The 21st SCANCOR PhD course

From August 25th to 29th, the Department of Government at the University of Bergen hosted the 21st SCANCOR PhD course on institutional analysis. The course brought together PhD candidates and internationally recognized scholars from a range of universities to engage in in-depth discussions on recent and ongoing research, theoretical developments and methodological approaches in institutional theory. 

This year's course gathered 22 PhD candidates affiliated with universities in 9 different countries, creating a truly international academical environment. Over the course of five intensive days, participants explored how institutions emerge, evolve, and change over time, drawing on a variety of theoretical lenses, including temporal dynamics, power, world society theory and social movement theory. Particular attentionwas given to how institutional theory can help us better understand contemporary social, political and economic challanges, as well as the theoretical challenges of explaining institutional change. 

PhD candidates had the oppurtunity to discuss their individual projects and to develop a stronger understanding of how to align conseptual questions with research methods. The course aims to provide participants with new insights, tools, and a solid foundation for pursuing research within the institutional tradition. 

The daily program was structured in two parts: public morning lectures and closed afternoon sessions. During the morning lectures, both local and international faculty presented and discussed state-of-the-art research in institutional theory. These lectures were open to the public and attracted a broad academic audience. The afternoon sessions were reserved for enrolled PhD candidates and focused on in-depth discussions of both classical and contemporary institutional scholarship. 

Here is a list over all the public lectures:

Renate E. Meyer, from WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Title: ‘One frame to bind them all?’ A multimodal analysis of anti-vaccination framing on social media

Martina Vukasovic, from University of Bergen

Title: Defending democracy through large scale institutional work – from an illustration to a research agenda

Woody Powell, from Stanford University

Title: Institutional persistence and change: How an arbitrary classification became entangled in economic, political and cultural forces and endures to this day

Gro Kvåle, from Univerity of Agder

Title: Social evaluation and the implications of engaging with “the wrong people”

Bruce G. Carruthers, from Northwestern University

Title: Long-term decisions in historical perspective: Seeds, stone arches, trees, wealth, and hot waste

Roxana Baltaru, from Unviersity of Bergen

Title: Norms, culture and commitments in universities

Sarah A. Soule, from Stanford University

Title: The head or the heart? Exploring the psychological underpinnings of social movement mobilization

Simon Neby, from Unviersity of Bergen

Title: Everything, everywhere, all at once: the temporal complexities, mismatches and asymmetries embedded in climate governance

Patricia Bromley, from Stanford University

Title: Education reform and the postliberal era

Gili S. Drori, from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Title: Academic publicness: on the global organization of university-society relations

Previous editions of the SCANCOR PhD course have been hosted by institutions such as Stanford University, the University of Oslo, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Stockholm School of Economics, and WU Vienna. This year, the Department of Government was proud to serve as host, reflecting the deprtment's strong academic environment and commitment to institutional research.