Professor D B Robertson

Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations
Tutorial Fellow in Politics at St Hugh’s
Director of Studies for PPE at Blackfriars Hall

E-mail: david.robertson@st-hughs.ox.ac.uk

I have been in Oxford since 1979, after starting my career at the University of Essex in 1970. I was originally a political sociologist, and while at Essex I was Co-Director of the British Election Studies, and specialised in voting behaviour and party competition. My first book, A Theory of Party Competition (1976) was one of the earliest applications of ‘rational choice theory’ to political science. That part of my career was largely completed with the publication in 1982 of Class and the British Electorate. (Though I still publish occasional pieces on party competition theory.)

On moving to Oxford I also changed directions in research and for the next 15 years worked largely in the area of Security Studies and Defence Policy, publishing, inter alia, a book on NATO defense, Enhancing European Security: Living in a less nuclear age (1990), which was almost immediately made obsolete by the end of the Cold War.

In the mid 1990s I changed tack again and began to work in the area of constitutional politics and law and human rights. (Although this had always been a long term aim.) The first major statement of this was the 1998 publication of Judicial Discretion and the House of Lords. I have published articles and chapters on various issues in this area, and am about to publish a major comparative study of Constitutional Courts. This most recent work is due to be published in early 2010, by Princeton University Press, though parts are already in the public domain either as articles or public lectures, including lectures given in Prague, Helsinki and Krakov. This area focus is intentional, as one of my developing interests is on the constitutional problems of new democracies including not only those in Central and Eastern Democracies, but also South Africa.

I have always enjoyed writing more popular works, and am the author of The Dictionary of Modern Politics, now in its 4th edition from Europa, the first two editions having also been published by Penguin until the paperback rights were transferred to Routledge. [ I am very late with the 5th edition, but my publisher is tolerant.] More closely allied to my current research writing is Europa/Routledge’s Dictionary of Human Rights, now in its 2nd edition. 

I am now returning to my earlier interest in Strategic Studies, which will first result in the 2nd edition of a reference book first published in 1987, Europa's Dictionary of Modern Defence and Strategy. I am largely doing this to guide my own 'reading back into' a field which has changed dramatically since I first worked in it. Ultimately I intend to write a book on the origin, development, dissemination and impact of military doctrine.

I lecture for my Department mainly on Comparative Government, and was largely responsible for the construction of the department’s Comparative Government lecture course. I also lecture on the both Eastern and Western European Politics, and give the Prelims lectures on France. These areas I also cover in teaching for the MPhil. As far as tutorial teaching goes I am, as most Oxford dons have to be, more of a general practitioner, and teach Political Sociology and some of the Political Theory papers as well as the areas mentioned above. From time to time I also teach the Sociology of Religion for Blackfriars, for which I act, pro bono, as the Director of Studies for PPE.

Please visit my personal website for further details on teaching materials, graduate supervision, and writing.