Keith Dowding is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Political Philosophy at the Australian National University. He was previously Professor of Political Science at the LSE, and has held appointments at Brunel University and the University of Oxford.

He was Hallsworth Fellow at Manchester University 1993-1994; Visiting Fellow at RSSS, ANU 2000-2001; British Academy Research Fellow 2005-2007; Visiting Fellow, Nuffield College 2005-2007; Visiting Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) 2007; Visiting PPE Fellow at the Free University of Amsterdam 2019; Visiting Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Munich 2019-2020; and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies, Oslo  2021(remotely) and 2022 (in person).

Dowding currently holds two Australian Research Council Discovery Grants with colleagues: Pathways to Power: Australian Political Careers; and Australian Parliamentary Speech: How Deliberative? How Representative? He is also (with others) engaged on a DFG (German Science Foundation) project: Institutional Rules and Their Effects on Cabinet and Ministerial Durability in Advanced Democracies.

He founded (with others) a network of scholars, Selection and De-selection of Political Elites (SEDEPE), which studies the career paths of political elites, and (with others), the ECPR Standing Group, Methods in Normative Political Theory.

He is a former Vice-Chair of the Citizens' Income Trust. He edited the Journal of Theoretical Politics 1996-2014 and was Associate Editor of Research and Politics 2014-18.  His most recent book is It’s the Government, Stupid: How Governments Blame Citizens for Their Own Policies.

While at Nuffield as Non-Stipendiary Visiting Fellow, he is writing a book on Methods of Political Philosophy.