Professor Jack Vowles
Research Interests
Despite wide disagreement between democratic theorists, there is more or less a consensus that electoral accountability is one of the most fundamental requirements for an effective democracy. The disagreements emerge on a definition of accountability and how much such accountability should constrain political elites.
Most generally, my research tests claims about the effects of differing institutional arrangements on electoral accountability to mass publics, and how norms and interests shape perceptions of that accountability. While the prime focus is on electoral systems, there are other dimensions to consider: for example, federalism versus unitary states, presidential versus parliamentary systems, and so on.Current research focusses on electoral system referendums in the UK (May 2011) and New Zealand (November 2011).
Empirically, the research lies across two dimensions: first, as part of the New Zealand Election Study (NZES), it takes up the specific case of New Zealand, which changed its electoral system from a single member plurality (SMP) system to a mixed member proportional (MMP) system, and held its first election under the new system in 1996. The second dimension is comparative, across various examples of democracy in time and space. Within this dimension, I am currently working on data generated by the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), an international research collaboration tn which I also contribute by serving on its Planning Committee . Some of my most recent papers can be downloaded from my personal website.
More details about my current research can be found from the links below.
Globalization and Mass Politics
UK Referendum Survey Experiments
Research Supervision
I am available to supervise across a wide range of topics in comparative politics, covering both mass and elite behaviour, and employing either quantitative or qualitative methods, or a mixture of the two.
As examples, I have recently supervised PhD and Masters' theses and other student research in the following general areas: the content analysis of political party manifestos, political behaviour and political attitudes among recent immigrants and ethnic minorities, normative and empirical analysis of the concept of social capital, aspects of electoral system change, and a comparative analysis of the adoption of legal frameworks recognising same-sex relationships.
