Patrick A. Mello

International Politics, Security, and Methods

  • Workshop on the Party-Political Contestation of the Liberal International Order at VU Amsterdam

    On July 11, 2023, I took part in the kick-off workshop of Wolfgang Wagner’s project on the “Party-Political Contestation of the Liberal International Order”, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and organized at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. The workshop opened with a keynote address from Stephanie Hofmann (European University Institute) on “Global Politics, Democratic States, and Political Parties, Avenues for Research”. This was followed by two panels with presentations from PhD researchers (Baris Ertürk, Sungmi Shin, Richard Sonneveld, Martina Stankova, Christina Stremming, and Vanessa Vohs) and a host of expert discussants. Together with Atsushi Tago (Waseda University), I served as discussant for Sungmi Shin’s PhD research proposal on “Foreign Policy Space of Party Politics in South Korea and Japan”.

  • Mitgliederversammlung der DVPW-Themengruppe Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik 2023

    Im Rahmen der IB-Sektionstagung an der Zeppelin Universität in Friedrichshafen fand am 16. Juni 2023 die hybride Mitgliederversammlung der DVPW-Themengruppe Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik statt. Anschließend an den Bericht des bisherigen SprecherInnen-Teams über Aktivitäten und Publikationen der Themengruppe und Neuigkeiten aus dem Rat der DVPW wurde ein neues SprecherInnen-Team gewählt.

    Neben anderen Publikationen ist besonders auf das kürzlich erschienene Routledge Handbook of Foreign Policy Analysis Methods (2023) hinzuweisen, dessen Konzeption mit einem durch die Themengruppe ausgerichteten Workshop an der Universität Erfurt im Herbst 2019 begann und zu dessen 34 Kapiteln neben internationalen Beitragenden auch viele Mitglieder der Themengruppe beigesteuert haben.

    Seit Januar 2021 hat die Themengruppe 14 “virtuelle Kolloquien” organisiert (siehe Folie), wobei jeweils ein aktuelles Paper zu außenpolitischen Fragen diskutiert wurde.Wir freuen uns darüber, wie erfolgreich die Idee des virtuellen Kolloquiums der Themengruppe aufgenommen wurde und bedanken uns bei all den Kolleginnen und Kollegen, die uns seither mit Beiträgen und als Discussant unterstützt haben.

    Seit einigen Jahren ist es möglich, sich innerhalb der DVPW einzelnen Gliederungen zuzuordnen. Aktuell haben sich 119 Personen der Themengruppe Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik zugeordnet, was einen Zuwachs um 20% (seit 2021) bedeutet. Neben einem Twitter-Account (@dvpw_aussenpol) betreibt die Themengruppe auch eine Mailingliste (Anmeldung). Wir freuen uns sehr über die breite Unterstützung und das Interesse an der Arbeit der Themengruppe.

    Nach zwei Amtszeiten in der Themengruppe (2017 bis 2023) haben Gordon Friedrichs (Freiburg) und ich turnusgemäß nicht mehr für das SprecherInnen-Team kandidiert. Sabine Mokry (Hamburg) und Falk Ostermann (Kiel) wurden für eine zweite Amtszeit gemeinsam mit Florian Böller (Kaiserslautern), Stephan Fouquet (Eichstätt) und Antje Nötzold (Chemnitz) gewählt.

    Ich wünsche dem neuen Team viel Erfolg für die anstehende Arbeit und die kommenden Aktivitäten! Es war mir eine Freude, zusammen mit Sabine Mokry, Gordon Friedrichs und Falk Ostermann (und zuvor mit Sandra Destradi und Klaus Brummer) die Geschicke der Themengruppe zu leiten.

  • Tagung der DVPW-Sektion Internationale Beziehungen an der Zeppelin Universität

    Vom 14. bis 16. Juni 2023 fand die Tagung der DVPW-Sektion Internationale Beziehungen an der Zeppelin Universität in Friedrichshafen am Bodensee statt (Programm), organisiert durch das Team des Lehrstuhls für Internationale Sicherheitspolitik von Simon Koschut. Im Panel “die Krise des liberalen Interventionismus und die Rückkehr von Krieg in Europa” habe ich ein Paper zur Zeitenwende in der deutschen Sicherheitspolitik vorgestellt (Chair: Elke Krahmann, Discussant: Anna Geis), mit weiteren Beiträgen von Cornelia Baciu, Falk Ostermann, Wolfgang Wagner, Florian Böller und Georg Wenzelburger. Zudem war ich Discussant im Panel “Studying the Rusian-Ukrainian War: Local, Regional, and Global Implications”, mit Thomas Risse als Chair und Beiträgen von Gerald Schneider, Alessia Invernizzi, Olena Osypenkova und Tim Büthe.

  • Delegation from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Visits Japanese Research Institutions

    Between May 20-28, I was part of an interdisciplinary delegation of researchers and international office staff from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam to visit Japanese research institutions, to foster new collaborations, and to reconnect with local partners. Apart from many individual meetings, we collectively visited the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST), Keio University, Waseda University, and took part in an event and roundtable discussion at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Tokyo, where we also met with alumni from the Vrije Universiteit. The interdisciplinary delegation comprised 24 members from five faculties of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.

  • Guest Lecture on German Foreign Policy at Waseda University, Tokyo

    On May 24, I was invited to give a guest lecture at the Faculty of Political Science and Economics of Waseda University in Atushi Tago‘s undergraduate course on International Relations. I presented findings from a working paper “Zeitenwende: German Security Policy in the Wake of the Afghanistan Withdrawal and Russia’s War against Ukraine” , and related these to current developments in Japan. Many thanks to the students for their intriguing questions after the talk and to Atsushi Tago for hosting me at Waseda University!

  • Chikura Shobo to Publish Japanese Translation of Qualitative Comparative Analysis

    The Japanese academic publisher Chikura Shobo has acquired the rights to translate Qualitative Comparative Analysis: An Introduction to Research Design and Application (Georgetown University Press, 2021) into Japanese. The Japanese edition will be published in late 2023/early 2024. The translator is Professor Nobukazu Azuma of Aoyama Gakuin University. On May 23, I met with him in the offices of Chikura Shobo in Tokyo.

  • QCA Workshop at Waseda University, Tokyo

    On May 22, I gave a QCA workshop at Waseda University in Tokyo, hosted by and co-organized with Airo Hino at the Institute of Political Economy of the Faculty of Political Science and Economics, and Sho Niikawa of Kobe University. During the workshop, which was conducted in hybrid format, I gave a talk on “Recent Advances and Trends in Qualitative Comparative Analysis” , including a discussion of combining process tracing and QCA (based on work co-authored with Hilde van Meegdenburg of Leiden University). This was followed by a broader discussion with the participants, and paper presentations on recent QCA applications by Masaki Unohara (Kobe University) and Sho Niikawa (Kobe University), and Ruifei Wang (Kobe University). Many thanks to all participants (in-presence and online) and to Airo Hino for hosting this workshop at Waseda University!

  • QCA Workshop at Humboldt-Universität Berlin

    On March 28-29, I gave an applied workshop on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) at the Center for Comparative Research on Democracy at the Department of Social Sciences of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. The workshop was tailored for researchers of the project “Judicial Autonomy under Authoritarian Attack”, led by Prof. Dr. Silvia von Steinsdorff, and funded by the Einstein Foundation Berlin. The two-day workshop followed up on a virtual preparatory session to provide a comprehensive introduction to the method and approach of QCA and its application in the R software environment, based on my book Qualitative Comparative Analysis: An Introduction to Research Design and Application (Georgetown University Press) and the accompanying R Manual. Particular emphasis was placed on finding a suitable QCA research design in line with the broader aims of the project. Many thanks to the whole project team for the warm welcome in Berlin and the engaged and constructive discussions!

  • ISA 2023 Annual Convention in Montréal

    On March 15-18, 2023, the 64th Annual Convention of the International Studies Association took place Montréal, Canada. I had four program appearances. First, I co-chaired a roundtable (with Falk Ostermann, Kiel University) on our recently published Routledge Handbook of Foreign Policy Analysis Methods, with contributions from panelists (and contributors to our handbook) Marijke Breuning (University of North Texas), Simon Koschut (Zeppelin University), Sibel Oktay (University of Illinois at Springfield), Hilde van Meegdenburg (Leiden University), and discussant Susan Hannah Allen (University of Mississippi). I further presented a paper on the German Zeitenwende in Foreign and Security Policy in a panel on “The Crisis of Liberal Interventionism”, organized by Cornelia Bacius (University of Copenhagen), with discussant Sibel Oktay and chaired by Brian Rathbun (University of Southern California). I also co-chaired the Foreign Policy Analysis Methods Café (with Marijke Breuning and Falk Ostermann), where I introduced and discussed Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), at one of 7 expert tables in the methods café. Finally, I served as chair and discussant in a panel on “Foreign Influence in the Middle East and North Africa”, with contributions from Nikolaos Lampas (Deree, The American College of Greece), Ora Szekely (Clark University), and Cindy May (London School of Economics and Political Science). Besides these panels, I also took part in the Editorial Board meeting of Foreign Policy Analysis and the FPA Section‘s business meeting, where I had served on the book award committee, together with Sibel Oktay and chaired by Dursun Peksen (Memphis University). Last but not least, we had our traditional “early-bird” Friday 7:15am meeting of the German Political Science Association’s (DVPW) group on foreign and security policy, together with Gordon Friedrichs (University of Freiburg) and Falk Ostermann. We were happy about a nice and diverse turnout of colleagues, despite the early time.

  • QCA Summer School Workshop in Lugano

    This summer I’ll be offering a workshop on Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), as part of the Summer School in Social Science Methods at the Università della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano. This will be the 5th time that I’m holding a QCA workshop in Lugano (on previous courses, see here). The workshop runs for a full week and covers the entire research design cycle of QCA with R and its packages, including the application and interpretation of findings and advanced topics such as multi-method research, addressing critiques and peer reviews, and increasing the robustness of one’s study. There are also opportunities for the presentation of own work and individual consultation on QCA research design. The workshop is based on my textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: An Introduction to Research Design and Application, published with Georgetown University Press (2021), see also the online content hosted on Harvard Dataverse. In case you’re interested in participating in this workshop but have questions about it, please feel free to contact me.