Governance and Political Organisations
The Governance and Political Organisations (GPO) Cluster brings together interdisciplinary and methodologically diverse research on political participation, institutions, and democratic processes.
About
Research of our cluster members examines how political systems function, adapt, and respond to contemporary challenges.
We bring together internationally recognised expertise across comparative politics, public opinion, democratic innovation, and policy-making to understand the complex interactions between institutions, political actors, and citizens.
Our core research focuses on:
- Political behaviour and public opinion – voting, participation, political psychology, and attitude formation across contexts
- Elections and political parties – electoral integrity, party competition, candidate selection, and representation (including gender and diversity)
- Democracy, governance and innovation – citizens' assemblies, deliberative democracy, interest groups, parliamentary politics, democratic backsliding
- Public Policy – comparative public policy, European governance, political leadership, and evidence-based decision-making
- Security and migration politics – securitisation, refugee governance, democratic backsliding
- Environmental politics – climate policy, governance instruments, and sustainability transitions
Core cluster activities
The cluster offers a wide range of events for its community of academics and postgraduates. It acts as a forum for the presentation of research and an informal space to discuss new ideas and partial drafts of papers and grant proposals. We host an annual "GPO and Friends" workshop, inviting co-authors and collaborators from other institutions to share research and strengthen networks. We maintain cross-disciplinary ties with colleagues in Economics, Media and Communications, and Sociology, and welcome collaborative engagement across disciplines. We strive to support our postgraduates through professional and methodological training and constructive feedback on dissertation chapters, conference papers, project and grant proposals, applications, job talks and other academic tasks.
The cluster has close ties with the Newcastle Centre of Research Excellence in Behaviour, which spans the entire university, drawing on experts in human and non-human behaviour to explore individual differences, as well as emergent group and institutional behaviours.
The cluster also serves as co-host for the Jean Monnet Centre at Newcastle University. The centre has the role of facilitating EU research throughout the HASS Faculty as well as the wider region.
Postgraduate projects
Our postgraduates listed below are working on a diverse selection of subjects within this research cluster:
- Harry Busz
- Murni Dewi
- Michael Mo
- Siyuan Wang
Staff
Staff involved in this research cluster are listed below.
- Dr Rosario Aguilar
- Dr Brian Boyle
- Dr Chan Ka Ming
- Dr Alistair Clark
- Dr Richard Dodgson
- Professor Stephen Elstub
- Dr Geoff Horn
- Dr Maarja Luhiste
- Dr William Maloney
- Dr Jocelyn Mawdsley
- Dr Sebastian Popa
- Dr Nick Randall
- Dr Katharine Rietig
- Professor Anthony Zito