Biographies of July 2008 Conference Speakers

Keynote speaker

Will Hutton

Chief Executive, Work Foundation

Will Hutton is chief executive of The Work Foundation, an independent, not for dividend research based consultancy which is the most influential voice on work, workplace and employment issues in Britain.

Will began his career as a stockbroker and investment analyst, before working in BBC TV and radio as a producer and reporter. Prior to joining The Work Foundation, Will spent four years as editor in chief of the Observer and he continues to write a weekly column for the paper. Will has written several best-selling economic books including The World We’re In, The State We’re In, The State to Come, The Stakeholding Society and On The Edge with Anthony Giddens. In addition, he won the Political Journalist of the Year award in 1993. 
In 2004, Will was invited by the EU Commission to join a High-level Group on the mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy and he acted as rapporteur for the report. Other roles Will performs outside The Work Foundation include:  Governor of the London School of Economics; Honorary Fellow, Mansfield College, Oxford; Visiting Professor, Manchester University Business School and Bristol University and is a member of the Scott Trust.  He is also a Fellow of the Sunningdale Institute.  Will’s latest book, The Writing on the Wall: China and the West in the 21st Century, was published in the UK in January 2007 by Little, Brown.

 

Paper presenters

Patrick Dunleavy is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy and Chair of the Public Policy Group in the Department of Government, London School of Economics.  He is a leading theorist and commentator on electoral and constitutional reform in the UK and beyond and author or editor of over thirty books including Democracy, bureaucracy and public choice (New York; London:  Harvester Wheatsheaf 1991) and Digital Era Governance (Oxford:  Oxford University Press 2006).

David Erdos is Katzenbach Research Fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and Balliol College, University of Oxford.  His research work examines the nature of constitutional reform in the UK and other Westminster democracies.  He has a Ph.D. from Princeton University (2006) and is author of a number of articles and conference papers on these and related topics.  In addition, he is currently writing a book, Delegating Rights Protection, forOxford University Press.  This work comparatively examines Bill of Rights outcomes across the Westminster world (UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand).

Dr David Fagleson is Associate Professor of Law and Society at American University in Washington, DC. He has diverse research interests which include global ethics, constitutional rights, law and development, political theory and human rights. He has published a book - Justice and Integrity - as well as numerous articles in journals of law and politics concerning the meaning and moral basis of law. He is now at work on a book about the ethics of foreign assistance. Before coming to American, he completed a DPhil at Oxford University and gained a JD at Michigan Law School. He also practiced law and acted as a foreign legal advisor to government officials, lawyers and journalists from Russia to Cambodia.

Matthew Flinders in Reader in Parliamentary Government and Governance at the University of Sheffield.  His research work focuses on the study of British politics and, in particular, on the following issues:  majoritarian modification and constitutional reforms; territorial and functional decentralization; the politics of delegation; modes of depoliticisation; governance and public policy; and legislative studies with a focus on parliamentary scrutiny of the executive and extended state.  He has edited/co-edited four books in these areas, a large number of research articles and was the recipient of both the Harrison Prize in 2002 (for the best article published in Political Studies) and the Richard Rose Prize in 2004 (for the most outstanding young scholar working in the field of British and Irish politics).  Dr. Flinders is currently writing two books for Oxford University Press, one of which will examine New Labour’s attitude to the constitution and the other the politics of policy delegation in the UK (to be co-written with Matthew Denton).

Richard Kirkham is Lecturer in Law at the University of Sheffield.  His publications to have focused on the role and functioning of the Parliamentary Ombudsman and on related constitutional matters.  He is currently working on an ESRC project with two colleagues which will examine the public sector ombudsman in the UK in comparison with similar bodies in Ireland and Australasia.  The results of this study will be published by the ESRC and will also provide the basis for a book (due early 2009).

John Osmond is Director of the Institute of Welsh Affairs in Cardiff.  He is also Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Constitution United, University College London and was both a founder signatory of the Charter and a member of its Executive, representing Wales.  He has authored and edited a large number of research pieces on devolution and Welsh politics including over eight books.  These include Birth of Welsh Democracy (co-Editor, 2003, IWA), Welsh Europeans (Seren, 1995) and The Divided Kingdom (Constable, 1988).

Michael Rustin is Professor of Sociology at the University of East London, and a Visiting Professor at the Tavistock Clinic.  He is a founding editor of Soundings, and has written extensively on political and social issues, as well as in the field of psychoanalysis and culture in which his recent academic interest have been mainly located.