Alan Renwick

I am an expert in the mechanisms through which citizens can participate in formal politics: particularly in electoral systems, referendums, and deliberative processes such as citizens' assemblies. My research is comparative: besides the UK, my recent projects have included all European democracies as well as Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, and the United States.

I work with policy-makers on a range of issues. I became a source of authoritative, impartial evidence during the UK's electoral system referendum of 2011, and have provided evidence to governments and parliamentary select committees on a range of topics, including the conduct of referendums, electoral reform, reform of the House of Lords, and citizens' assemblies. Outside the UK, I have also provided advice and participated in debates in a range of settings, including Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Hong Kong, and Jersey.

Before coming to UCL in 2015, I was based at the Universities of Oxford and Reading. I obtained my doctorate, on processes of institutional design in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland during the transition from communism, in 2004. I was a postdoctoral research fellow at New College, Oxford from 2003 until 2008 and a Departmental Lecturer in Comparative Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford, from 2005 to 2006. I was based at the University of Reading between 2008 and 2015, latterly as Reader and Associate Professor of Comparative Politics.