The Political Thought Conference will be held at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, 5-7th January. Download a registration form.
The constitution and officers of the Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought (APT) were formally approved on 9 January 2009 at the Oxford Political Thought Conference. The decision to create this Association had been taken at the previous conference in 2008.
The Association’s aim is to promote the study of all branches of political thought. The study of political thought tends to be dispersed within and across a number of different disciplines – political science, philosophy, history, law, sociology, economics, and cultural and literary studies, among others – and to involve a wide variety of approaches. As a result, the distinctive interests and concerns of this subfield risk being lost because so much academic policy focuses on addressing the main branches of those disciplines within which political thought is to be found. The fact that political thought often challenges the boundaries of these disciplines makes it even easier to ignore or marginalise. The foundation of the APT is intended to address two main dimensions of this situation:
First, by providing a mechanism for advocating, to relevant policy makers, the concerns of those engaged in political thought, it aims to overcome the tendency for political thought to be marginalised or fall between different disciplines (for example, in the way support for research and graduate study in the field is divided between the ESRC and AHRC).
Second, it aims to facilitate scholarly interaction and collaboration amongst the whole range of practitioners in the field.
In promoting these dual aims, the Association seeks to:
- Represent the interests of political thought with regard to both teaching and research in relation to the relevant governmental and non-governmental bodies and secure and advance its place within the Academy.
- Act as a facilitator for the research activities of its membership
- Assist the exchange of ideas on teaching activities
- Forge connections with related associations in the UK and other countries.
The Association is formally linked to the January Oxford Political Thought Conference, at which there will be an annual plenary meeting of the Association. All participants at that conference will automatically become members of APT for that year. Register for the conference by downloading the registration form.
Membership costs £10 and is open to persons interested in furthering the purposes of the Association and in participating in its activities, including college and university faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars and researchers with an interest in political thought from all disciplines and countries. Requests to join should be sent to Dr Elizabeth Frazer.
Richard Bellamy (Chair of APT)
