Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs will hold the 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for Political Methodology on July 24-26 at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education. The meeting is being hosted by UGA’s department of political science.
This summer’s conference will bring together some 180 political science faculty and graduate students from across the U.S. and abroad. Of note, David Nickerson of Notre Dame will be reporting the results of a field experiment from Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign. His study found that receiving a personal phone call from a campaign volunteer bumped a voter’s support by 3.5 percentage points.
John Maltese, the head of the political science department, said that bringing the prestigious conference to UGA is a major coup.
“This conference will provide national exposure to our department, school and university,” Maltese said. “It will also be a remarkable opportunity for our graduate students to interact with leading scholars in our field and meet graduate students from other institutions.”
The Society for Political Methodology is a section of the American Political Science Association. The group is devoted to applying advanced statistical techniques to the study of politics. The conference has previously been hosted by Princeton, Yale, Duke and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (jointly), and the universities of Iowa, Michigan and Virginia.
Faculty members Keith T. Poole, Ryan Bakker and Jamie Monogan of SPIA’s political science department have organized the conference with the help of other faculty and students. The President’s Venture Fund, the Office of Vice President for Research, the School of Public and International Affairs and the Graduate School have all offered financial support for the conference, as has the National Science Foundation and the Philip H. Alston, Jr. Fund.
Participation in the conference is limited to those registered. However, there is limited space for interested local observers to attend the July 26 morning panels. RSVP by July 16 to polmeth31@uga.edu. More information about the conference can be found at http://spia.uga.edu/polmeth/.
