Rate My Professor Duncan McConnell

Duncan McDonnell is Professor of Politics and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University. After graduating from Trinity College Dublin, he earned his PhD in Political Science from the University of Turin in 2008. He joined Griffith in 2014 as Senior Lecturer, promoted to Professor in 2018. Previously, he was Lecturer and Researcher at the University of Turin (2008-2011) and held Jean Monnet and Marie Curie Fellowships at the European University Institute in Florence (2011-2012).

His research focuses on populism and political parties, utilizing interviews with hundreds of nationalist populist figures across 18 countries and surveys of thousands of mainstream party youth members in six countries. He has attracted nearly AUD 4 million in competitive grants, including an ARC Future Fellowship ($1,033,480, 2022-2026) for 'The Internationalisation of Nationalist Populism'. In 2025, The Australian named him Australia's leading Political Science researcher. He received the 2023 APSA Mayer Article Prize. Key works include books International Populism: The Radical Right in the European Parliament (Oxford University Press, 2020), Populists in Power (Routledge, 2015), Saving the People: How Populists Hijack Religion (Oxford University Press, 2016), and Twenty-First Century Populism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), alongside numerous articles in elite journals such as European Journal of Political Research and Journal of European Public Policy. With over 6,500 citations, his scholarship profoundly shapes understandings of populist dynamics and party organizations. McDonnell leads Griffith's 'People, Elections & Parties' Research Program and was Deputy Director of the Centre for Governance and Public Policy (2019-2020).