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W J M Mackenzie Prize 2008

Prof Matthew Flinders

THE JUDGES SAY This is a weighty and erudite work of considerable scholarship on a topical subject of relevance to all students of politics, not just those focused on the analysis of British Politics and Governance. It challenges many conventional understandings of local government and the politics of delegation, developing a fresh and original theory of delegated governance. The scholarship is impressive, and the argument developed is bold, original and compelling. The author draws on a very wide range of relevant sources, including research conducted as a Whitehall Fellow within the Cabinet Office. The great strength of the book, however, is that although it is richly empirical in focus it is also theoretically sophisticated. It is a work of theoretically informed empirical research, in the very best tradition of British political science. It deserves to become a core reference point in the study of contemporary governance and should be required reading for students and practitioners of politics alike.

Matthew Flinders was born in London in 1972. He was educated at St Catherine’s and then St Joseph’s, and from 1991 to 1994 read Modern European Studies at Loughborough University. He completed a PhD in governance, public policy and legislative studies at the University of Sheffield between 1995 and 1999. After holding a series of research positions he was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Sheffield in 2000, a senior lectureship from 2003 to 2005, and a readership from 2005 to 2009. He was appointed Professor of Parliamentary Government & Governance on 1 January