Centre for Comparative Politics and 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.
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. 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.
Parties research at Keele and KEPRU
Keele European Parties Research Unit
As a reflection of Keele's exceptionally strong concentration of research into European political parties (in both Western and Eastern Europe), the Keele European Research Unit (KEPRU) has been running since September 2000. KEPRU was the first research grouping of its kind in the UK and it brings together the hitherto largely independent work of Keele researchers focusing on European political parties.
KEPRU aims:
- to facilitate its members' engagement in high-quality academic research, individually, collectively in the Unit and in collaboration with cognate research groups and individuals in the UK and abroad;
- to hold regular conferences, workshops, seminars and guest lectures on topics related to European political parties, advertised on the Unit's website;
- to publish a series of parties-related research papers by scholars from Keele and elsewhere;
- to expand postgraduate training in the study of political parties;
- to constitute a source of expertise on European parties and party politics for media and other interests.
