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Government
Research focuses on democratic institutions and politics. Work is being carried out on EU Institutions, Britain and the EU, EU enlargement, the relationship between committees and party groups in the European Parliament (EP), political parties and party systems, the decline of Conservative hegemony, democratisation in East Central Europe and South Africa, US social welfare policy and the American presidency as well as politics of Northern Ireland, with particular reference to the politics of memoir and autobiography. A number of research activities have been organised by members of the Government research cluster.
In May 2005 the Government research grouping held a two-day workshop to discuss 'New Member States and the European Parliament: Research Agendas in the Enlarged EU', partly funded by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). It also held two events focusing on South African politics. The first, the workshop, 'Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa and Northern Ireland', was held in September 2005 and was followed a year later by the one-day conference. Lynch and Whitaker presented the paper, 'A loveless marriage. The Conservatives and the European People's Party' at the EPOP Annual Conference, University of Nottingham, 9 September 2006 and gave a further paper on the results of their research, 'Cartels in Brussels. The European People's Party and the Conservatives in the European Parliament', at a Departmental seminar on 10 October 2007.
Henderson has been awarded a Leverhulme Study Abroad Fellowship to study 'Teaching and Researching Europeanisation' at Comenius University Bratislava, 01/02/2008-31/07/2008. Lynch and Whitaker have recently been awarded a Leverhulme Research Project Grant for a project on 'Competing on the centre right: an examination of party strategy in Britain'. The project will run from May 2009 to October 2010. More details can be found on their project website.
