Applications for the Summer School on Methods for the Study of Political Participation and Mobilization are due on April 15^th 2013.

The Summer School  supported by the ECPR Standing Group on Participation and Mobilization and the Centre on Social Movement Studies (COSMOS) at the European University Institute. It will take place at the European University Institute from the 16^th to the 27^th of September 2013. Participants will focus on how to analyze present and past forms of grassroots participation activated by social movement and civil society actors at the local, regional and transnational level. More in general, the Summer School aims at disseminating knowledge on how to investigate processes and mechanisms that sustain the active citizens' participation to and mobilization in the realm of politics.

Grassroots participation and radical democracy have been at the center of the public and political debate in 2011 and 2012, when a new wave of contention crossed the entire world: from the Arab countries to North America; from Latin America to European countries. The emergence of a new wave of contention requires scholars to reflect on the research strategies and methodologies that are employed to study grassroots participation and radical democracy.

Although there is a considerable amount of research done on how social movements and civil society actors mobilize, specialized literature on how to actually investigate this phenomena is rare, although increasingly necessary with the recent wave of contention that mobilized citizens in the Arab, European and American countries. The Summer School addresses this gap discussing how to apply the most common methods in the social sciences to investigate political participation and mobilization.

For more information about the application procedure, participation fees and academic programme, please visit the Summer School webpage at www.eui.eu/pam_summerschool_2013 and/or contact the Summer School organizing committee at pam.summerschool@gmail.com