Democracy and Elections
We bring together political scientists and sociologists who study democracy, citizen participation and elections.
About
Research undertaken within Democracy and Elections at Manchester focuses on the challenges facing representative institutions and electoral politics, including the decline of trust in democratic institutions, the weakening of established parties, increasing electoral volatility, the rise of populism, the increased use of digital campaigning in elections, electoral fraud, and gender and racial inequalities.
The mission of Democracy and Elections at Manchester is to provide informed and academic insights into these trends, and to reveal how political attitudes, behaviour, and institutions are changing in Britain and beyond.
Highlights
- British Election Study (ESRC-funded), run in conjunction with the University of Oxford. Principal Investigator Professor Ed Fieldhouse and Co-Investigator Dr Jon Mellon
- Digital Campaigning and Electoral Democracy (ERC Advanced Grant). Principal Investigator Professor Rachel Gibson and Co-Investigator Dr Marta Cantijoch Cunill
- MOBILISE ‘Determinants of ‘Mobilisation’ at Home and Abroad: Analysing the Micro-Foundations of Out-Migration and Mass Protest.’ (ESRC-funded) Principal Investigator: Dr Ola Onuch
- Members of Democracy and Elections work closely with the Cathie Marsh Institute (CMI – Professor Rachel Gibson and Professor Maria Sobolewska) and the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity (CODE – Professor Maria Sobolewska and Dr Neema Begum) within the University of Manchester.
- Democracy and Elections are involved in external partnerships including with UK in a Changing Europe (Fellows Professor Rob Ford and Professor Maria Sobolewska) and the Political Studies Association (Dr Nicole Martin co-convenes the Race, Migration, and Intersectionality specialist group; Dr Rosalind Shorrocks co-convenes the Political Methodology specialist group).
- A selection of prizes won by members of the Democracy and Elections cluster include:
- Professor Maria Sobolewska 2021 winner of the Political Studies Association Joni Lovenduski Prize for outstanding professional achievement by a mid-career scholar.
- Dr Anna Sanders 2021 winner of the Political Studies Association McDougall Trust Prize for best dissertation in elections, electoral systems, and representation.
- Dr Anna Sanders and Dr Rosalind Shorrocks 2019 winners of the John Peterson Prize for the best article in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations for ‘All in this together? Austerity and the gender-age gap in the 2015 and 2017 British general elections.’
- Dr Jon Mellon 2018 winner of the Louis Brownlow Award for best article in Public Administration Review by a practitioner for ‘The Effect of Bureaucratic Responsiveness on Citizen Participation.’
- Professor Rob Ford and Dr Jon Mellon 2017 Political Studies Association special recognition award for the BBC/ITV/Sky 2017 Exit Poll
People
Academic staff
Jack Bailey – economic voting, polling, statistics, sexual minority voting behaviour
Neema Begum – ethnicity, race, ethnic minorities, Brexit
Marta Cantijoch Cunill – political communication, elections and voting, new media, political behaviour, internet use and politics
Jackie Carter – use of data in learning and teaching, Q-Step
Ed Fieldhouse – electoral geography, political participation, social influences on voter turnout
Rob Ford – political sociology, immigration politics, extreme right, psephology
Rachel Gibson – new media, candidates, political campaigns, elections, digital technologies
Nicole Martin – ethnicity, immigration, political behaviour, longitudinal studies
Jonathan Mellon – British electoral politics, electoral volatility, tactical voting, polling, psephology
Olga Onuch – Ukrainian and Argentine politics, protest politics, political behaviour, governance
Rosalind Shorrocks – gender, British politics, electoral politics, social attitudes, feminism
Maria Sobolewska – ethnicity, integration, immigration, public opinion, race
Postgraduate Researchers
Chris Butler – policy responsiveness, UK governments, electoral incentives, political polling
Francisco Espinoza – electoral volatility, Latin America, social stratification
Ceri Fowler – gender, electoral behaviour, EU referendum
James Griffiths – nationalism in multi-nation states, sub-state nationalisms, public opinion
Alex Hartland – public opinion, interest groups, immigration policy
Marta Miori – Scottish independence, Brexit, Scottish politics, electoral behaviour
Kenneth Rushworth – electoral registration, political attitudes, automatic registration
Ralph Scott – education, political attitudes, vote choice, longitudinal data
Associates and Alumni
David Cutts – political behaviour, civic engagement, party and political campaigning
Matthew Goodwin – Euroscepticism, prejudice, far-right politics
Will Jennings – political trust, institutions, executive government
Peter John – electoral behaviour, social capital, citizenship and participation,
Laura Morales – political behaviour, immigration, ethnicity