Welcome to the West of England and Wales PSA Postgraduate Conference website. The conference, which is being hosted this year by the University of Bristol’s Department of Politics, will take place on 1st March, 2008. It offers postgraduate students the chance to share ideas in a friendly and supportive research environment, and to benefit from the vibrant research community in the West of England and Wales.

We’re seeking paper and/or panel submissions on all aspects of politics and international relations. Past conferences have touched upon a diverse range of themes, and we are keen to make this year’s conference similarly eclectic. We therefore welcome submissions focusing on topics as wide-reaching as development, comparative politics, political economy, securitisation, conflict and post-war recovery, social movements and activism, post-positivist and critical approaches, gender studies, labour movements, and so on.

Lively and provocative keynote addresses will come from two experts in the field of politics. Terrell Carver, acclaimed author of numerous works on Marx/Marxism and gender theory, and Professor of Political Theory, will discuss ways to build and manage an academic career, in a talk which asks ‘Would a Sane Person Want an Academic Job?’ Dr. Eric Herring, author of Iraq in Fragments: The Occupation and its Legacy, and founder of the Network of Activist Scholars of Politics and International Relations (NASPIR), discusses the potential of politically-engaged academic work, as he raises the question ‘What’s the Point of Politics Scholarship?’