Social network analysis is now making its way into politcal science. (Until quite recently, within social science social network research was pretty much confined to sociology.) In any event, some of the political science applications are pretty cool, and the methodology itself appears to be potentially exploitable for understanding a wIde array of political phenomena.
We’re pleased to help publicize the call for papers to be presented at a special conference on social networks this summer at Harvard.
Here are the particulars, as provided by the program committee for the conference — Christopher Ansell (UC Berkeley), James Fowler (UCSD), Michael Heaney (Florida), David Lazer (Harvard), Scott McClurg (Southern Illinois), John Padgett (Chicago), John Scholz (Florida State), Sarah Reckhow (UC Berkeley), Paul Thurner (Mannheim), and Michael Ward (University of Washington):
bq. We announce an open call for paper proposals for presentation at a conference on “Networks in Political Science” (NIPS), aimed at all of the subdisciplines of political science. NIPS is supported by the National Science Foundation, and sponsored by the Program on Networked Governance at Harvard University.
bq. The conference will take place June 13-14. Preceding the conference will be a series of workshops introducing existing substantive areas of research, statistical methods (and software packages) for dealing with the distinctive dependencies of network data, and network visualization. There will be a $50 conference fee. Limited funding will be available to defray the costs of attendance for doctoral students and recent (post-2005) Ph.D.s. Funding may be available for graduate students not presenting papers, but preference will be given to students using network analysis in their dissertations. Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply.
bq. The deadline for submitting a paper proposal is March 1, 2008.
bq. Proposals should include a title and a one-paragraph abstract. Graduate students and recent Ph.D.?s applying for funding should also include their CV, a letter of support from their advisor, and a brief statement about their intended use of network analysis. Submit these materials to networked_governance@ksg.harvard.edu. The final program will be available at http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/netgov.