The Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought (APT) was formally established on 9 January 2009 at the Oxford Political Thought Conference. A constitution was agreed as were the executive officers, including Professor Richard Bellamy (UCL, Chair), Elizabeth Frazer (New College, Oxford, Treasurer) and Thom Brooks (Newcastle, Secretary). A complete list of all the committee and the text of the constitution is available on the Association Web Site at http://huss.exeter.ac.uk/politics/research/APT/index.php
The decision to create this Association was taken at the previous conference in 2008. Its 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, amongst 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 the disciplines within which political thought is to be found - and 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, 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 different research councils in the UK) by providing a mechanism for advocating the concerns of those engaged in political thought to relevant policy makers.
Second, it seeks to facilitate scholarly interaction and collaboration between the whole range of practitioners in the field.
In promoting these dual goals, the Association seeks to:
(a) 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 even advance its place within the Academy
(b) Act as a facilitator for the research activities of its membership (for example, by, among other activities, setting up a web site and e mail lists to advertise conferences and symposia, alerting members to grant opportunities and helping to link people for grant projects through a register of interests, opening up new publishing outlets for theorists and supporting existing ones through links with publishers and contacts with the main general and specialist journals to which those in the field regularly submit)
(c) Assist the exchange of ideas on teaching activities e.g. through sharing reading lists via the web site
(d) Forge connections with related associations in the UK and other countries.
The Association will be formally linked to the January Oxford Political Thought Conference, at which there will be an annual plenary meeting of the Association. All participants at this conference will automatically become members of APT for that year.
Membership costs £10 and is open to any graduate with an active involvement with the political thought community in Britain and Ireland. Requests to join should be sent to Dr Elizabeth Frazer, elizabeth.frazer [at] new.ox.ac.uk
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