My seminar attendance has increased significantly during the Covid-19 pandemic

Reflecting on my seminar attendance last week gave my writing a much-needed boost

The Covid-19 pandemic has made a vast array of online conferences, seminars, and webinars available, most of these for free. The professionalism of the online seminars has been exceptional, and I have found much inspiration and a new-found passion for my work by engaging more than I have for some time.

Conference attendance is usually reliant on my available disposable funds, especially when there is not much funding available for conference attendance. For many years I have paid for it myself until only recently.

But this year has been tremendous and I hope the energy that has gone into online seminars continues once the pandemic is over.

Here is a list of some the seminars I have participated in or attended since September this year.

• Dr Michael de Percy, Process Tracing in Comparative Politics: Operationalising Historical Institutionalism, presentation given to SchoPES via MS Teams, 28 September 2020.
• RegNet, Critical Junctures: Reimagining Regulatory Governance - Data, 6 October 2020. 
• CEDA, Federal Budget Address by Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, 12 October 2020.
• CEDA, Budget response by Shadow Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, 15 October 2020.
• National Museum of Australia, Teaching Indigenous History, 14 and 21 October 2020.
• Dr Craig Applegate, Pushing on a piece of string? The Commonwealth’s Fiscal Policy response to the pandemic, presentation given to SchoPES via MS Teams, 26 October 2020.
• Lowy Institute, Francis Fukuyama: On Liberalism and the US Presidential Election, 18 November 2020.
• CEDA, Sustainable Development Goals can be a blueprint for COVID-19 recovery, 19 November 2020.
• Professor Lelia Green, Winning an an ARC Grant, University of Canberra via Zoom, 23 November 2020.
• RegNet, Financing energy transitions and environmental restoration: Who pays the price?, 24 November 2020.
• IPAA ACT, Defence Transformation Strategy Launch, 27 November 2020.
• CEDA, Public Interest Technology Digital Forum, 30 November-1 December 2020.
• RegNet, Street level bureaucrats in a relational state, 1 December 2020.
• BDO Australia, An Economic Perspective on Australia's Manufacturing Strategy, 2 December 2020.
• Dr Michael de Percy, Process Tracing in Historical Institutionalism, ACSPRI 7th Biennial Social Science Methodology Conference, 2 December 2020
• Professor David Hensher, Working from Home, Covid-19 and Implications for Transport Systems, ACSPRI 7th Biennial Social Science Methodology Conference, 3 December 2020.
• David Wilson, Parramatta Light Rail: Two massive projects to the north of Parramatta Railway Station, CILTA NSW Lunchtime Legends Series #2, 

The seminars highlight the important work that is being done on multiple levels and by people in all sectors of the community.

One of the highlights was learning about local manufacturer, AMSL Aero, and their latest Australian manufacturing venture into the electric air taxi industry with the Vertiia eVTOL aircraft. 

It is impossible to keep up with everything, but attending so many seminars would have been impossible if I had to attend them all in person.

My only hope is that the online seminars/webinars will continue on, or at least in hybrid modes, from now on.

It is surprising how much online skills have increased in a very short time, and while I still wish to travel and attend overseas conferences, there is much to be said for the efficiency of attending conferences from my own home office!

Operationalising Historical Institutionalism: Process Tracing in Comparative Politics

Vintage Tech and Map [CC0]

Yesterday Stephen Darlington and I presented on the panel I established for the 7th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology Conference.

I did a shorter version of my Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society presentation but had some interesting questions from audience members about using the approach for social institutions.

Stephen's presentation went a little further with layering of institutional dynamics. His slides are reproduced below with his permission.

Diagrammatic Approaches to Analysing Institutional Stasis and Change Over Time

 

Stasis and Change: Italian cars on the Tagliamento bridgehead near Tolmezzo [Public Domain]

This week I am chairing a panel at the 7th Biennial ACSPRI Social Science Methodology Conference. The conference timetable is available here. 

A video recording of an earlier version of my presentation at the Canberra School of Politics, Economics and Society is available here.

My friend and colleague, Stephen Darlington, is presenting his recent work on comparing the transition from paper to electronic health records in Australia, the United States, and Canada. Stephen has added the concept of layering to the temporal sequence model and this will be a major contribution of his presentation.

The use of diagrams is unusual in political science. Most of our work is text heavy and devoid of long lists or other "easy on the eye" ways of communicating information. But diagrams can help to conceptualise the methods adopted in research projects.

Typically, articles on historical institutionalism talk about historical institutionalism rather than demonstrating how it was actually used in research.

Following this conference, I am hoping that more scholars will be able to operationalise historical institutionalism as a result of these diagrams that help to explain what is otherwise a complex method in comparative policy research.

Later in the month, I will take the approach a step further to introduce the method to a multidisciplinary audience at the National Library of Australia's Petherick Reading Room. I hope to develop the approach to assist history researchers to provide a more systematic way of dealing with the past, as opposed to unguided historical rummaging!

One of the earliest citations of my work was of my diagrammatic approach to operationalising historical institutionalism. It appeared in a Whitlam Institute paper on climate change back in 2013. I've embedded the publication below.