Rate My Professor Nick Clarke

Professor Nick Clarke is Professor of Political Geography at the University of Southampton. His research centres on governance and citizenship, encompassing three primary areas. The first involves innovative responses to globalisation from 2004 onwards, supported by grants from the ESRC, Nuffield Foundation, and Local Government Alliance for International Development. This work addresses global citizenship, ethical consumption, and interurban partnerships, as detailed in his co-authored book Globalising Responsibility (2011, Wiley-Blackwell). The second area examines challenges to representative democracy arising from the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the rise of populism, Brexit, and the COVID-19 pandemic since 2013, funded by the ESRC, British Academy, and Leverhulme Trust. It explores relations between national and local government, and between politicians and citizens, prominently featured in his co-authored book The Good Politician (2018, Cambridge University Press). The third focuses on methodological opportunities provided by Mass Observation for governance and citizenship studies since 2014, also funded by the ESRC, British Academy, and Leverhulme Trust, including a co-edited special section of History of the Human Sciences on 'Archiving the COVID-19 pandemic' and his edited book Everyday Life in the COVID-19 Pandemic (2024, Bloomsbury).

Clarke has directed multiple research projects, such as 'The making of 'grey power': Political understandings over the life course'; 'Learning to Live with Risk & Responsibility: Understanding Popular Responses to COVID-19' (British Academy); 'Mobilising Policy through Interurban Partnerships' (British Academy); 'Popular understandings of politics in Britain, 1945-2016' (ESRC, with Gerry Stoker and Will Jennings); and 'Town twinning in Britain since 1945: Producing proximities' (Nuffield Foundation). He serves as a member of the ESRC Peer Review College since 2015 and has authored 57 publications, including recent works like 'Mass observing British politics' (2026, British Politics, with Alex Hill and Jonathan Moss); 'Right place, right time: luck, geography, and politics' (2026, Geoforum); 'The good politician: competence, integrity and authenticity in seven democracies' (2024, Political Studies, with Viktor Valgarðsson et al.); 'Archiving the COVID-19 pandemic in Mass Observation and Middletown' (2023, History of the Human Sciences, with Clive Barnett); and 'Seeing like an epidemiologist?' (2023, History of the Human Sciences, with Clive Barnett).