Comparative Politics

Research Groups: Comparative Politics

The Sheffield approach to comparative politics is pluralistic and inclusive. We have no a priori assumptions about theory, method or scope of enquiry. Students and faculty are encouraged to critically engage with substantive issues of politics from around the globe, and to consider the use of large n, small n and mixed methods as well as questions relating to the trade off between breadth and depth of focus and the utility of different approaches and frameworks.

The comparative politics RTG draws on established faculty expertise in comparative democratisation, identity politics, electoral behaviour, public opinion, political parties, nationalism and ethnic conflict, political economy, public policy analysis, trade unions, social movements, environmental politics and policy, game theory and other forms of formal modelling, as well as the application of normative political theory to practical politics. We welcome input and new approaches from PGR students and provide a collegiate and constructive forum for the presentation of new research.

Research Projects

Constitution Design

Matt Flinders is working on a project with Adrian Vatter (University of Zurich) updating and revising Lijphart's constitutional political analysis in relation to the UK and Switzerland. This examines the two classic extremes on the majoritarian-consensus typology and seeks to understand how and why they have evolved since 1996. This involves re-calibrating the conceptual map of democracy.

Georgina Waylen is working on a comparative research project analysing the ways in which post conflict constitutional settlements are gendered focusing particularly on South Africa and Northern Ireland.

Democratisation

Katharine Adeney is working on contemporary events in Pakistan, particularly the events leading to the 2008 elections and their aftermath. She is concerned to examine the potential for a sustainable transition to democracy, given the historical and structural impediments against a successful consolidation.

Gender and Comparative Politics

Georgina Waylen is the lead researcher for the South Africa part of a Leverhulme Programme on gendered ceremony and ritual in parliaments together with colleagues from Warwick, Birkbeck and Bristol Universities. Together with colleagues from the Universities of Sydney, Edinburgh and Washington, St Louis, she is developing a feminist institutionalism as part of the Feminist Institutionalism International Network. She is also part of a project which is developing a comparative politics of gender based at Case Western Reserve University, USA.

Europeanisation

Simon Bulmer is working in particular on British-German comparisons of EU-member state relations and Eurpeanisation. He is generally concerned with cross-national analysis of the impact of Europeanisation and of EU-member states more generally.

Identity Politics

Katharine Adeney is currently investigating how the Pakistani state in its different institutional guises and at different levels has anticipated and responded to the demands of different groups. These different groups are primarily defined in ethno-linguistic terms but also need to be disaggregated according to region, religion, urbanity and levels of education. The objective is to decipher whether any bias can be discerned in the Pakistani state´s allocation of resources to different groups and in turn, how, over time, this affects the affinity of these groups with the Pakistani state.

Alistair McMillan is currently working on a comparative study of group representation across South Asia.

International and Comparative Political Economy

Tony Heron has recently begun work on a three-year ESRC project on the politics of trade-related assistance and capacity building in small states. The project focuses on the impact of trade preference erosion in the Caribbean, Southern Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. He is currently completing a book on the politics of economic liberalisation in the global textiles and clothing industry.

International Migration

Andrew Geddes is currently working on a comparative analysis of state, regional and international responses to international migration; comparative across migration types, across forms of regional governance and across normative and ethical claims associated with this field of analysis.

Multilevel Governance

Matt Flinders and Ian Bache are working on a project on Transport Policy, Climate Change and Multi-Level Governance. This research forms part of the new ESRC Transport Research Centre's first round of major research projects. It will examine different modes of governing both vertically and horizontally and will be based upon both quantitative and qualitative analysis.

Andrew Taylor, Andrew Geddes, Charlie Lees and Ian Bache are working on a project on Multi-level governance in South East Europe. This project investigates if political engagement with the European Union (EU) has changed the nature of domestic policy-making and promoted `multi-level governance´- a growing interdependence between governmental and non-governmental actors across national, sub-national and international levels. The project examines developments between 1995 and 2007 in four south east European countries, whose engagement with the EU is at different stages: one state that has been a member of the EU throughout the period (Greece); one that joined roughly mid-way through the study period (Slovenia), one projected to join (Croatia); and one moving to accession (Macedonia).

Political Parties

Matt Flinders is working on a project co-ordinated by Peter Mair (European University Institute, Florence, involving research teams in 22 countries. The main focus is to understand the nature and reach of ministerial and political party patronage powers and how they have evolved during the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. The UK team consists of Matthew Flinders (Sheffield) and Felicity Matthews (Exeter) and the fieldwork has involved a series of semi-structured elite interviews and the analysis of primary documents and resources. The central finding of the UK team is that the process can be interpreted as a shift from patronage to public appointments.

Charlie Lees is currently applying for funding (with Phil Larkin, Australian National University) to pursue research on a comparative analysis of the impact of institutional settings and norms on the internal governance, programmatic development, government participation, and external links of political parties. The study will concentrate on the party family of social democratic parties and be grounded in three case studies of the German SPD, British Labour Party and Australian Labor Party. The dependent variable is the process of programmatic development and adaptation around the notion of (national) `competitiveness´. The independent and/or intervening variables under consideration are EU membership (UK and Germany versus Australia), the legacy of membership of the so-called `White Commonwealth´ and/or the `Anglo-sphere´ (UK and Australia versus Germany), and (devolved) unitary versus federal state structures (UK versus Germany and Australia).

Public Opinion

Sean Carey is currently working on a project that analyses the relationship between the content of online news media and public attitudes to political entities, such as leaders, issues and events.