Sarah Birch joins the School as Professor of Comparative Politics from July 2013.

Before coming to Glasgow, she taught at the University of Essex for 17 years. For ten years (2002-2011) she was also co-editor of the British Journal of Political Science.

Professor Birch has three principal research interests: electoral malpractice, ethical conduct in public life and environmental politics.

Over the course of the past ten years, her main research programme has been the comparative study of electoral malpractice. The first part of this research culminated in her 2011 monograph Electoral Malpractice (Oxford University Press) as well as a series of journal articles. She has recently embarked on a follow-on project on ‘cleaning up’ elections and a related project on electoral violence.

For the past five years, she has also been working on a study of perceptions of the ethical conduct of politicians in Britain, Germany and France together with Dr Nicholas Allen of Royal Holloway. They are in the process of completing a monograph entitled Ethics and Integrity in British Politics: How Citizens Judge Their Politicians’ Conduct and Why it Matters (Cambridge University Press).

Finally, she is currently planning a research project on popular perceptions of environmental policy options, drawing on insights from political psychology and behavioural economics.

In addition to her academic work, Professor Birch has also taken part in electoral assistance and training activities around the world, including projects for the OSCE, the UNDP, International IDEA, USAID and the UK Electoral Commission.

First published: 4 July 2013

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