Research interests
I am motivated by a desire to understand how people can have more power over important decisions affecting their lives. My research asks how and when citizens can, should, and will take part in collective decisions. I am particularly interested in citizen participation in implementation and monitoring of political decisions, as well as in policy formulation. This has led me to further inquire as to what methods of analysis and forms of expertise best provide answers to wicked collective problems, and how we can redesign institutions to improve our experience and understanding of politics. The majority of my work engages directly in collaboration with stakeholders from government and civil society and I have worked with various government departments and agencies in the UK and abroad, local councils and associations, and networks of public participation practitioners. My peer-reviewed publications can be found in journals such as European Journal of Political Research, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Politics, PS: Political Science and Politics, Local Government Studies, Political Studies Review, Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, and Revista Internacional de Sociologia, as well is in book chapters with Palgrave, Policy Press, Edward Elgar and ECPR Press (visit the publications tab on this page for more information).
Current projects
- Calibrating and Piloting a Toolkit of Indicators for Measuring Regional Policies on Access to Medicines in
South America (with Pia Riggirozzi and Ana Amaya)
- Comparative analysis of Democratic innovation (with Participedia.net)
- Exploring the Philosophy of Comparative Method.
- Southampton People’s Panel, Open Data and Citizen Science (With Southampton City Council and the
Web Sciences Institute)
- Poverty in the South (With John Boswell, John Denham, Anna Killick, Beata Rek, Jamie Furlong, Jesse Shipp
and Patricia Ndugga)
- The Fighting Citizen (With Max Halupka and Mike Jensen)
- Rebooting Democracy: Democratic Innovation for the Information Age
Dr Matthew RyanWeb Science Institute
Building 32, Room 3041, Level 3
University of Southampton
Highfield Campus
Southampton
Hampshire, SO17 1BJ
United Kingdom
Room Number : 58/3087