I am a Professor at Nuffield College, a member of the leadership team of the British Election Study and I direct a research centre focusing on accountability, representation, British elections and political science communication beyond academia.
I am interested in supervising PhD students working on any analysis of British Election Study data other related political/attitudinal/election study data, projects on political accountability, economics and voting - in particular economic insecurity and wealth - and also political attitudes, gender, and political representation and elections more broadly. I supervise comparative projects that fall into the above substantive areas. I'm particularly interested in good theory, good designs (including qualitative as well as quantitative) and research with a clear social benefit.
I am passionate about ensuring greater representation and providing mentoring for under-represented groups in academia.
I currently have space to supervise. Please get in touch if you have a good idea - I'll need to see a research proposal.
Professional Activities
I am 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.
Previous Posts
Formerly, Professor of Political Science (2013-2018), Cathy Marsh Institute and Politics Department, University of Manchester.
I was a visiting Professor at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University, 2016, and a Visiting Scholar at the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, University of California at Berkeley, 2007.
Research
My research focuses on:
- Political behaviour
- Electoral accountability
- British voters and elections
- Policy impacts, local and national
- Survey measurement
- Understanding long-term political change
My research is primarily concerned with assessing the relationship between policy and performance and political attitudes and vote choice.
I am 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.
I am also author, with Will Jennings, of 'The Politics of Competence: Parties, Public Opinion and Voters', CUP, 2017. We show 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
I have 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
Teaching
On the MPhil degree I teach 'The Politics and Government of a Major State: The United Kingdom'. On the undergraduate PPE degree I contribute to teaching of the option 'Modern British Government and Politics'.
