Dr Joseph Ward

School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations

Teaching Associate

joseph.ward@sheffield.ac.uk

Room D13, Elmfield Building

2024/25 Spring Semester
Monday 11:00 - 12:00 and Thursday 2:00 - 3:00

Full contact details

Dr Joseph Ward
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Room D13
Elmfield Building
Northumberland Road
Sheffield
S10 2TU

Profile: Dr Joseph Ward joined the Department of Politics and International Relations in September 2021. Since then, he has taught on modules spanning political economy, public policy, and political theory in both UG and PG programmes in the department. He was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at Sheffield which he held from October 2023-2024.

Qualifications

Research interests: My research centres on how advanced capitalist states adapt, manage and curtail democratic systems. Adopting a comparative-historical approach, my PhD analysed the emergence of the referendum as a political tool in the UK in the 1970s. This work produced several publications on the interaction between key moments of constitutional change - such as the 1970s and post-2016 - and state reform in the context of wider shifts in British political economy. More recent work has engaged more deeply with debates in global political economy to explore how, in a context of neoliberal decline, liberal-democratic states have sought to curtail democratic freedoms and navigate capacity constraints in response to global economic pressures.

Publications

Ward J, Ward B & Kerr P (2024) Whither the centre? Tracing centralisation and fragmentation in UK politics.. Political Studies Review. View this article in WRRO
Ward JW (2021) Reasserting the Centre: The Brexit Doctrine and the Imperative Mandate in British Politics. Parliamentary Affairs, 74(4), 890-910.
Arthur J, Earl SR, Thompson AP & Ward JW (2021) The value of character-based judgement in the professional domain. Journal of Business Ethics, 169(2), 293-308.
Ward J () 'Taking the border out of politics'? The 1973 Northern Ireland border poll and the political character of (de)politicisation.. British Journal of Politics and International Relations.
Ward J & Da Costa Vieira T () Authoritarian Neoliberalism Between Johnson and Jupiter: Declining Legitimacy and the Elevation of Home Affairs in Post-Brexit Britain and Macron's France. Geoforum.
Ward J & Ward B () From Brexit to COVID-19: The Johnson Government, Executive Centralisation and Authoritarian Populism. Political Studies, 003232172110637-003232172110637.

Ward J (2018) Democratic change and ‘the referendum effect’ in the UK, Virtues in the Public Sphere (pp. 234-249). Routledge

Research group

Teaching interests: I aim to develop critical, active learners who are able to co-constitute knowledge in the classroom. This approach is underpinned by the philosophies of democratic education and critical pedagogy, areas in which I am interested both academically and practically. I was awarded a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2024.