curtice john prof

Educational background

M.A. (Oxon)

Profile

I conduct research into social and political attitudes (widely defined), electoral behaviour, electoral systems and survey research methods in Scotland, Britain and comparatively. Most of my research is undertaken by conducting and analysing sample surveys. I have a long working association with the National Centre for Social Research (formerly Social and Community Planning Research), and since 2001 I have been a Research Consultant to the National Centre’s Edinburgh office, known as the Scottish Centre for Social Research. As a result of this collaboration I have been a co-editor of the National Centre’s annual British Social Attitudes reports since 1994 and co-director of the Scottish Social Attitudes surveys since their inauguration in 1999. In addition, between 1983 and 1997 I co-directed the British General Election Study, the principal instrument for the survey based study of electoral behaviour in Britain

Within Strathclyde I am co-director (with Dr. Chris Carman) of a newly formed Centre for Elections and Representation in the Department of Government. The centre has held two major conferences in the last two years.

I am currently President of the British Polling Council, a body that maintains standards of disclosure by political polling organisations, vice-chair of the Economic and Social Data Service’s Advisory Committee and am a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, the Executive Committee of the British Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, and the Policy Advisory Committee of the Institute for Public Policy Research. I have previously been a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study and a member of the steering committee of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Project

I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1992 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2004. I am a frequent broadcaster and contributor to newspapers, and have been a regular member of the BBC’s general and local election night programmes’ production team since 1979.

Publications since 2008

Books

• British Social Attitudes: the 24th. report (ed. with A. Park, K. Thomson, M. Phillips, M. Johnson and E. Clery), London: Sage, 2008
• British Social Attitudes: the 25th report (ed. with A. Park, K. Thomson, M. Phillips, and E. Clery), London: Sage, 2009
• Has Devolution Worked? (ed. with B. Seyd), Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009
• Revolution or Evolution?: The 2007 Scottish Elections, (with D. McCrone, N. McEwen, M. Marsh and R.Ormston), Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009
• British Social Attitudes: the 26th report (ed. with A. Park, K. Thomson, M Phillips, and E. Clery), London: Sage, 2010.
• British Social Attitudes: the 27th report (ed. with A. Park, E. Clery and C. Bryson), London: Sage,  2010

Contributions to Books

• ‘Where have all the readers gone? Popular newspapers and Britain’s political health’ (with A. Mair), in British Social Attitudes: the 24th report
• ‘How Firm are the Foundations? Public Attitudes towards the Union in 2007’ in T. Devine (ed.), Scotland and the Union 1707-2007, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2008.
• ‘Is there an English backlash? Reactions to devolution’, in British Social Attitudes: the 25th Report
• ‘Do people want choice and diversity of provision in public services?’ (with O. Heath), in British Social Attitudes: the 25th Report
• ‘Who represents us best? One member or many?’ (with W. Phillips Shively), in H.-D. Klingemann (ed.), The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• ‘Neither Representative nor Accountable: First-Past-The-Post in Britain’, in B. Grofman, A. Blais and S. Bowler (eds), Duverger’s Law of Plurality Voting, New York: Springer, 2009.
• ‘Do Devolved Elections Work?’, in C. Jeffrey and J. Mitchell (eds.), The Scottish Parliament 1999-2009: The First Decade, Edinburgh: Luath Press for the Hansard Society, 2009.
• ‘England Awakes? Trends in National Identity in England’ (with A. Heath), in F. Bechhofer and D. McCrone (eds), National Identity, Nationalism and Constitutional Change, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009
• ‘Devolution, the SNP and the Electorate’, in G. Hassan (ed.), The Modern SNP: From Protest to Power, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009
• 'Individualisation and the Decline of Class Identity' (with A. Heath and G. Elgenius), in M. Wetherell (ed.), Identity in the 21st Century, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
• 'Introduction' (with B. Seyd) in Has Devolution Worked?
• 'The Citizens' Response' (with B. Seyd) in Has Devolution Worked?
• 'At the Ballot Box' in Has Devolution Worked?
• 'Conclusion: Has Devolution Worked?' (with B. Seyd) in Has Devolution Worked?
• 'Thermostat or Weather Vane: How the Public has reacted to New Labour Government', in British Social Attitudes: 26th report
• 'Duty in decline: Who still feels a duty to vote?' (with S. Butt) in British Social Attitudes: 26th report
• ‘Resentment or Contentment: Attitudes towards the Union ten years on’ (with R. Ormston) in British Social Attitudes: 27th report
• ‘A tale of two crises: banks, MPs’ expenses and public opinion’ (with A. Park) in British Social Attitudes: 27th report
• ‘Policy Divergence: Recognising Difference or Generating Resentment?’, in G. Lodge and K. Schmuecker (eds), Devolution in Practice 2010, London: IPPR, 2010
• ‘Appendix 2: An Analysis of the Results (with S. Fisher and R. Ford), in D. Kavanagh and P. Cowley, The British General Election of 2010, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.

• ‘Elections as Beauty Contests: Do the Rules Matter?’  (with S. Hunjan) in K. Aarts, A. Blais and H. Schmitt (eds), Political Leaders and Democratic Elections, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2011

• ‘Rebuilding the bonds of trust and confidence? Labour’s constitutional reform programme’, in P. Diamond and M. Kenny (eds), Reassessing New Labour: Market, State and Society under Blair, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.

Journal Articles

• ‘Exit Polling in a Cold Climate: the BBC-ITV Experience in 2005 (with discussion)’ (with D. Firth), Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, 171:3 (2008): 509-39.
• ‘Do Mayoral Elections Work? Evidence from London’ (with B. Seyd and K. Thomson), Political Studies, 56:3 (2008): 653-78.
• ‘Disengaging Voters: Do Plurality Systems Discourage the Less Knowledgeable from Voting?’, (with S. Fisher, S. Hobolt and L. Lessard-Phillips), Electoral Studies, 27:1 (2008), 89-104.
• ‘Getting the Message Out: A Two-Step Model of the Role of the Internet in Campaign Communication Flows During the 2005 British General Election’ (with P. Norris), Journal of Information Technology and Politics, 4:4 (2008): 3-13.
• ‘How did they vote? Voters’ use of the STV ballot paper in the 2007 Scottish Local Elections’ (with M. Marsh), Representation 44:4 (2008), 285-300.
• ‘To the left, to the right…?’, Public Policy Research, 15 (2008): 123-6.
• ‘Back in Contention? The Conservatives’ Electoral Prospects’, Political Quarterly, 80:2 (2009): 172-83.
• ‘Associations between health and different types of environmental incivility: A Scotland-wide study’ (with A. Ellaway, G. Morris, C. Robertson, G. Allardice and R. Robertson), Public Health, 123: 11 (2009): 708-13.
•  ‘Debate: Election 2010: a new mood on tax and spend?’, Policy and Politics, 38:2 (2010), 325-9.
• ‘The Past Matters: eliminating the pro-Labour bias in British opinion polls’ (with N. Sparrow), International Journal of Market Research 52(2): 169-89. Awarded IJMR Collaborative Research Award, 2010.
• ‘So What went wrong with the Electoral System? The 2010 Election Result and the Debate about Electoral Reform’, Parliamentary Affairs, 63 (2010): 623-38. Also published in A. Geddes and J. Tonge (eds), Britain Votes 2010, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• ‘How Labour Lost: Wrong Policies or Poor Delivery?’, Public Policy Research,  17:1 (2010): 3-9.
• ‘Too clever by half? The Impact of Weighting and Adjustments on the Accuracy of the Polls’ (with N. Sparrow), International Journal of Market Research, 52:5 (2010):  678-86.

• ‘So who is winning the debate? Constitutional preferences in Scotland after four years of nationalist government’ (with R. Ormston), Scottish Affairs, 74 (2011): 24-44.

• ‘Attitudes to Voting Rules and Electoral System Preferences: Evidence from the 1999 and 2003 Scottish Parliament Elections’ (with B. Seyd), Electoral Studies, 30 (1 (2011)): 184-200.

• ‘The United Kingdom election of 2010’ (with S. Fisher), Electoral Studies, 30 (1) (2011): 243-7.

• ‘Confounding the Commentators: How the 2010 Exit Poll got it (more or less) right’ (with S. Fisher and J. Kuhai), Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 21 (2) (2011): 211-35. Also published in J. Fisher and C. Wlezien (eds), The UK General Election of 2010: Explaining the Outcome, London: Routledge, 2011

•  ‘The 2011 Scottish Election: Records Tumble, Barriers Breached’, Scottish Affairs 76 (2011): 51-73.

• ‘A Return to Two-Party Politics?: Lessons of the 2011 Local and Devolved Elections’, Public Policy Research, 18 (2) (2011): 88-96.

Other Publications

• Where stands the Union now? Lessons from the 2007 Scottish Parliament Elections, London : Institute for Public Policy Research 2008.   Available at www.ippr.org.uk
• Local Elections 2008: Summary Report (with M. Boon). Available at www.electoralcommission.org.uk
• ‘Choice in public services’, Britain in 2009, Swindon: Economic and Social Research Council,  2008, 33.
• ‘Have we lost our sense of identity?’ (with A. Heath), Sociology Review, 18:3 (2009), 12-16.
• ‘The 2010 Election: Has the Mould of British Politics Finally Cracked?’, Journal of Liberal History, 68 (2010): 14-19.
• Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2009: Sustainable Places and Green Space (with S. Reid), Edinburgh: Scottish Government Social Research, 2010. Available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/07/02134238/0
• Development of Survey Questions on Attitudes to Violence and Escape Places (with with R. Ormston, C. Bromley, S. Reid and C. Sharp), Edinburgh: NHS Scotland, 2010. Link available at http://www.natcen.ac.uk/study/scottish-social-attitudes-2009
• Is an English backlash emerging? Reactions to devolution ten years on, London: IPPR, 2010. Available at http://www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=730
• Will anyone vote? Prospects for turnout in the general election (with A. Park), London: National Centre for Social Research, 2010. Available at www.natcen.ac.uk/media/329310/bsa-general%20election%20turnout.doc

• ‘Electoral Behaviour’ in S. Herbert et al., Election 2011, Edinburgh: SPICE Briefing 11/29, 2011.

• Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2010: Attitudes to Discrimination and Positive Action (with R. Ormston, S. McConville and S. Reid), Edinburgh: Scottish Government Social Research, 2011.

• ‘The Death of a Miserable Little Compromise: The Alternative Vote Referendum’, Political Insight 2 (2) (2011): 14-17.

Current Externally Funded Projects

Scotland’s Constitutional Future (with R. Ormston). A study of public attitudes towards how Scotland should be governed in the wake of the Calman Commission and the National Conversation. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

The Road to Divergence? Social and Political Attitudes in the wake of Devolution (with R. Ormston). A study of whether social and political attitudes in Scotland and England have diverged during the course of the first decade of devolution. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Rewriting the British Constitution (Again): Cure or cold? (with A. Park and B. Seyd) A study of public attitudes  towards the UK coalition government's  programme of constitutional reform, focusing in particular on how far its measures appeal to those with relatively low levels of political trust. Funded by the Nuffield Foundation.