Academic Research

After the recent United  Kingdom general election, constitutional reform is again on the agenda. Must the traditional ‘political constitution’ be replaced by a codified,  entrenched constitution? 
How should the balance between citizens, parliament, government, monarch, and the judiciary be altered? Do Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and local authorities deserve more powers or even independence? How much should human rights protection depend on international treaties (e.g., ECHR, Withdrawal Agreement)? Is a shift to Proportional Representation desirable? Finally, what do answers to these questions tell us about underlying preferences for different varieties of democracy (Bellamy 2007; Coppedge et al. 2020)? 
While we know much about the preferences of the British public toward constitutional reform (Butt et al.  2022;  Renwick et al.  2023),  no systematic survey of the preferences of political and legal experts is available so far.  Our research project will fill this gap by carrying out an online opinion survey of the views of scholars working in Politics and Law departments at UK universities and by analysing the resulting data for a peer-review journal article. 
Interns will contribute to the various activities of the project and have the opportunity to learn more about the British political system, the conduct of online surveys, and quantitative/qualitative data analysis.

Advanced undergraduate students (from second year)
Graduate students
PhD students

Familiarize yourself with the research topic by reading the report Renwick et. (2023). The future of democracy in the UK, available at this link.