congress ‘active’ participant
The 2007 Congress was hosted by the University of Catania on September 20-22. With 290 Congress participants listed in the programme and 200 papers presented, the Catania Congress marked a constant increase of active participation and of papers presented since the past editions. At the 2006 Conference, which took place in Bologna, 270 participants were active in organizing a thematic section or a panel, and/or in discussing or presenting 160 papers. This was already a relevant increase compared to the 2005 Cagliari Conference, which had 190 active participants and 120 papers were then presented.
The composition of the SISP Congress participants is similar over the years. The 2006 Congress was open to other disciplines and to European universities’ affiliates; in fact more than half of the participants did not belong to the Association. The Bologna Congress participants were mostly young political scientists; 50% of the paper-givers had not a permanent position in the Italian academia. The data analysis of the 2007 SISP Congress confirms that the annual Congress is not restricted to SISP members, nor are the majority of papers presented by senior SISP members.
The Catania Congress was very much open to non-SISP members and to the international research community in general (there were even a couple of participants with US affiliation). This international openness is also proved by the relatively high percentage (33%) of papers submitted in English (mostly) and French (see Figure 1 for details on each thematic section). This is a meaningful sign that the Italian research community is aware that English is the “lingua franca” of the Political Science research community.
There was an imbalance between SISP members attending the Congress (120 participants) and participants who do not belong to the association (170 participants). This means that about 60% of the congress participants were not SISP members, and a significant group of them (12%) were affiliated to non-Italian universities or research institutes. The fact that half of the 2007 congress participants had an Italian affiliation but were not SISP members indicates that SISP does not include yet the entire Italian political science community. If we exclude a small group of scholars of other fields (sociologists, historians and even jurists) who annually regard the SISP Congress as an opportunity to exchange their views with political scientists, there still is a group of researchers based in Italy who do not belong to the association. In most cases they are PhD candidates who have not joined the association yet, but this is not always the case.
As far as Congress roles are concerned, there is an imbalance both between senior and junior SISP members, and between SISP members and non-SISP members. It is quite understandable that non-SISP members attend mostly to present a paper. Out of 170 participants who were not SISP members, only 10 were acting as chair or discussant, and all the others presented a paper, either as only-author or as co-author. Concerning the 120 SISP participants, senior SISP members were actively involved in the congress, but they played mostly the roles of section convenors, panel chairs and discussants. Junior SISP members, instead, were mostly involved in presenting a paper.
The involvement of SISP members at the 2007 Congress (indicated in numbers)
If we consider only paper-givers who are SISP members, the trend of the 2006 Bologna Congress is confirmed. Out of 200 papers presented at the 2007 SISP Congress, less than half involved SISP members. Out of 290 participants, only 86 SISP members presented a paper, either alone or with other authors. SISP members often work with other colleagues; in fact 40% of the papers presented by SISP members were co-authored. This means that there are many active research groups. One fourth of the papers presented at the Catania Congress were one-authored papers.
Almost half of the SISP paper-givers were junior political scientists enrolled as PhD students in Italian universities or at the EUI. The SISP Congress offers a good opportunity to present their PhD work in progress. If we consider the papers presented by a single author, the percentage of papers presented by professors is very low: less than 25% papers were presented by full or associate professors; this is the same percentage of papers presented by researchers (see Figure 2). More than half of one-authored papers are presented in fact by junior SISP members (52%). If we exclude associate professors, the contribution of full professors is very limited. The percentage of full professors presenting a paper as only author was only 6% (12 out of 200 papers presented at the Congress). Moreover, when full professors present a paper, it seems that they feel ill at ease with the thematic section format; as a matter of fact almost half of them (5 out of 12) presented a paper in panels out of sections3.
The academic status of paper-givers at the 2007 SISP Congress
These figures cannot be regarded as senior SISP members disaffection towards the Association and the annual congress. In fact, their participation is very active and implies acting primarily as section convenor, chair or discussant. Overall, they are listed in the programme twice as often as junior members (see Table 1). The low proportion of senior SISP members presenting a paper does not reflect the composition of SISP membership. If we consider the overall SISP membership, the percentage of professors and researchers belonging to the association is almost equivalent (40% and 38%), while the junior component is much smaller (around 20%).
The high number of non-SISP paper-givers and of co-authored papers indicate that the Italian political science community has close ties with European research groups and that it is looking for new ideas outside the association. But the fact that senior Italian political scientists present few papers might indicate that they prefer to present in other contexts the results of their ongoing research, or it may be that currently most research are conducted at junior level, with PhD candidates, post-doc students and grant holders as the most fervent side of Italian Political Science research.
All the 2007 SISP Congress figures
The papers presented at the SISP Congress: what is studied by SISP members and where
Congress papers are generally the preliminary output of ongoing research projects. Therefore, by mapping the topics analysed in the papers presented at the 2007 Congress we will have an insight on what is currently investigated by the Italian research community. We assume that titles are meaningful and reflect the topic covered in the paper. Content analysis is then limited to the Congress programme and takes into account names of Thematic Sections and Panels, and titles of papers presented at least by a SISP member. Another important indication of the attention which is devoted by the Italian Political Science community to some research issues is provided by the participation in each thematic section.
Concerning the topics and research themes there is a certain continuity between the 2006 and 2007 SISP Congress. At the Bologna Conference the highest number of papers were presented within the thematic sections on International relations (24 papers), Italian political system (21 papers), Political communication (20 papers) and Social movements and political participation (18 papers). Except for Italian political system (a section which was not organized in 2007), at the Catania Congress all these thematic sections, together with Empirical theory of democracy and European Union between domestic and international governance, attracted the highest number of participants, both in absolute figures and considering SISP participants only (see Table 1). Moreover, in most of these thematic sections there was a group of scholars who had attended the Bologna Congress.
The combination of these two data, the high congress attendance and the fact that these thematic sections were convened also at the Bologna Congress, indicates that in these thematic sectors there are consolidated research groups. This research continuity marked the following thematic sections: Empirical theory of democracy (same thematic section’s name and convenor as in Bologna), International relations (same name and convenor), Local governments in Europe (similar name, same convenor), Media and politics (similar name, same convenor), Political theory (similar name, same convenor), Public deliberation (similar name, same convenor), Social mvements and participatory democracy (similar name, same convenor). In most of these sub-sectors there is a group of 4/7 SISP members who profit of the annual Congress to gather together, to present research results and even to launch new journals, as in the case of ‘Partecipazione e conflitto’, a journal which was officially presented in Catania.
Some panels were mostly attended by non-SISP members; this is understandable in the case of the panel of the section on the 2007 French elections, or for the thematic section on Democratization and integration. Central and Eastern Europe towards European Union. In these cases paper-givers were mostly experts from the specific areas. In other cases, thematic sections were mostly attended by SISP members. On average 60% of participants were SISP members in the case of the following thematic sections Empirical theory of democracy, European Union between domestic and international governance, International relations, Public deliberation, regionalism and federalism. The thematic section on Local policies and politics represents a special case, because it had the highest member of participants, although they were mostly non-SISP members (70%) and none of them was attending the Bologna Congress.
In order to single out the most recurrent research themes, some keywords have been identified and searched for in the programme. Their frequency is showed in table 2.
The most recurrent key-words of the 2007 SISP Congress
The content analysis of the 2007 SISP Congress Programme indicates that the most frequent key-words relate to Europe (when papers adopt a comparative approach) and the European Union (papers which focus on the EU political system). Studies on European Union are cross-sectoral; they experienced a sort of spill-over effect, so they are not confined to the thematic section on the European Union and the panels directly devoted to the EU. Public policy analysis is another trans-sectoral sub-field; local and European policies are researched widely. Political parties and elections, which is a traditionally deep-researched sub-field of political science in Italy, are still frequently analysed by focusing both on the local, national and European level. Then social movements (including associative and new forms of political participation) are recurrent researched topics, proving that, despite the fact that this is a more recent sub-field, it now has well consolidated bases. Also papers on democracy and democratization have crossed more thematic sections, being also one of the dominant issues dealt within the International relations section. The topic of democracy is currently crucial in the IR research agenda. The Congress opening lecture, which was delivered by Prof. Luigi Bonanate, dealt precisely with Transformation and promotion of democracy.
The Affiliations of SISP paper-givers shown in Figure 3 confirms the overall trend which was illustrated in IPS n. 1/2007 (Panebianco: 2007). In smaller and younger Italian Universities the political science community is growing comparatively more than in the oldest and largest universities. The highest number of papers have been presented by SISP members affiliated to the universities of Milano Statale, Siena, Florence, Torino and Catania. Apart from the University of Catania hosting the Congress, in all the other cases there has been a sort of PhD programmes’ effect. If we look at the lowest figure (only one paper-giver), universities such as Messina, Palermo, Valle d’Aosta or Venezia were represented in the same way as the universities of Genova or Pavia which have a much longer tradition in the field of Political Science. Similarly, there was no difference between the number of paper-givers affiliated to the universities of Molise, Calabria and Bologna (Forlì included).
SISP paper-givers’ affiliation
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Footnotes
1 I refer to ‘senior’ members to indicate SISP members with a permanent position (i.e. full or associate professors, and researchers), and ‘junior’ members to mention scholars without a permanent position (i.e. PhD candidates, post-doc grant-holders, research fellows, etc.)
2 These data are drawn from the final programme. Any last minute participants’ defection is not taken into account if not indicated in the programme.
3 It should be recalled that according to the SISP regulations adopted after the 2006 Cagliari Congress, paper-givers could present only one paper as only author and two papers if co-authored.
4 It has to be remarked that Welfare policies never appears.
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