Desmond King

Desmond King specializes in the study of the American state in US executive politics, race and politics in American political development, comparative welfare politics and labour market policy, democratization and immigration policy. Before coming to Nuffield in 2002, he was a Fellow and Professor of Politics at St John’s College, Oxford of which he is now an Emeritus Fellow, and a Lecturer in Government at the London School of Economics. He also worked at the University of Edinburgh and has held visiting positions at Sciences Po, Cornell and Goteborg University. He held a Nuffield Foundation Social Science Research Fellowship in 1997-98, a British Academy Research Readership in 2000-2002, and a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship 2005-08.  He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 2003,a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA) in 2014, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) in 2015 and a Member of the Academy of Europe (MAE) in 2016.

Research Interests

Comparative Government and American Politics. Main interests in comparative public policy including welfare states and labour market policy; race and politics in American political development; comparative ethnic divisions; democratization; immigration; and the politics of social research. He has published 9 edited books, 10 authored books, including most recently Fed Power: How Finance Wins (OUP 2016) with Laurence Jacobs, and numerous articles in the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Governance, Journal of Politics, Past and Present, and World Politics. In 2017 his book coedited with Patrick Le Gales, Reconfiguring European States in Crisis with be published by Oxford University Press.


Link to Desmond King's Institutional Page