Author’s Guide

SUBMISSION: Abstracts must be submitted electronically using the Submit Abstract link on the conference web page.

FREQUENCY: Online publication once annually.

LICENCE TO PUBLISH: The corresponding author must complete and sign and email the Licence to Publish form upon submission of abstract. The content will be licensed under the Creative Commons BY 3.0 license. The details of the license can be found here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

ONLINE PUBLICATION: All abstracts will be published on the Scholarship@Western webpage for the Western Research Forum hosted by Western Libraries.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Authors are responsible for indicating any conflicts and/or disclosure in the comments section. If there are not competing interests, then the author(s) may indicate this with a single sentence, such as “The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.”

ABSTRACTS: Abstracts are limited to 250-words, not including references and titles. Abstracts should be written using lay language so as to be accessible to readers from other disciplines.

EXAMPLE ABSTRACT

Public Policy in Israel and Beyond: The “Politics” of Mental Representations

Background:
The following paper explores the role of mental representations in the formulation of public policy in Israel and argues three features are present in policymaking. First, public policy generally reflects the mindset of the wider population. Second, the influence of state leaders on public policy is of paramount importance. Lastly, interest groups, including religious and political parties, have a significant role to play in formulating public policy.

Methods: The three features in policymaking is applied to the Israeli education system; specifically, it compares and contrasts the cases of Yitzhak Rabin and Naftali Bennett, two very different past and present Ministers of Education in Israel.

Results: The three features of public policy presented allow us to consider how the process of authorizing and implementing public policy in Israel can be modified for the better, in the hope of creating a better inclusion of marginalized individuals and groups.

Discussion & Conclusion: This paper concludes by arguing that mental representations affect the nature of policymaking first and foremost, and further inspection into the psychological side of policymaking is crucial.

CONTACT: If you have any questions regarding these guidelines, please contact sogs.academiccommittee@gmail.com