Academic Staff: Simon Bulmer

Professor Simon Bulmer, BA (Loughborough), MA (Hull), PhD (London/LSE), AcSS

Professor of European Politics

Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 1706
Fax: +44 (0) 114 222 1717
Room: 1.22 Elmfield

Email : s.bulmer@sheffield.ac.uk

Profile

Simon Bulmer joined the Department in September 2007. He is Head of Department.

Simon Bulmer took an undergraduate degree in European Studies at Loughborough University (1972-75), a Masters in European Politics at Hull (1975-6), and then took his Ph.D. at the London School of Economics on European Policy-Making in the Federal Republic of Germany. He was lecturer in the Department of Economics, Heriot-Watt University (1979-83), in European Studies at UMIST (1983-9) and then joined the Department of Government at the University of Manchester, where he was promoted to a professorship in 1995 and was Head of Department 2001-4. He was awarded a Jean Monnet ad personam professorship in 1999. 

His principal research interests are European Union-member state relations (especially Germany and the UK); EU governance; and new/historical institutionalism.

Teaching

I have a strong commitment to teaching and learning because of their centrality to universities’ work. I have taught a range of modules in the Department at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels: European Union governance and politics, Europeanisation, Britain and the EU, British politics, and Advanced Political Analysis. With all my teaching I try to ensure students can see why the subject matters, both in the real world and in terms of developing analytical skills. In seminar work I seek to use student presentations and group work as methods to promote inquiry-based learning and the acquisition of transferable skills that can be of benefit beyond the university context. My teaching is informed by my research (see below). I am also committed to writing accessible student textbooks relating to EU politics, such as Politics in the European Union, 2011, co-authored with current and former members of the Department.

Recent Invited Papers and Keynote Lectures

Over recent years I have given invited lectures, departmental seminars or keynotes at the universities of Sussex, Malta, Manchester, Birmingham, Aston, Würzburg, Bath, Hull, Newcastle, East Anglia, Grenoble, Heidelberg, Trier, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and Sichuan University in China.

Key Projects

I have been principal or co-investigator on six ESRC-funded research projects on: the single European market; Germany and the EU; the impact of the EU on Whitehall; devolution and European policy-making in the UK (two awards) and policy transfer in the EU. I have also held research awards from the EU’s Jean Monnet scheme, the Spanish Ministry of Education, the German Academic Exchange Council, the European Commission and the Ford Foundation.

Professional Activities and Recognition

I have been a visiting scholar/academic/professor at the College of Europe - Bruges, University of Calgary, Harvard University´s Center for European Studies, University of Massachusetts – Boston, the Institut für Europäische Politik, the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, Berlin. I was elected an Academician of the Social Sciences in 2001. I am a member of the editorial boards of Parliamentary Affairs, politique européenne and 21st Century Society: Journal of the Academy of Social Sciences and co- edited the Journal of Common Market Studies from 1991-98. I am one of the editors of Manchester University Press’s European Policy Research series.

Current Research

• Germany and the EU (research with Willie Paterson, Aston University).Europeanisation.
• The European Union´s Lisbon Strategy for economic competitiveness.
• Domestic politics and EU governance
• Time and politics in the European Union

Key Publications

• I. Bache, S. George and S. Bulmer, Politics in the European Union, 3rd edn, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
• S. Bulmer, C. Jeffery and S. Padgett (eds.), Rethinking Germany and Europe: Democracy and Diplomacy in a Semi-Sovereign State (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmilan, 2010)
• S. Bulmer and M. Burch, The Europeanisation of Whitehall: UK Central Government and the European Union (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009).
• S. Bulmer, D. Dolowitz, P. Humphreys, S. Padgett, Policy Transfer in European Union Governance: Regulating the Utilities (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007).
• S. Bulmer and C. Lequesne (eds.), The Member States of the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
• K. Armstrong and S. Bulmer, The Governance of the Single European Market (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998).

Click here for Professor Bulmer's full list of publications.

PhD Supervision

I have supervised numerous PhD students to completion on an array of topics relating to the EU. Topics have included:

• Corporate governance in the European Union
• The EU, citizenship and disability policy.
• Identity formation in the European Union – the case of Poland.
• Common macroeconomic stabilisation policy in the Euro-Zone after EMU: a case of path-dependency?
• Agricultural policy reform in the EU.
• The path to a European Union sports policy.
• Institutions, culture and (dis)integration: a comparison of the European Union and post-Soviet experiences.
• The United Kingdom, sovereignty and the politics of European integration.
• A comparative analysis of supranational and national SME-related policies in the European Community.
• The EU and British central government: the impact of the Maastricht Treaty and of the Blair government.

I am currently supervising Defne Gunay (on the Europeanisation of Turkish foreign policy), Mario T. Vassallo (on small states' representative organisations in the European Union – Malta/Ireland), Recep Demir (on Europeanisation and Polish identity), Nuray Aridici (on the domestic politics of Russia’s policy on gas exports); and Jean Claude Cachia (on the Europeanisation of party and electoral politics in Malta).