Remembering ESIPP

European Summer Institute in Political Psychology: Memories of an intellectual inspiration

The SWPS - Warsaw School of Social Psychology - welcomed the first European Summer Institute in Political Psychology (ESIPP) under the auspices of the International Society of Political Psychology (ISPP) at the beginning of July for two weeks. This first experience was in fact very stimulating both in human relation and in political field. The main purpose of this meeting was to learn and discuss about the social world, as well as politics events and the fast growing changes of the newborn century. The use of social psychology and political science as focus points and tools set has given tracks, theory and ideas that had serve the goals of the institute. Because of the open structure wished by organisers, that became far more than just another round table about social issues. The first motivation that emerges from the institute was to replicate the large diversity of the ISPP, and the source of inspiration for this endeavour. This diversity includes countries diversity, scientific and cultural diversity. Student and teachers came from all over the world, from Europe (Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, England, France), from eastern countries (Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Poland, Romania, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia), from USA and from Australia. Thus, twenty-four different countries were represented in the summer institute. We all came with the idea of sharing knowledge, not only to listen to lecture, but also to meet other points of view, other kind of perception. Social psychology is and should be even more, as pointed by one lecturer, Steven Reicher, as political as social, not only because we want to see how theories work in reality, but also because the world is challenging us, more and more, and because we have already some good clues that on how people behave, interact, think about their world. The participation of Eastern and Western cultures soon became a very delightful experience for participants who could confront themselves to different kind of foreign policies, and certainly to one of the major changes in world politics of the end of the last century, the arousal of new democracies, where economic and social functions sometimes undermined political renewal. The discussion that took place between the participants make us believe in the needs of social science and in the usefulness of dealing with such important issue on which we could certainly help to get some part of the answers. But not only were people from 24 countries, they were from different disciplines. Some of the participants came from social psychology, but they also came from political science, sociology, history, philology reproducing the fields already present in the International Society for Political Psychology. The discussion went on the level of watching the world but also on the methods, the theories that were able to be the more powerful both to explain and to offer the best option for dealing with social phenomena. That of course doesn't take in account the lectures, but we all came with some knowledge as said before, and maybe this is what will last for long is this particular feeling of having met other path in social science. Next to that felling were some professors that drive us through some of the most recent insightful topics. George Marcus gave us a look of neuroscience and emotion in political issues such as voting behaviour and the perception of political behaviour and cognition in emotional states while Steven Reicher was passionately trying to show how social categories, social identity and leadership could mean something in the hope of dynamic social changes and maybe even create some part of a future. Daniel Bar-Tal came from Israel with a deep corpus of what we should all know about conflicts, and especially intractable conflict, with special meanings in regard to the current political situation in his area. The understanding of important American policies issues are particularly common for Leonard Saxe from Brandeis University, as he deals with large studies that make policy go one, and sometimes offers some real answers to the politician. Not to say he is very hopeful of the future, he still thinks we got both some methodological and theoretical power to argue with politician that are, to trust him, not so closed-minded as they sometimes seems to be. Helen Haste, current President of ISPP, spoke about a social and political issue, the genders. Some enthusiastic discussions arise about what seems still unacceptable or just irritating and about what should be done, again an especially polemical topic. David Winter gave an overview how to use a method of content analysis and lectured about leaders, taking motivational perspective. An interesting overview of Poland’s politics was presented by Janusz Reykowski, one of the founders of the Warsaw Social Psychology School and co-director of this institute with Daniel Bar-Tal. He offered us both lecture of his work about psychological analysis of democracy and description of Agnieszka Golec’s study on the cognitive complexity of politicians. We also had a discussion with one of the founder of Solidarity movement reminding us of the deep social problems underlying political changes. Following that path, some political scientists and psychologists presented large descriptive surveys on political transformation in former eastern bloc and in civic education, in Poland with Radoslaw Markowski, some more experimental part on political representation, on Russia with Helen Shestopal on authoritarianism and finally on citizenship education of children with Adam Fraczek and Barbara Fratczak-Rudnicka. Some of the professors conducted workshops about teaching of political psychology (Helen Haste, George Marcus and David Winter), so we no only knew more but we could pass on more.
This short overview of the lecturers is just telling us one thing: it is possible to use social psychology, and political psychology, to grasp the world complexity and finally do what we should do as social researcher - perhaps just why we choose this path some time ago - to dare present our work, share it with other researcher, challenge our theories and use them as a political force to help and be part of social evolution.
The main conclusion to be drawn here is the crucial weight of diversity of thought, methods and theories, again, not in an erratic way, but as a source for a wonderful felling of working in a rich, living and creative scientific discipline. Furthermore I must say, as European citizen, that it’s quite time to really construct an European field in political psychology, and this kind of great experience could certainly be the roots of it.

Special thanks to the two sisters who worked so hard to make our stay enjoyable: Agnieszka and Maya Golec. And to the junior teachers who made alive the discussions, always open and fruitful: Elzbieta Wesolowska from Poland, Bojan Todosijevic, from Yugoslavia and Christopher M. Frederico from USA.

Thomas Arciszewski

1. Thomas, Sven and Janina	2. Svitoslav, Sophie, Natalia and Beata
3. The Green - social movements - thematic group with their leaders Steve & Bojan	4. Black - politics and emotions - thematic track with Ela in the foreground
5. Black group again, - Julian, Diana, Gili and Danielle in action	6. Public panel discussion World without war: Political psychology for intractable conflict: Professor Reykowski introducing the panelists – Professors Bar-Tal, Marcus, Reicher and Fraczek.
7. Diana, Gili, Od and Giorgi	8. Girts, Yulia, Alina, Tania and Ola in their Red – political conflict – thematic path
9. Lunch time discussion tables: Steve, Girts, Stefania, Chris and Alina in the foreground. Wasn’t the food really good?	10. Coffee break – Bojan, Danny Bar-Tal and George Marcus
11. Another lunch scene – Sophie, Leda, Lavinia, Martina, Luda, Maciek, Magda and Szymon	12. ESIPP crew paying attention during one of their morning lectures
13. Professor Reicher lecturing on social identity or trying to talk ESIPPers into the folk songs contest	14. Professor Marcus lecturing on emotions and stereotypes (as you can see on the whiteboard)
15. Len Saxe	16. Ela and Bojan
17. Steve and Chris	18. Professor Bar-Tal lecturing, probably about cognitive repertoire
19. Professor Saxe and Professor Bar-Tal :)