Comparative Politics and Policy

The Centre for Comparative Politics and Policy brings together academics and postgraduate students at Keele who undertake research in democracy, governance, political institutions, political behaviour, representation, and numerous aspects of public policy. What unites us in our work is that we all investigate structures, processes and phenomena by the use of comparison. What brings us together is, to paraphrase Lijphart, not so much what we do, but how we do it.

In many instances we engage in explicit comparison and we compare and contrast behaviours, institutions, actors and processes across different regimes, countries, localities, groups and/or time points. At other times our comparison is implicit: we explore individual cases to gain specific knowledge and understanding that can later inform wider comparison.

Our work is mainly empirical and our focus is local, national and global. Particular areas of expertise lie in British and European politics, US politics, party politics and elections, protest movements, and public policy. More details of the specialisms of individual members can be found here.