Applications are now open for the workshop titled The Science of Democracy Beyond Disciplines, endorsed by the Research Network The Sciences of the Democracies, as part of the ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops, held in person at the University of Innsbruck, 7-10 April 2026.
This Workshop takes stock of how disciplinarity is featured and overcome in democracy studies. It explores the conditions, benefits, and limits of these approaches, the contributions of democracy scholars to knowledge-generation that advances public good, and the constraints imposed by disciplinarity on groundbreaking research. The Workshop critically scrutinizes the very concept of disciplinarity and its manifestations in democracy studies, opening avenues for a global, plural, inclusive and forward-looking research agenda. The Workshop lays the groundwork for a joint publication on the promises and perils of transcending disciplinary boundaries and beyond-disciplinary encounters, charting new avenues for inclusive, collaborative knowledge generation that democratizes academia and forges new democratic partnerships across the arts and sciences.
The ECPR Joint Sessions as a 'unique, closed-group format facilitates intensive discussions, deep collaboration, and rigorous peer feedback. By offering a trusted global platform to refine ideas, the Joint Sessions play a vital role in building networks and supporting the publication of high-impact work.' Thus, all accepted presenters are also expected to contribute as discussants of selected other papers, and all papers are to be submitted prior the workshops and read by all their participants. As a flagship event of the ECPR (European Consortium for Political Research) for 50+ years, the format has been opening up to other disciplines and to trans- and beyond-disciplinary work. This Workshop is particularly embracing and welcoming such plurality, aiming to bring together scholars across and beyond disciplines with commitment to understanding/appraising/challenging/renewing and, foundationally, thinking democracy.
The guiding questions for this Workshop are:
1: How is disciplinarity and beyond-disciplinarity conceptualized in democracy studies?
2: How have social science histories shaped the relationship between disciplinarity and democracy?
3: How do scientists of democracy perceive their peers’ openness to beyond-disciplinary insights?
4: How can disciplinary barriers be overcome through the science of democracy?
5: How does beyond-disciplinarity help improve scholarly capacity to advance democracy?
Papers are particularly invited on these subjects:
1: Review of openness beyond disciplinarity in democracy studies across gender, seniority, regions, methodologies
2: Historical development of disciplinarity in democracy studies (including publishing practice)
3: Case studies/comparisons of engagements beyond disciplinarity in democracy studies
4: The capacity and limits of democracy studies to address challenges to democracy
5: Systematization and implications of knowledge-generative modes within democracy studies
6: Democracy studies: the value of a new discipline or transcending the language of disciplinarity?
7: Public manifestations and impacts of research on conceptions of democracy
8: The role of stakeholders within democracy studies: politics of scholarly associations and networks
Further information about the Workshop can be found at https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/WorkshopDetails/16747.
The deadline to apply is midnight GMT on 10 December 2025.
Applications are to be submitted via the ECPR website (a freely available myECPR account on the ECPR portal needs to be created and used for submission). A funding stream is available for junior scholars from ECPR full member institutions.
Contact e-mail: ms2632@cantab.ac.uk.
