Dr David Erdos

Katzenbach Research Fellow & Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow

Contact details
david.erdos@csls.ox.ac.uk; david.erdos@balliol.ox.ac.uk
(01865) (2)84245

Qualifications

BA (Oxford); MA PhD (Princeton)

Biography

David Erdos is a legal researcher and political scientist who principally examines privacy and data protection law.

David's Data Protection and the Open Society (DPOS) examines tensions between data protection/privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of information.  It is particularly concerned with the emerging law and practice of data protection as this relates to the following issues:

• Similarities and differences in how data protection law has been formulated within different countries and also how this law is being interpreted and applied by national regulatory agencies, national courts and tribunals, the European Commission, the European Court of Human Rights and the European Court of Justice,
• The potential tension between data protection law and practice and freedom of expression and information, not only in the United Kingdom but also in other Western democracies (especially within the European Economic Area),
• How these tensions are being practically resolved by different social actors including, in particular, academic institutions (especially in the context of the emergence of ethical review), professional journalists and citizen bloggers.

In the Hilary Term of 2009, and prior to the formal start of DPOS, David organized a seminar series “Human Investigation and Privacy in a Regulatory Age”at the Centre to begin the process of mapping out some of these issues. Participants within this series included academic lawyers, barristers, social scientists, medical researchers and professional journalists.  Full information on the DPOS project is available through http://www.csls.ox.ac.uk/dataprotection. A text-only version is also available at www.csls.ox.ac.uk/dp.php

Alongside this emerging work on privacy and data protection, most of David's published work to date focuses on explaining Bill of Rights outcomes in the Westminster world (the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia).  This work looks both at the immediate triggers behind Bill of Rights adoption and on possible longer-term relationships between such projects and neoliberalism, social heterogeneity and 'postmaterialization'.  His monograph on this topic, Delegating Rights Protection, was published by Oxford University Press in the autumn of 2010.

David has presented his research at a number of academic conferences not only in the UK but also in North America and Australasia.  Recent papers given include those at the 2012 Computers Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) Conference, 2011 Northumbria Information Rights conference, 2010 annual conferences of the Political Science Association (UK) and the Society of Legal Scholars (SLS), 2009 Biannual Conference of the Australian Bar Association, 2008 annual conference of the New Zealand Political Science Association, 2007 annual conferences of the Socio-Legal Studies Association (UK), Political Studies Association (UK), American Political Science Association, Canadian Political Science Association and 2006 annual conference of the Australasian Political Science Association.

Core research interests

• Data Protection and Privacy Laws and Practices
• Freedom of Information
• Freedom of Expression
• Freedom of Research
• Academic Freedom
• Bills of Rights
• Constitutional development of the UK and other Westminster/Commonwealth countries
• Socio-legal aspects of human rights

Core teaching and supervision interests

• Comparative constitutional design
• Nature and future of UK constitution (and other Westminster/Commonwealth countries)
• Judicialization (especially in human rights field)
• Political science approaches to studying the law

Previous positions

ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Politics, University of York

Select publications (for pre-prints please see following SSRN page)

 

"New Zealand” in Denis Galligan & Mila Versteeg, The Social and Political Foundations of Constitutions (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press) (forthcoming in 2013)

“Freedom of Expression Turned On Its Head:  Academic Social Research and Journalism in the European Union’s Privacy Framework" (Public Law, Issue 1, pp. 52-73 (2013)) (PDF here)

"The Rudd Government’s Rejection of an Australian Bill of Rights:  A Stunted Case of Aversive Constitutionalism?” (Parliamentary Affairs, Vol. 65 (2), pp. 359-379 (2012))

"Constructing the Labyrinth:  The impact of data protection on the development of ‘ethical’ regulation in social science”, Information Communication and Society (Vol. 15 (1), pp. 104-123 (2012))

“Systematically Handicapped?  Social Research in the Data Protection Framework”, Information and Communications Technology Law 2011 (Vol. 20 (2), pp. 83-101)

“Stuck in the Thicket?  Social Research under the First Data Protection Principle”, International Journal of Law and Information Technology 2011 (Vol. 19 (2), pp. 133-152)

Delegating Rights Protection:  The Rise of Bills of Rights in the Westminster World (2010, Oxford University Press) (Reviewed by David Barnum in the Law and Politics Book Review here).

"Smoke but No Fire?  The Politics of a ‘British’ Bill of Rights" (Political Quarterly 2010 (Vol. 81(2), pp. 188-198))

Charter 88 and the Constitutional Reform Movement:  Twenty Years On (edited volume published as Special Edition of Parliamentary Affairs (2009))

"Charter 88 and the Constitutional Reform Movement:  A Retrospective" (Parliamentary Affairs 2009 (Vol. 64 (4), pp. 537-551))

“Charter 88, democratic constitutionalim and Europeanization – ambiguous relationships?” (Parliamentary Affairs 2009 (Vol. 64 (4), pp. 580-599))  Preprint available here: Constitutional Reform & Europe Paper.

"Postmaterialist social constituencies and political triggers: explaining the origins of bills of rights in internally stable, advanced democracies" (Political Research Quarterly 2009 (Vol. 64 (4), pp. 798-810))

"Judicial culture and the Politicolegal Opportunity Structure:  Explaining Bill of Rights Legal Impact in New Zealand" (Law and Social Inquiry Winter 2009 (Vol. 34(1), pp. 95-127))

“Ideology, power orientation and policy drag:  explaining the elite politics of Britain’s Bill of Rights debate” (Government and Opposition January 2009 (Vol. 44(1), pp. 20-41))

 “Elite supply ‘blockages’ and the failure of national Bill of Rights initiatives in Australia:  a comparative Westminster analysis” ( Commonwealth & Comparative Politics July 2008 (Vol. 46(3), pp. 341-364))

 “Aversive Constitutionalism in the Westminster World:  the genesis of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (1990)” (International Journal of Constitutional Law April 2007 (Vol. 5(2) pp. 343-369))

“Questions of Tolerance and Fairness” in Harry Hirsch (ed.), The Future of Gay Rights In America (pp. 15-35) (New York; London:  Routledge, 2005)

Book review of Charles Parkinson, Bills of Rights and Decolonization:  The Emergence of Domestic Human Rights Instruments in Britain's Overseas Territories (Oxford:  Oxford University Press) (Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal (Vol. 8 (1), pp. 129-132 (Summer 2008))

Book review of Ian Greene, The Courts (Vancouver, BC:  UBC Press) (Law & Politics Book Review (Vol. 16 (No. 9) (September 2006))

Book review of Elizabeth Wicks, The Evolution of a Constitution:  Eight key moments in British Constitutional History (Oxford:  Hart Publishing) (Law & Politics Book Review (Vol. 17 (No. 1) pp.48-50 (January 2007))