News and Blog

We were tasked in a recent research project for the Office of Manpower Economics to provide an overview and understanding of the nature of variation in workers’ remuneration within the public sector, and how this varied by ethnicity. As our project comes to an end, we take this opportunity to reflect – what have we…

A new paper by Samuel Brown at Swansea University and Melanie Jones at Cardiff University explores the extent to which the well-established ‘disability voting gap’ in the US, where disabled people are less likely to vote in elections relative to those who are not disabled, is evident in the UK. Such a voting gap has…

As part of a series of blog posts on WISERD’s civil society and animal welfare research, here we look at the views of campaigners with civil society organisations (CSOs) about the impact of Brexit on animal welfare. This matters, for it aligns with a key focus in the academic literature, namely, how shifting patterns and…

As part of a series of blog posts on WISERD’s civil society and animal welfare research, here we look at the views and experiences of civil society organisations (CSOs) lobbying Westminster for better animal welfare. These are emerging findings taken from a series of in-depth interviews with campaigners. This is worth studying because over recent…

As part of a series of blog posts on WISERD’s civil society and animal welfare research, here we look at the “territorialisation” of animal welfare rights and how this is being driven by civil society activism. In other words, civil society organisations (CSOs) successfully lobbying for distinctive laws and policies that convey contrasting protections in…

As part of a series of blog posts on civil society and animal welfare, here we look at emerging findings from our analysis of civil society organisations’ (CSOs’) campaigning to ban greyhound racing in Wales and Scotland. This is prompted by welfare concerns and relatedly, because races in these countries are not subject to statutory…

International, comparative and action research can be shaped through an unexpected and highly unpredictable rationale when conducting fieldwork research. In 1946, Kurt Lewin defined action research as ‘transformative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action that employs a spiral of steps, each consisting of a cycle of planning, action, and…

As part of a series of blog posts on our research on civil society activism and animal welfare rights, here we share some emerging findings on the impact of devolution in the UK. A key finding from our series of in-depth interviews with campaigners representing civil society organisations (CSOs) is their frustration with Westminster and…

While academic literature on environmentalism has long emphasised the interdependence and fragility of all life forms on earth, scholarly work on civil society has largely overlooked the position of non-humans. Our research is seeking to address this by examining contemporary civil society advocacy for animal welfare rights in the UK. As part of a series…

I recently presented new WISERD research on human rights during the pandemic at the International Political Studies Association Congress in Buenos Aires. My research findings aligned with the conference theme of ‘Politics in the Age of Transboundary Crises’ and examine how political elites in East Africa used the crisis as a pretext for rights suppression….