Understanding changes in local governance have driven my research career to date. My interests have focused on the impact that structural economic changes and institutional socio-political reforms have on local governance. Democratic principles such as citizen participation, inclusion and accountability have also drawn my attention and, in particular, how these concepts and meanings affect the organisational structures of local government as well as the practices and behaviour of local government bureaucrats. I have been able to study these topics within the English and Welsh contexts and in Mexico and Latin America.
My research on England and Wales has analysed the capacity that local government has in promoting and maintaining a system of citizen participation in the delivery of services and the power relations that local government has experienced with higher tiers of government in order to deliver services.
My research on Mexico has analysed how urban governance has responded to structural changes experienced by the state in response to neoliberal economic policies and democratisation. These changes have shown how new organisational arrangements of service delivery have been created, whilst maintaining legacies of the former authoritarian regime.
Increasing levels of insecurity in Latin America, have more recently driven my research interests to focus on how securitising and in/formal practices interweave with social contexts of violence and extraction in the daily activities of residents and frontline officers in the delivery of public services.
I welcome applications from prospective PhD students on the following themes:
-Citizen participation, securitisation and local governance
-Self-provision of local services and its impact on local government structures
-Local service provision across formal-informal and legal-illegal spheres of action
-Areas: Latin America, UK, other countries welcome subject to candidate’s experience