Jane is Professor of Political Science and British Politics, DPIR. She is Director of the Nuffield Politics Research Centre; Co-Director of the British Election Study; President of the British Politics Group of the American Political Science Association; Elections Analyst for ITV News' twice BAFTA nominated live election results programmes; winner of the 2015 Political Studies Association ‘Research Communicator of the Year’; a Senior Fellow at the Centre for British Politics at the University of Hull and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences
Jane is a member of the leadership team of the British Election Study. She directs a research centre focusing on accountability, representation, British elections and political science communication beyond academia.
Jane’s research focuses on:
- Political behaviour
- Electoral accountability
- British voters and elections
- Policy impacts, local and national
- Survey measurement
- Understanding long-term political change
Her research is primarily concerned with assessing the relationship between policy and performance and political attitudes and vote choice.
Additionally, Jane is a co-author (with the British Election Study team), of 'Electoral Shocks: Understanding the Volatile Voter in a Turbulent World', OUP. This book explains how the British party system is destabilizing due to the combination of electoral shocks and over time increases in underlying electoral volatility.
She is also author, with Will Jennings, of 'The Politics of Competence: Parties, Public Opinion and Voters', CUP, 2017. The book shows how shocks cause substantial changes to party policy reputations, how voters generalise competence assessments across the policy agenda, and how governments suffer costs of ruling due to predictable over-time dynamics in the attribution of blame.
Media
Jane has provided on-screen commentary and analysis on the following subjects to national and international broadcasters:
- Public opinion in the UK
- Elections (UK, US)
- British politics