Biographical Sketch
For biographical as well as intellectual reasons I have a longstanding research interest in the study of social divisions, inequality and politics in Britain. The geographical extensions of these themes, particularly to Northern Ireland and former communist societies derive in part from an interest in discerning the general nature of such social and cultural cleavages and their relationship to politics in ostensibly quite different contexts. My interest in measurement in part derives from my background as a psychologist (first degree, doctorate, and lectureship at LSE), where the validation of reliable instruments is a more customary practice than is usually found in sociology and political science. This aspect of my academic background, in conjunction with many years as a sociologist (second degree and Fellow of Nuffield), also informs my scepticism with respect to the lack of sensitivity to the limitations of survey instruments that characterise some political science approaches to public opinion and voting behaviour. Institutionally, probably far too much of my time in recent years has been spent introducing and (hopefully) consolidating extensive systematic training in quantitative methods and accompanying scientific practice in the Department of Politics and IR at Oxford. This was mainly achieved through the founding of the Centre for Research Methods in the Social Sciences, partly in response to a policy introduced during my time on the ESRC's Research Training Board and implemented with great generosity by the then HoD, Mark Philpp. Among the good things that have emerged from this initiative is a cohort of permanent faculty members who embody the principles and practice of high quality political science, as well as a stream of excellent post-doctoral research fellows both in DPIR and Nuffield.