http://www.sam.kau.se/stv/participation/pisa_2007/index.htm 4th ECPR General Conference, Pisa 6-8 September 2007 Standing Group: "Forms of Participation" Quantitative and qualitative methods for the study of new and old forms of political participation Chairs: Moses Boudourides (mboudour@upatras.gr), Luigi Ceccarini (l.ceccarini@uniurb.it) This panel focuses on methodological issues related to political participation and its transformations. It welcomes papers from scholars who have conducted or are currently involved in conducting research on political participation and have tested (or defined) new measures or have revisited the classical ones in their studies of collective action and its expressions. In particular, the panel will address the following topics: new hypotheses and new theoretical perspectives for explaining current participation and involvement; the adaptation of classical concepts theoretically and methodologically for the study of new democracies; innovative operational definitions of concepts related to participation; typologies that include the traditional as well as "emerging" forms of individualized or collectivistic actions like political consumerism and modes of e-participation, and how the Internet and Internet-based methods can be used to study political participation. Guidelines and deadlines for participants Prospective participants should contact the chairs of the panel in which they are interested, bearing in mind that they will be expected to present a paper and should, therefore, be conducting advanced research in that particular area. Deadline for applications to panels: 31 January 2007. An application to participate should include a short summary of the proposed paper (maximum 250 words). Panel directors will inform applicants as to whether they have been accepted shortly after the deadline for applications has passed. Confirmation of participation by those accepted should be made to them as soon as possible, so that if there are any spaces, people on reserve lists can be offered places. Once accepted, paper givers should complete the GC3 form and send it to their panel chair as an email attachment.