Dr Stephen Thornton - BA, PGCE, MScEcon, PhD
Overview
Position:
Lecturer in Comparative Politics
Email:
ThorntonSL@cardiff.ac.ukTelephone: +44(0)29 2087 6095
Fax: +44(0)29 2087 4946
Extension: 76095
Location: Room 0.07, 65-68 Park Place
My research and teaching interests include British politics and public policy, Labour party history, comparative politics, social policy, technology and Politics, and political biography. Current projects include running – with Professor Adam Sharr of Newcastle University – a CHRI-funded project to investigate Sir Leslie Martin’s 1965 proposal to create a modernist ‘National and Government Centre’ in Whitehall: ‘Ziggurats for Bureaucrats’, as the scheme was called. In contrast, I am also actively engaged in researching the role new technologies play in the process of political learning.
Selected Publications
(with Adam Sharr), Demolishing Whitehall: Leslie Martin, Harold Wilson and the Architecture of White Heat, Ashgate, Forthcoming.
Issues and Controversies associated with the use of new Technologies, in C. Gormley-Heenan and S. Lightfoot (eds.) Teaching Politics, Palgrave. Forthcoming.
From ‘Scuba Diving’ to ‘Jet Ski-ing’? Information Behavior, Political Science, and the Google Generation, Journal of Political Science Education, 6 (4), 2010.
Richard Crossman and the Welfare State, I.B.Tauris, 2009. (‘Stephen Thornton’s terrific new book shows us another side of this complex and provocative personality – Crossman as a policy entrepreneur and a serious ideas-man who played a central role in some key social policy reform debates and initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s. It is in one sense a story of political and policy failure. But the book gives us a well-researched and finely written analysis of the interaction of individuals, ideas and interests in public policymaking, shining new light on the inner workings of the Labour Party and Whitehall in this period. And, as Thornton shows, it is a “story rich in lessons” – for policymakers and for those who study them.’ Kevin Theakston, Professor of British Government, University of Leeds)
Pedagogy, Politics and Information Literacy, Politics, 28 (1), 2008, pp. 50-56.
(With Rosanne Palmer and Mark Crowley), Government formation in the National Assembly for Wales, No Overall Control? The impact of a hung parliament on British politics, A. Brazier and S. Kalitowski (eds.), Hansard Society, 2008, pp. 63-72.
A Case of Confusion and Incoherence: Social Security under Wilson, 1964-1970, Contemporary British History, 20 (3), September 2006, pp. 441-460.
Research Unit
Publications
Authored books
(with Adam Sharr), Demolishing Whitehall: Leslie Martin, Harold Wilson and the Architecture of White Heat, Ashgate, Forthcoming.
Richard Crossman and the Welfare State, I.B.Tauris, 2009.
Refereed journal articles
Trying to Learn (Politics) in a Data-drenched Society: Can Information Literacy Save Us?, European Political Science. Forthcoming.
From ‘Scuba Diving’ to ‘Jet Ski-ing’? Information Behavior, Political Science, and the Google Generation, Journal of Political Science Education, 6 (4), 2010.
Lessons from America: Teaching Politics with the Google generation, ELiSS: Enhancing Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences, 1(3), 2009.
Pedagogy, Politics and Information Literacy, Politics, 28 (1), 2008. pp. 50-56.
Information literacy and the teaching of Politics, LATISS: Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences, 3(1), 2006, pp. 29-45.
A Case of Confusion and Incoherence: Social Security under Wilson, 1964-1970, Contemporary British History, 20(3), September 2006, pp. 441-460.
Richard Crossman, the Civil Service, and the Case of the Disappearing Pension, Public Policy and Administration, 20(2), Summer 2005, pp. 67-80.
Chapters in books
Issues and Controversies associated with the use of new Technologies, in C. Gormley-Heenan and S. Lightfoot (eds.) Teaching Politics, Palgrave. Forthcoming.
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works’ in S. Curtis and S. Rofe (eds) Why Social Science Matters, Issue 5: Does the Medium Matter? IT-Assisted Learning and Teaching in International Relations and Politics, C-SAP: Higher Education Academy Subject Network for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics, 2011, pp.7-11.
(With Rosanne Palmer and Mark Crowley), Government formation in the National Assembly for Wales, No Overall Control? The impact of a hung parliament on British politics, ed. A. Brazier and S. Kalitowski (eds.), Hansard Society, 2008, pp. 63-72.
Pensions Policy, in P. Dorey (ed.), Developments in British Public Policy, SAGE, 2005, pp. 161-179.
Towards public-private partnership: Labour and pensions policy, in P. Dorey (ed.), The Labour Governments 1964-1970, Routledge, 2005, pp. 292-308.
Report, briefings and working papers
'Wilson, Whitehall and White Heat', paper presented as part the EGIPP research seminar series, Cardiff University, 2 March 2011.
(with David Broughton), Comparative Politics: Why bother?, Political Education Forum Journal, 3(1), 2010, pp. 22-25.
Biography
Career profile
Following a career as a teacher, I came to the School of European Studies in 1996 to begin a Masters degree, which developed into a PhD, which I completed in 2003. Since 1997 I have taught on a wide variety of modules, was appointed Lecturer in Politics in 2004, and Lecturer in Comparative Politics in 2006 (0.5 fte).
Memberships/External activities
I am co-convenor and treasurer of the PSA Specialist Group on Learning and Teaching, and am involved with Higher Education Academy’s Subject Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (C-SAP). I became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2010. In February 2011, on behalf of the Histories, Memories and Fictions and European Governance, Identity and Public Policy Research Units, I organised a guest lecture by Ion Trewin: editor and biographer of the late Alan Clark; literary director of the Mann Booker Prize; and special professor at the University of Nottingham.
Presentations
(with Adam Sharr) ‘Demolishing Whitehall’, History and Theory Seminar, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge, 17 January 2012.
‘We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works’, at the PSA/BISA Teaching and Learning Annual Conference, National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff Bay, 14 September 2011.
‘From Dick Crossman to Alistair Campbell: Using Diaries and Memoirs to Teach British Politics’, paper presented at the PSA Conference, London, 21 April 2011.
‘Wilson, White Heat, and Redeveloping Whitehall’, paper as part of the EGIPP seminar series, Cardiff University, 2 March, 2011.
‘Is the library dead? Students’ information behaviours in the twenty-first century’, paper presented at the PSA Specialist Group on Teaching and Learning Annual Conference, De Montfort University, 15 September 2010.
‘‘Information Literacy: where next?’ paper presented at PSA Conference, Edinburgh, 30 March 2010.
'Learning to Teach Politics in Higher Education’, paper presented at the PSA Specialist Group on Teaching and Learning Annual Conference, 8 September 2009.
(with Sonja Haerkoenen) ‘Attempting to bridge the barrier between academic study and research skills training: Early student responses to a fully integrated academic/skills-based method of assessment’, paper presented at PSA Conference, Manchester University, 8 April 2009.
(with Sonja Haerkoenen) ‘Trial and error: Student responses to different approaches of embedding information literacy education across five departments’, paper presented at Librarians' Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC), Cardiff University, 30 March 2009.
‘Teaching Politics and the Google Generation’, presented at the Youth, Citizenship and Political Science Education Conference, Royal Holloway, University of London, 4-5 September 2008.
(with Rosanne Palmer), ‘Celebrating Independents’ Day? Assessing the significance of May 2008 local elections in Wales’, paper at the Joint South East Wales Universities History/ Politics Summer Conference 2008, National Assembly for Wales, Cardiff Bay, 27 June 2008.
(with Cathie Jackson and Rebecca Mogg), ‘Avoiding the University of Google ’, part of the QUILT (Quality and Innovation in Learning and Teaching) Seminar Series, Cardiff University, 23 May 2008.
‘Assessing information literacy in a Politics module’, paper presented at the PSA Conference, Swansea University, 1 April 2008.
‘Sage on the Stage or a Guide on the Side: The roles of the Politics Lecturer’, paper presented at the PSA Graduate Conference, Swansea University, 31 March 2008.
‘Embedding Information Literacy into a Politics Module: Lessons learned from a pilot study at Cardiff University’ paper presented at the University College and Research Group (Wales Branch) of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, 25 May 2005.
‘Harold Wilson and Social Security, 1964-1970’, paper presented at the ‘Relevance of Wilsonism’ symposium held at New College, Oxford, 24 July 2003.
Teaching
I am responsible for the final year module Analysing Political Lives, and co-lead the first year modules Introduction to Government, Introduction to Political Science, and Introduction to Academic Study (in the UK). I also contribute to a wide number of M-level courses, and provide both thesis and dissertation support.