The main aims of the Winter School include:

• providing instruction and facilitating discussion on a wide range of analytical perspectives in the study of political parties, party systems, elections and democracy;
• developing a multinational forum for junior scholars and practitioners to critically discuss their research projects and the development in the field;
• assisting PhD researchers in developing their dissertation projects at the cutting edge of the field, contributing to innovation in conceptualization, measurement, analysis and theory;
• raising the awareness of PhD researchers about the requirements and criteria of international academic publishing, and encouraging them to submit their work to academic journals;
• helping practitioners understand the main academic findings regarding party politics and democracy promotion;
• building on the most recent developments and challenges of political party development and democracy promotion presented in the “Global Agenda for the Renewal of Representation”
• stimulating international collaboration in the field of political parties, party systems, elections and democracy, and encouraging PhD researchers and practitioners to take part in such collaboration.

Participants

The Winter School is open for MA and PhD 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 the following OSCE participating States: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. The maximum number of participants is 20. Organizers will attempt to achieve both a gender and a regional balance.

More information about the event is available in the Resources section below.

Application procedure

Applications should be completed properly (please answer all the questions!) and submitted to both [email protected] and [email protected]by Friday, 18 November 2018 (inclusively). The application should contain a 500-word abstract of your proposed paper and up to five keywords. No other documents (e.g., CV, passport) are needed at this stage.

NOTE: Applications by citizens of and/or people working in other countries, those incomplete (e.g., missing answers to questions, an abstract or keywords) or submitted after the deadline will NOT be considered.