FPG in the News

“Making International Collaboration Work: A Third Update from the French Politics Group of APSA”
By Andrew Appleton (Washington State University) and Amy Mazur (Washington State University)
In PS: Political Science. 40(2) 436-7.

This is the third in a series of articles about the activities of the French Politics Group, charting the institutionalization of our research and teaching partnerships with our colleagues in France. In last year’s essay for PS (39 (2), April, 2006. 389-391), we discussed ten lessons we had learned in pursuing successful international collaboration.  Following yet another productive year of ever-increasing collaborative activities on both sides of the Atlantic, it appears that this prescription for success has continued to work.   As evidence, one need only look at FPG-sponsored activities at the APSA annual convention.  In Philadelphia, the group hosted five panels with an average attendance of 25 people.  Attendees at our (open bar) Friday, late-night cocktail party declared it to be the toast of the APSA social scene.  We have seen an increased attendance of French political scientists as well (20, compared to 2 in 2001).  Finally, an APSA-sponsored roundtable has laid the foundation for a French “State of the Discipline” to be published in collaboration with the Association Française de Science Politique (AFSP).  Here, we revisit the top ten key ingredients to our growing and highly fruitful collaboration in hopes of spurring on others to invest their time and limited resources to contribute to the internationalization of the discipline and APSA.

1. APSA Support – APSA this past year included one of our roundtables on “Mapping French Political Science” in one of their international committee roundtables slots. Hosting the roundtable at noon meant that we could maximize attendance without competing with other panels. The success of this strategy is witnessed by the fact that we had 60 people attend this panel. The European Politics section also helped us out by co -sponsoring several of our panels; in addition, one of our panels was taken up by the APSA theme committee.  As a result we were able to field five panels/roundtables with only one official panel slot, averaged 25 people per panel and increased our permanent panel allocation to two.

2. Moderate Levels of Resources for Travel and Awards – We continue to not ask our members to pay dues – in part to avoid creating a heavy administrative process. At the same time, we have been quite successful in receiving financial assistance from our institutional partners including

3. Institutionalized Partners in Other Countries – We continue to produce a joint newsletter with the French Policy and Politics Group of the PSA-UK. We have a very close collaboration with the AFSP.  In addition to contributing to our receptions, the FPG is currently working with the AFSP on the following collaborative projects:

Sciences-Po Paris and the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques continue to be key partners as well providing a significant share of funding and support for our efforts. CEVIPOF, another French national research unit that focuses on political science, has also been an important partner through funding and the participation of its researchers—over two thirds of the French political scientists at APSA-Chicago worked at CEVIPOF or Sciences Po-Paris, or both.  With the help of the AFSP, this year we are working on extending our collaboration to Institutes of Political Studies outside of Paris in Toulouse, Lille, Bordeaux, Grenoble, and Strasbourg.

4. Section Awards Generate Interest and Attention – One of the features of our growth has been the diversification of research considered for awards beyond what might be termed a traditional French politics audience.  We gave our third best paper award to a political theorist, Roxanne Euben, who focused on Tocqueville in comparison to African theorists.  The new Stanley Hoffmann Best Article Award, will be an important part of our institutionalization in the USA and in Europe.  We have significant prize money for the winner (2000 euros-take note!), a prestigious name on the prize, and a systematic process for coming up with the pool of articles to be considered. Rather than making a call for articles, we will do a search of all refereed journals that might publish scholarship on French Politics. Making the award for English language articles will also contribute to the internationalization of the study of French politics. Combined with the permanent support for the generous prize money, the semi annual award stands to enhance the reputation of the FPG-APSA on an international level. Reflecting our group’s interest in encouraging graduate students, we will make our fifth award for the Georges Lavau Dissertation Prize in 2008, an award we have made every three years since it was created in 1991.1

5. Cosmopolitan Membership Representing all Career Stages – Since 2002, we have increased our membership from 95 to 145 bringing in equal numbers of scholars from the USA and France with additional members from the UK, Germany, Japan, Sweden, and Canada.  We see this national balance on our award committees and panels. We continue to have an equal distribution of junior, mid career, and more senior people.  The composition of the Best Article Award Committee represents this well, with three senior scholars  (Pierre Hassner, Stanley Hoffmann, and Gérard Grunberg), and two junior level scholars (Sylvain Brouard and Ben Clift). About ten percent of our members are graduate students, reflecting the vitality of a new generation of scholars working in the field.

6. APSA Short Course Format, Working Groups and Receptions – APSA provides a variety of venues for political scientists to gather and work, and we have taken pains to take advantage of all them.  For example, this year we are organizing our first short course on research; an assessment of French political institutions in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Fifth Republic.  The short course will be open to the public and participants will be presenting draft chapters for an edited volume to come out the anniversary year of the Fifth Republic. In addition, we will take advantage of the new working group structure at APSA, and will convene the first Working Group on French Politics around five panels and the short course. We hope to attract newcomers to the group this year and are encouraging graduate student participation in the working group. Finally, we will hold our French Politics reception, which provides a fun venue for our members (and non members) to get together in a convivial atmosphere. Being able to ‘hang out’ and ‘chew the fat’ over good food and wine is a crucial part of our success and a reward for everyone’s hard work.

7. Developing Manageable Teaching and Research Projects that are Linked to Mainstream Political Science – We have four in-progress projects that come out of our collaborations at APSA.  Two of these projects will produce publications; the edited books on French Political Institutions at 50 and the State of French Political Science.  The other two will have other outcomes -- a survey of French political scientists and the joint methods workshop in Toulouse in 2007.  All four have been developed incrementally in conjunction with APSA meeting.   All of our projects are tightly linked to political science in the United States, through theory, methodology, and individuals.  In addition, four out of five panels for this upcoming conference are explicitly designed to address critical debates in comparative politics, and to contribute to theory building within the discipline.  Our projects also reflect the trend within our discipline to develop rigorous, multi-method research strategies appropriate to the investigation of social scientific problems.

8. A Sympathetic (but not affiliated) Journal – Unlike the early years of the French Politics Group (when it was inextricably linked to French Politics and Society), we have carved out an important independence.  In part, this is a reflection of the growth of journal offerings.  Revised versions of the papers presented on last year’s panel  French Feminists and the Republic have been submitted to a new journal in the field, French Politics,for consideration as a special issue.  However, we have maintained good relationships with the original publication (now renamed French Politics, Culture, and Society); for example, Herrick Chapman, the current editor, has consented to finance our dissertation award.

9. Group Members Willing to Invest Time and to Share the Burden of Work – FPG members and individuals from our partner groups still remain a key to our success.  As a group, we have eschewed an overly bureaucratic structure for a more broad-based participation.  Counting the members of committees, institutional partners, panel participants and short course organizers we have nearly 40 people who make significant time contributions each year, including those who attend our annual business meeting at APSA.  This collective involvement makes it easier for the group convener to do the job of coordinating all of the different activities.

10. APSA Meetings an Important, But not Unique Focal Point – While APSA meetings continue to be our major focus, we use the venues of our other institutional partners in France and the UK, through their disciplinary meetings as outlets for our activities.  This year we take the show on the road through our co-sponsored methodology workshop in Toulouse France through the AFSP and next year we will look to send our members to the PSA meetings in the UK.

For more on the group, contact either of us — Amy Mazur (mazur@mail.wsu.edu) or Andrew Appleton (Appleton@wsu.edu) — or look at the group’s website (http://www.wsu.edu/~frg/).

1The FPG decided to make the award every three years in order to generate a large enough pool to maintain quality.  It has the not-unintended additional benefit of reducing workloads for those serving on the committee.

“Making International Collaboration Work: An Update from the French Politics Group of APSA”
By Andrew Appleton (Washington State University) and Amy Mazur (Washington State University)

PS, Political Science. 39 (2), April, 2006. 389-391.

With five years of experience under our collective belt, the French Politics Group (a related group of the APSA) has moved into a new phase of network development and international collaboration across North America, Europe, and other continents. The goal of this article is to map out these networking efforts, to present the ingredients for our success, and, in so doing, provide some possible avenues of collaboration for other APSA members to consider in their own efforts to develop international work groups and networks.

The Culmination of Five Years of Work: A Progress Report

Our group currently has 135 members from the USA, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Half are from the USA with many of these members also having worked at some point in their careers in French universities; many are EU citizens. Similarly, many of the non-American members have held appointments at some point in the USA. Thus our membership is quite cosmopolitan. Our members span all of the stages of academic life, with well over half having received their Ph.D.s in the past 10 years. Members are not asked to pay any dues. The only prerequisite for membership is to have some level of interest in teaching or conducting research on France; non-country specialists are welcome, as are those who do more broad comparative research. The FPG maintains a web site (http://www.wsu.edu/~frg/), and we send out an electronic newsletter to members twice a year. This newsletter is jointly produced with the French Politics and Policy Group of the Political Studies Association in the UK, chaired by Robert Elgie (Dublin City University).

With the creation of the Frank L. Wilson APSA Paper Award in 2004 and the revitalization of the George Lavau Dissertation Award, the group gave out two awards last year at the APSA annual meetings in Washington, DC. Jocelyn Evans (University of Salford, UK) and Robert Andersen (McMaster University, Canada) received the Wilson award for their paper, “Never Mind the Blocs. Mapping Ideological Space in France, 1988-2002” . The committee for the award was chaired by Andrew Appleton (Washington State University), and the other members were William Saffran (University of Colorado – Boulder), and John Keeler (University of Washington). The 2006 Wilson Award committee was appointed at the APSA meetings and will consist of: Joceyln Evans, Chair (University of Salford); Michael Bosia (St. Michael’s College) and Cyndy Skach (Harvard University).

The Lavau Award was given to Cyndy Skach at Harvard University for her dissertation titled “Duverger’s Error: Constitutional Democracy Revisited.”. The award was first made in 1993 and is given every three years. Since 1998, it covers dissertations that are uniquely on French Politics or have a significant component on French politics. This year’s committee considered nine dissertations defended from 1999-2004. Committee members included the chair, Jonah Levy (University of Berkeley), and members Karen Bird (McMaster University) and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot (Institut d’Etudes Politiques- Bordeaux). The next committee will be constituted in 2008 to consider dissertations awarded from 2005-2007. The award for the prize was given at the business meeting with a brief presentation of the dissertation given by the chair of the committee. The FPG provides a modest level of prize money for each award, and the group will be looking to raise new funds to cover awards in the future.

The APSA annual meetings continue to be a major focus for the group’s collaboration. In 2005, we organized three panels (one co-sponsored with European Politics Section), and co-sponsored a reception with the journal of French Politics and the French Politics and Policy Group of the UK’s Political Studies Association. Most panelists were from non-American institutions, with a strong showing from France and the UK. The group also organized a pre-conference short course on teaching French Politics. It was attended by 8 people and provided an opportunity for teachers to have rich discussions on a wider variety of ways to bring French politics in the classroom. The materials for the short course are available on our website.

While important, the APSA meetings are not the only venue for the group. FPG members also present research at Political Studies Association meetings through the work of the UK-based association’s French Politics and Policy Group. In France, a new generation of French political scientists, active in the group, are establishing unprecedented links between the FPG-APSA and political scientists in France. The FPG is involved in discussions about the creation of a new methodology group inside the Association Française de Science Politique (AFSP), and will be helping to organize an inaugural meeting in France. We also hope to sponsor a workshop at the APSA meetings on the same theme, bringing together both French and American specialists in quantitative analysis.

The new President of the AFSP, Nona Mayer, has committed to several joint activities in the upcoming year, including a panel and a short course on the “state of the discipline in French political science” at the 2006 APSA meetings. The AFSP will also join in sponsoring a reception. The state of the French discipline panel and short course are based on an initial analysis of French Political Science published in French Politics (Billordo 2005a and 2005b,) and is slated to produce a symposium issue to submit for review at Perspectives in Political Science. The FPG also will work with the French Political Science Association and APSA to obtain funding for a systematic survey of French Political Scientists to compliment these initial studies.

The Institute of Political Studies in Paris (Sciences Po –Paris) will also be involved with this Franco-American collaboration under it’s vice president, Gerard Grunberg. Two other French political science institutions are deeply involved in thickening Franco-American disciplinary links, the Center for the Study of French Political Life (CEVIPOF) and the Institute of Political Studies in Bordeaux (Sciences Po-Bordeaux). These extensive collaborations with the AFSP, Science Po-Paris, CEVIPOF, and Sciences Po-Bordeaux are unfolding against the backdrop of APSA’s efforts to nurture and develop its links with political science associations outside of the USA.

This cooperation with our French and British partners means that we will be doing the following activities in 2006.

The Ingredients for Success: Ten Lessons from the FPG

The following represent the top ten major lessons that can be drawn from the French Politics group’ continuing success and ever-increasing institutionalization. As is evident, success depends not merely on resources or leadership, but a complex combination of factors that implies a real level engagement among a critical mass of members in many different countries.

  1. APSA Support—The support of APSA’s leadership has been crucial in terms of providing flexibility on panel construction, travel funds for foreign scholars, through established grant programs, and encouraging international partnerships.
  2. Moderate Levels of Resources for Travel and Awards – The group does not collect dues and hence does not have any permanent budget line. This is a conscious strategy to promote group membership and inclusion. However, group members have been able to secure crucial travel funds from the APSA and PSA, through grant programs in the two associations, as well as their home institutions. Thus, limited funding has not posed a major obstacle for group activities.
  3. Institutionalized Partners in Other Countries – The French Policy and Politics Group of the PSA-UK has been a permanent partner with the group and partnerships with the French Political Science Association and the Institute of Political Science in Paris and other French political science establishments are now becoming an integral part of future activities. It has also been important to use other association meetings as a platform for collaborative activities.
  4. Section Awards Generate Interest and Attention – Section awards are important for rewarding the work of individual scholars, but also in engaging other scholars into the work of the committees and drawing attention to the group and to the study of French Politics more generally speaking.
  5. Cosmopolitan Membership Representing all Career Stages – Our membership is not only American—over half are from universities outside of the USA with many US members spending significant chunks of their careers in universities outside of the USA. In addition, our members span all of the different levels of political science – graduate student, junior, mid level and senior. The significant participation of a new generation of French politics scholars has been crucial for this group’s success. In the USA and the UK, new generation scholars place the study of France in the larger context of political science theory-building and methodology. In France, the younger political scientists are much more open to international collaboration.
  6. APSA Short Course Format – The flexibility and ease of the short course is an important venue for allowing scholars to work with each other and to introduce political scientists outside of French Politics to our work. Given that short courses are automatically accepted; scholars are able to participate in the program (and hence be eligible for institutional funding) without having to be accepted on highly competitive panels.
  7. APSA Meetings an Important, But not Unique Focal Point – APSA meetings are a crucial and necessary meeting point, since many scholars from other countries typically are able to get funded to come to APSA meetings. Scholars already based at American universities – over half of our members - tend to attend these meeting regularly. The panels and short courses serve as arenas for our discussions and the business meeting is the locus for our group’s annual decisions-making. However, it has been very important that our group has other venues in the UK and now in France to meet, to avoid the perception that the group is dominated by the US and to reach out to other scholars do not attend APSA meetings.
  8. Developing Manageable Teaching and Research Projects that are Linked to Mainstream Political Science – The collaborative projects have been thus far moderate, focused on presenting research AND teaching. Panels and short courses have been aimed to speak to non French specialists who are active in the discipline as well. It is helpful to aim for a collaborative publication as well, but only as a culmination of the moderate level projects. Thus, project development is incremental and organic; a function of a critical mass of interest, rather than any lofty long-term strategic plans.
  9. A Related, but not Affiliated Journal – The French Politics journal has been an important venue for members to submit manuscripts for review and as such, it has given a certain level of scholarly meaning to research on French politics more broadly speaking. However, the journal remains completely autonomous from the group; each entity is not dependent on the other for its organization success and impetus.
  10. Group Members Willing to Invest Time and to Share the Burden of Work – While it is crucial to have one person who is responsible to over see the work of the group and be the point person, it has been fundamental that different tasks of the group have been taken up by willing volunteers who have come forward without having to be recruited. These include website design and maintenance, award committee work, member list management, chair and organization of panels, panel discussants, to name a few. This sharing of tasks minimizes the convener’s job and does not make it overwhelming. It is important to note that very little staff time has been used to get the work of the group done – again showing that a key to success is not having large amounts of resources.

For more on the group, contact either of us or look at the group’s website (http://www.wsu.edu/~frg/). Amy Mazur (mazur@mail.wsu.edu) or Andrew Appleton (Appleton@wsu.edu).

References

Billordo, Libia (2005a). “Publishing in French Political Science Journals: An Inventory of Methods and Sub-fields.” French Politics. 3(2) 178-86.

Billordo, Libia (2005b)” Methods Training in French Political Science” French Politics 3(3) 352-57.

"APSA - PSA ( UK ) Collaboration over French Politics", by Amy Mazur (Washington State University)

From: PS, Political Science, 28(1), January, 2005. p. 162

"Since 2000, the French Politics Groups of APSA and PSA have been working in close collaboration, thanks to PSA/APSA financial support and the leadership of Robert Elgie (Dublin City University), Andrew Appleton (Washington State University) and Amy Mazur (Washington State University). The major goal of this collaboration is to strengthen the study of French Politics by bringing together research communities on both sides of the Atlantic .

The PSA-French Politics group is an important arena for French Politics experts from across Europe to present and discuss their research, particularly given the importance of the study of French Politics in the European context. Links between the PSA French Politics group and the French Politics Group of APSA (FPG-APSA), have been a driving force in the re-invigoration of the French Politics Group in APSA. Since 2000, the French Politics Group of APSA (FPG-APSA) has re-organized around the premise of placing the study of French Politics in a Comparative perspective and, as a result has attracted a new audience to its panels and activities. It currently has 115 members (non paying) and has co sponsored/sponsored on average 3 panels each year, including two roundtables commemorating leading figures in the study of French politics, Frank L. Wilson and Roy Pierce, in 2003 and 2004. In addition, the FPG has been working with the APSA organized section of European Politics to participate in its federated structure whereby European country specific related groups co sponsor panels with EPS. The group now has two Awards the Frank L. Wilson Best Paper Award and the George Lavau Best Dissertation Award and distributes a semi-annual newsletter to its members. A homepage will be up and running for the group this Fall.

The first collaboration began in 2000. PSA provided funds for two PSA members to present papers on a French Politics panel at the annual APSA. In 2004-05, the PSA-APSA collaboration reached a new institutionalized level with travel support provided for by each Association for members to present research papers at the annual meetings. The PSA and the French Politics group of the PSA covered the travel expenses for Andrew Appleton and Amy Mazur to present papers on two different French Politics panels at the PSA annual meetings in April in Lincoln, UK -- and APSA awarded a foreign scholar travel grant to Jocelyn Evans (University of Salford) to present a paper on a French Politics panel at this year’s meeting. In addition, the UK group has also made available an extensive reading list on French Politics to members of APSA-FPG. Future collaborative plans for the APSA meetings in 2005, include proposing a joint short course on teaching French Politics, organizing two panels, one on the theme of next year’s meetings, and co sponsoring, with the French consulate and the Journal of French Politics a reception at the APSA meetings. In addition, members of each group will work together to increase the number of nominations for the APSA-based best dissertation on French Politics award from Europe and the USA and we will continue producing joint newsletters for the groups.

For more information on the UK group contact Robert Elgie at robert.elgie@dcu.ie or go to http://webpages.dcu.ie/~elgier/psagroup.htm.