Academic Staff: Felicity Matthews

Dr Felicity Matthews, BA (Hons), MA, PhD (Sheffield)

Lecturer in Governance and Public Policy

Telephone: +44 (0)114 2221651
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 1717
Room: 2:03

Profile

Felicity joined the Department of Politics in 2012 as Lecturer in Governance and Public Policy. She has previously been a member of the Department of Politics at the University of York as a Lecturer in Public Policy; held a Leverhulme Fellowship in the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield; and was awarded an ESRC-funded Post Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Exeter. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Sheffield in 2008, which considered the ability of national governments to exercise their strategic capacity and steer the policy process, analysing the extent to which this has declined or been re-shaped in recent decades. Her doctoral thesis was awarded the Sir Walter Bagehot Prize by the Political Studies Association of the UK in 2008.

Teaching

As a lecturer and active researcher, I relish the opportunity to teach students and to share my passion for the discipline. My teaching is closely aligned to my research interests and courses that I have taught have focused on the role and operation of government; British politics; and policy-making and implementation. I seek to enthuse students and use a range of devised a range of innovative teaching techniques, including research-based seminar tasks, real-time case studies, mock scenarios, videos and music.

I am the module leader for POL113 Introduction to Political Analysis. This is a core module that provides students with an introduction to the theories, methods and approaches which shape political analysis. The module encourages students to reflect on how they interpret and define political events. This involves exploring the relationship between knowledge, its validation and the methods we use to collect information. In teaching this module, I encourage students to think critically about many of the assumptions that they have about key concepts such as democracy, power and the nature of politics itself – which often leads to lively debates in seminars for all to take part in!

I am also the module leader for POL6320 Comparative Governance and Public Policy. As this MA module seeks to show, the role of the state and the effective implementation of public policies form central elements of contemporary political debates around the world. The module adopts a comparative approach in order to provide insights into the theory and practice of governance and public policy. Our MA students come from all over the world, and I encourage students to reflect on how they interpret and define political events with reference to their own backgrounds and experience for a truly comparative learning experience.

I am also responsible for supervising undergraduate projects and dissertations, MA dissertations and for supervising PhD students working on a range of exciting projects.

Dr Felicity Matthews, University of Sheffield: 'Parliament: More than Bricks and Mortar'
More Politics Brought to Life videos

Key Projects/Grants

Awarding Body: The Leverhulme Trust
People Involved: Felicity Matthews
Title of Research: ‘Governing climate change in an era of uncertainty – the political, economic and social imperatives of delivery’ – Grant Ref. No. ECF/2009/022
Years funded: 2009-11
Total award: £44,458.00

Awarding Body: ESRC
People Involved: Felicity Matthews
Title of Research: ‘Steering the British State: Emerging Patterns of Governance, the Strategic Capacity of the Centre and the Public Service Agreement Framework’ – Grant Ref. No. PTA-026-27-1718
Years funded: 2008-9
Total award: £62,311.88

Professional activities and recognition

Advises a range of national governments and non-governmental organisations in different national contexts and is engaged in knowledge transfer and the dissemination of best practice
National media profile, including publications in The Guardian
Holds a number of academic peer review roles including membership of the ESRC Peer Review College

Current Research

My research interests encompasses a number of areas, including: government, governance and state capacity; climate change, environmental policy-making and energy security; political leadership; policy design, implementation and service delivery; crisis management; and, citizen expectations and engagement. My work draws upon a wide range of empirical contexts, and I apply a broad approach to analysing to public policy in a comparative perspective, drawing inferences and lessons across different countries, sectors, policy areas and periods of time.

My research interests have been brought together under several major research projects, including ‘Governing climate change in an era of uncertainty – the political, economic and social imperatives of delivery’, which received substantial competitively-awarded funding from the Leverhulme Trust. I am also engaged in several important research networks at the national and international level. I am part of on a multi-national collaborative research project, led by Professor Petr Kopecký at the University of Leiden, which is comparing the changing nature of public appointments within contemporary governance frameworks across both democratic and newly-democratised countries. I am also involved in a exciting new research project, led by Dr Martin Lodge at the LSE and Professor Kai Wegrich at the Hertie School of Governance, which is exploring the evolving context of executive politics, and executive government, in times of crisis; and in doing so, seeks to provide fresh accounts of executive capacity in the twenty-first century.

Key Publications

Flinders, M. and Matthews, F. (2010) ‘Think Again: Patronage, Governance and the Smarter State’, Policy and Politics, 38 (4), pp. 639-56.
Flinders, M., Matthews, F. and Eason, C. (2012) ‘Political Recruitment Beyond Elections: An Exploration of the Link Between Patronage, Diversity and Democracy in the UK’, Public Administration, 90 (2), pp. 511-528.
Matthews, F. (2011) ‘Constitutional Stretching? The Elasticity of the Westminster Model in the Era of Coalition’, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 39 (4), pp. 486-509.
Matthews, F. (2012) ‘Governance and State Capacity’, in Levi-Faur, D. (ed.) Oxford Handbook of Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 281-293.
Matthews, F. (2012) ‘Wiring-Up Whitehall: Government, Governance and the Challenge of Climate’, Public Policy and Administration, 27 (2), pp. 168-189.
Matthews, F. (2013) Complexity, Fragmentation and Uncertainty – Governmental Capacity in an Evolving Polity. Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming).

View Dr Matthews' full list of publications.

PhD Supervision

I have supervised research students who work in diverse fields including European energy policy; Korean public management reform; Taiwanese environmental governance; participatory governance in India; and, the utilisation of evidence-based research in the context of post-conflict state building.

I am keen to supervise research students who in the following areas: Government and governance; state capacity; public policy and delivery; climate change; citizen engagement; political leadership; and British politics.