Professor Andrew Gamble

FBA, FAcSS, FRSA

Department of Politics and International Relations

Chair in Politics

Profile image for academic staff member Andrew Gamble
Profile picture of Profile image for academic staff member Andrew Gamble
a.m.gamble@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 1694

Full contact details

Professor Andrew Gamble
Department of Politics and International Relations
Modular Teaching Village
Northumberland Road
Sheffield
S10 1AJ
Profile

I rejoined the Department in October 2014, having previously been a lecturer, Reader and Professor in the Department from 1973 until 2006. I was Head of Department between 1986 and 1992 and a Pro-Vice Chancellor between 1994 and 1998. I was one of the founder members of the Political Economy Research Centre (PERC) in 1994, and Director 1999-2004.

From 2007 until 2014 I was Professor of Politics and a Fellow of Queens’ College at the University of Cambridge. I was Head of the Department of Politics in Cambridge 2007-8 and then Head of the newly formed Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) 2009-12. On my retirement from Cambridge in 2014 I became Emeritus Professor of Politics.

I have been joint editor of two journals: New Political Economy (1996-2008), and The Political Quarterly (1997-2012).

Research interests

My research interests lie in British politics, political economy and political thought. I continue to work in all these areas. I am the author of nine books, and the joint author or editor of another 22 books, as well as 100 contributions to edited books, and 60 academic journal articles. In relation to the broad field of political studies I have always regarded myself first and foremost as a political economist.

My research interests and publications have been quite diverse, but a common thread is the attempt to use a political economy approach, seeking to understand politics by exploring the complex interrelationships between state and economy, and the ideas, policies and institutions through which these are expressed. Political economy currently has various meanings, but my own approach has been primarily historical, institutionalist, and comparative, and has also sought wherever possible to be interdisciplinary.

My research has had three main, often overlapping, strands. The first is the application of a political economy approach to the study of British politics in four linked books which I have published over the last thirty years: The Conservative Nation (1974), Britain in Decline: Economic Policy, Political Strategy and the British State (1981), The Free Economy and the Strong State: The Politics of Thatcherism (1988) and between Europe and America: the Future of British Politics (2003). These books, together with associated papers in journals and edited collections, have attempted to understand the shifting agendas, issues, outcomes and debates in British politics through an analysis of the political economy of the British state, exploring the historical, institutionalist, and ideological contexts which have shaped it.

A second strand, in political theory and political ideology, which has run parallel to this work, has analysed the main doctrines of political economy and their relationship to the ideologies of the modern era. I published a preliminary version of this in An Introduction to Modern Social and Political Thought (1981), and have developed it further in Hayek: the iron Cage of Liberty (1996), as well as in papers on neoliberalism, neo-conservatism and socialism.

A third strand has explored a number of theoretical and applied issues in political economy, including ownership, stakeholding, corporate governance, and assets and human capital. This research attracted funding from the Leverhulme Trust, the AngloGerman Foundation and the ESRC, and has issued in a number of publications.

My current work is focused on the politics of the welfare state and the politics of austerity. I am part of a research team in Cambridge funded by the Philomathia foundation which is comparing the implementation of austerity policies in the EU.

Publications

Journal articles

Research group

I have supervised more than twenty doctoral theses at Sheffield and Cambridge.

Professional activities and memberships
  • Leverhulme Trust Advisory Panel 2001-2011
  • Vice-Chair Political Studies Association 1989-91
  • Chair of International Advisory Board of SPERI, 2012-2014
  • Advisory Board, Policy Network, 2015-
  • External examiner for more than 50 doctoral theses
  • External examiner appointments for 13 MA and BA degree courses
  • ESRC Steering Group, International Benchmarking Review, Politics and International Studies, 2006
  • Fellow of the British Academy since 2000 and Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences since 2002
  • Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize 1972
  • Mitchell Prize 1977
  • PSA W.J.M. Mackenzie Prize for best book in political science published in 2003
  • PSA Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for Lifetime Contribution to Political Studies (2005)