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School of Social Sciences

Current Research students

Paul Copeland

Does EU Enlargement Dis-embed the European Social Model?

The 2004 EU enlargement has brought ten predominantly former communist states into the EU policy making process. Central Eastern European states have been reconfigurated under the shadow of the Washington Consensus and at the height of neoliberal globalisation. CEE therefore represents very different interests relative to the European tradition of EU-15 and the European social model. My thesis investigates the impact of the new CEE member states upon the direction of the ESM and assesses their ability to neoliberalise EU social policy. The thesis is theoretically informed by Polanyi’s ‘the Great Transformation’ and historical institutionalism. 

Supervisors: Claire Annesley

Research interests: Varieties of Capitalism, European Social Model, EU Enlargement, Polanyi, Historical Institutionalism

E-mail: Paul.j.Copeland@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

 

Clare Debenham

Grass roots’ feminism in Britain: a study of the politics of the Society for the Provision of Birth Control Clinics 1921-1931.

In 1918 limited suffrage was granted to women over thirty and three years later the first of the birth control clinics was founded in what was to grow into the Society for the Provision of Birth Control Clinics. This thesis argues that the granting of the suffrage had implications for the birth control movement and the timing of these two events was no coincidence. The suffragists were a movement looking for a cause, and in significant numbers they discovered this cause to be birth control. They found a practical application of their feminist principles in the SPBCC which offered working class mothers safe affordable contraception and put pressure on the government to provide state funded municipal clinics.

Using social movement theory the actions of the SPBCC are examined as a response to a particular set of opportunity structures in the UK and the competing ideologies of reproduction are analysed. The SPBCC is shown to be very much a grass roots organisation in contrast to the better known Marie Stopes’ dominated organisation.

Much of the SPBCC’s original documentation has been traced as well as contemporary correspondence, autobiographies of leading protagonists. Many of the leading birth controllers and their relatives have been interviewed.

This thesis argues that contrary to widely held view of ‘first and second wave feminism’, the 1920s continued to be a time vigorous feminist activity.

This research has been the subject of two programmes of Womans Hour.

I enjoy talking about my research to academic and community groups.

I welcome enquiries for the newly launched Women and History North West Network.

Supervisors: Dr Jill Lovecy and Professor Kevin Morgan

 

Scott James

The Importance of Being Earnest: Europeanisation and European Policy Making in the UK and Ireland

The project analyses the pervasive impact of European integration on national patterns of EU policy making in the UK and Ireland. It does so by elucidating the nature of Europeanisation within the national core executive, suggesting that it operates through four distinctive ‘modes’. It aims to add value to existing institutionalist accounts of domestic administrative change by employing a distinctive strategic-relational network framework in order to map the changing face of policy making within the UK and Irish EU networks, and to evaluate and explain the impact of adaptation and its potential implications for policy outcomes (national EU policy). The study argues that in response to countervailing centripetal and centrifugal pressures for change, the Blair and Ahern governments have introduced reform strategies which display characteristics of both convergence and divergence.

As Co-Editor for the postgraduate journal Political Perspectives since October 2006, I have also been responsible for collating and publishing a special EPRU edition of peer reviewed articles.

Supervisors: Prof. Martin Burch and Dr. Dimitris Papadimitriou

Research interests: Europeanisation in theory and practice, new institutionalism, network analysis, governance theory, the EU policy-making process and European integration, public administration, UK and Irish politics, and the development and ideology of ‘New’ Labour.

Email: scott.james@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

Web profile

 

George Kyris

Europeanisation, EU Enlargement and the Future of the Turkish-Cypriot Community

In my PhD project I explore the effect of the potential for EU membership on the Turkish-Cypriot Community. My project is pegged to the Europeanisation debate. The preliminary hypothesis is that the prospects of EU membership for the Turkish-Cypriots, as part of a United Cyprus Republic, have led to a significant and unique Europeanisation of the community. This impact goes further than just a convergence between the EU and the national level; I posit that in this study case, Europeanisation works also as a means of self-orientation and acknowledgment of the community in the international system. 

Supervisors: Prof. Martin Burch and Dr. Dimitris Papadimitriou

Area of Interest: International/ EU Politics

Email: Georgios.Kyris@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

 

Simon Orth

Assessing ‘Normative Power Europe’: the externalisation of the EU’s migration and asylum policy to Macedonia, Morocco and Ukraine.

My research will be coming to terms with how far the concept of ‘external governance’ in relation to the EU’s interaction with non-member states can be assessed as the behaviour of a normative power. This focuses upon the export of the EU’s Justice and Home Affairs policies to Macedonia, Morocco and Ukraine and how the different contractual and geopolitical relationships between the EU and these countries impacts upon how normative an actor the EU can claim to be. This takes on a growing trend in EU studies of scholars whom refuse to critically assess concepts of normative power from rhetoric right through to implementation.

Supervisors: Dr Dimitris Papadimitriou & Dr Stuart Sheilds

Email: Simon.Orth@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

 

Peter Petrov

The Governance of the European Security and Defence Policy: Early Governance Capabilities in the context of operations Concordia (FYROM) and Artemis (DR Congo)

Short outline of research interests:
My principle research interests lie in the field of European Union Common Foreign and Security Policy and specifically the institutional development of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). I am particularly interested in the processes of institutionalisation of sub-systemic policy areas within the EU (such as the ESDP) and the formulation of a corresponding regime of governance over time. Currently I am investigating the explanatory potential of historical institutionalism in analysing the formation and the early development of the ESDP regime of governance in the context of the first two EU-led military operations.
Related to my principle interest in European foreign, security and defence policies is also my interest in the role of the EU as an international and security actor in Southeast Europe and more specifically in Serbia/Kosovo, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. I am particularly interested in the ability of the EU to speak with one voice and apply coherent approach to conflict prevention/crisis-management, democratisation, institution building and long-term stability in previously war-torn states, all of which aspire for an EU membership.

Theoretically, I have an ongoing interest in new institutionalism, Europeanisation, concepts of EU actorness including the notions of ‘normative’, ‘civilian’ and ‘military power Europe’, policy-network analysis and public policy approaches to implementation and governance capabilities.

Supervisors: Simon Bulmer and Dimitris Papadimitriou

E-mail: P.Petrov@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

 

Adriana Vilella Nilsson

Analysts, Journalists, Firms and Stock Market: A Thesis on Narratives and Numbers

My research focuses on two neglected issues of company communications: the stories that companies tell and the practice of story telling. It is a relatively new realm because, if the cultural turn has brought the constitutive role of discourse to the core of the social sciences, not many researchers have analysed corporate discourses and just as few have critically examined the workings of the corporate PR business. My work considers both issues of giant firm business strategy and the more political concerns about how business organises and represents itself to government and civil society. Empirically, the investigation will be based on extensive research into two different and controversial industries – integrated oil and ethical pharmaceuticals - with case research focused on four major British giant companies (British Petroleum and Shell, Astra Zeneca and GlaxoSmithKline). Theoretically, it is an attempt to marry the relatively new cultural economy scholarship with international political economy by recognising the foundational importance of culture to the analysis of economics. The end result is aimed to be a more nuanced analysis of how giant firms make and re-make relations with stock market, government and civil society and, thus, offer a critical understanding of present day capitalism.

Supervisors: Prof. Michael Moran, Prof. Karel Williams and Prof. Julie Froud

Contact: Adriana.Vilella-nilsson@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk

 

Recently Completed Students

 

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