Academic Profile

Desmond King is the author of 13 books, 9 coedited books and numerous articles and chapters. Amongst other findings, King's research has demonstrated the influence of New Right ideology in the Reagan and Thatcher eras (The New Right: Politics, Markets and Citizenship Dorsey 1987), the evolution of modern conservatism in the United States (coed. The Changing Character of the American Right Vols 1 & II , PalgraveMacmillan, 2025),  the significance of segregation in the US federal government (Separate and Unequal: African Americans and the US Federal Government, OUP 1995/2007 2n ed), the national bases of American identity (The Liberty of Strangers, OUP 2007), the malign influence of eugenics on North American social policy (with Randell Hansen, Sterilized by the State Cambridge UP 2013), the expanson of executive power in the American state (with Stephen Skowronek and John Dearborn, The Deep State versus the Unitary Executive: Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic, OUP 2021), the of institutions in comparative labour market policy (Actively Seeking Work: The Politics of Workfare in hte USA and Britain Chicago 1995), and the politics of the Federal Reserve quantitative easing programmes (with Larry Jacobs, Fed Power: How Finance Wins OUP 2021), how a dichotomy between protect and repair policy alliances now drives the politics of civil rights (with Rogers M Smith, America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair, Chicago 2024). polity. King's op-eds have appeared variously in Le Monde Diplomatique, the New York Times  and the Financial Times.

He is an elected fellow of the Royal Irish Academy, the American Philosophical Society, the British Academy, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.