This website includes interactive, multimedia links of potential use to policy researchers and anyone interested in law, public policy and advocacy – all come from my award winning Durham Law School module ‘Legal Frontiers’. You will find links to databases, information about research methods – and the tools to use them!
KEY POLICY DATABASES
List of UK Government Policies (website)
Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
They Work for You (Parliamentary records)
KEY RESOURCES
Behavioural Insights Team (website)
Bryson, Social Research Methods (4th ed) resources (website)
General guidelines for conducting interviews (website)
House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, ‘The centre of government’ (pdf report)
Research Design (website)
Surveymonkey (website)
- See Questionnaires: Good and Bad examples (website)
Web Centre for Research Methods (website)
‘Yes, Minister’ on leading questions (video)
FURTHER READING:
INTRODUCTION
Bruce Ackerman, ‘Law in an Activist State’ (essay)
Howell E. Jackson, et al. Analytical Methods for Lawyers, 2nd ed. New York: Foundation Press, 2011.
BACKGROUND: PARLIAMENT
Alexander Horne and Gavin Drewry (eds), Parliament and the Law, 2nd edition. Oxford: Hart, 2020.
Malcolm Jack (ed.), Erskine May’s Treatise on The Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, 24th edition. London: Lexis Nexis, 2011.
Robert Rogers and Rhodri Walters, How Parliament Works, 7th edition. London: Routledge, 2015.
Michael Zander, The Law-Making Process, 7th edition. Oxford: Hart, 2015.
LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY
Anthony Kreis and Robert Christensen, ‘Law and Public Policy’ (essay)
Richard Lempert, ‘Empirical Research for Public Policy: With Examples from Family Law’ (essay)
Gus O’Donnell, ‘Better Government’ (essay)
Matthew D. Adler, Measuring Social Welfare: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019.
George A. Boyne, Kenneth J. Meier, Laurence J. O’Toole Jr and Richard M. Walker (eds), Public Service Performance: Perspectives on Measurement and Management. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Thom Brooks, “Philosophical Disagreement and Public Policy Making” in Maria Baghramian, J. Adam Carter and Richard Rowland (eds), Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Disagreement. London: Routledge, in press.
Suma Damodaran, Managerial Economics, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Arye L. Hillman, Public Finance and Public Policy: A Political Economy Perspective on the Responsibilities and Limitations of Government, 3rd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, esp parts 2 and 3.
Christopher Hood & Ruth Dixon, A Government That Worked Better and Cost Less? Evaluating Three Decades of Reform and Change in UK Central Government. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2015.
Rachel Meltzer & Alex Schwartz, Policy Analysis as Problem Solving: A Flexible and Evidence-Based Framework. London: Routledge, 2019.
Emanuele Padovani and David W. Young, Managing Local Governments: Designing Management Control Systems That Deliver Value. London: Routledge, 2012.
Kai Ruggeri (ed.), Behavioral Insights for Public Policy: Concepts and Cases. London: Routledge, 2019.
Catherine F. Smith, Writing Public Policy, 3rd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Ed Straw, Stand and Deliver: A Design for Successful Government. York: Treaty for Government, 2014.
Georgina Sturge, Bad Data: How Governments, Politicians and the Rest of Us Get Misled by Numbers. London: Bridge Street Press, 2022.
Jamie Susskind, Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Tristan Boutros and Jennifer Cardella, The Basics of Process Improvement. London: CRC Press, 2016.
LEADERSHIP
Thom Brooks, “Leadership and Stakeholding” in Jacqueline Boaks and Michael Levine (eds), Ethics and Leadership. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015, pp. 199-210.
Daniel Coyle, The Talent Code. London: Arrow Books, 2009
G. Shawn Hunter, Small Acts of Leadership: 12 Intentional Behaviors That Lead to Big Impact. New York: Routledge, 2016.
Jeffrey A. Kottler, Change: What Really Leads to Lasting Personal Transformation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Mark H. McCormack, What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School. London: Profile Books, 1984 (especially Part One “People,” Part Two chapter “negotiating” and Part Three chapter “getting things done”).
Mark H. McCormack, What They Still Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School. London: Profile Books, 1989 (especially chapters on “negotiating,” “managing” and “communicating”).
Jo Owen, How to Lead, 5th edition. New York: Pearson, 2011.
STAKEHOLDER THEORY
Thom Brooks, “The Stakeholder Society and the Politics of Hope,” Renewal 23(1-2) (2015): 44-54.
Thom Brooks, “Justice as Stakeholding” in Krushil Watene and Jay Drydyk (eds), Theorizing Justice. New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016, pp. 111-127.
Thom Brooks, “Cultivating Citizenship: On the Importance of Stakeholding” in (ed.), Political Emotions: Towards a Decent Public Sphere. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 115-132.
R. Edward Freeman, Jeffrey S. Harrison, Andrew C. Wicks, Bidhan L. Parmar adn Simone de Colle, Stakeholder Theory: The State of the Art. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Will Hutton, The Stakeholding Society. Cambridge: Polity, 1999.
Sybille Sachs and Edwin Ruehli, Stakeholders Matter: A New Paradigm for Strategy in Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
ADVANCED LEGAL RESEARCH METHODS
Ivana Acocella, ‘The focus groups in social research: advantages and disadvantages’ (essay)
Beth Leech, ‘Asking Questions: Techniques for Semistructured Interviews’ (essay)
Nora Schaeffer and Stanley Presser, ‘The Science of Asking Questions’ (essay)
Daniel Farber, ‘Rethinking the Role of Cost-Benefit Analysis’ (essay)
Howland, et al, ‘Merging Content Analysis and the Policy Sciences’ (essay)
Eric Posner, ‘ Controlling Agencies with Cost-Benefit Analysis: A Positive Political Theory Perspective’ (essay)
Cass Sunstein, ‘Is Cost-Benefit Analysis for Everyone?’ (essay)
Daniel Kahneman, Oliver Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. London: William Collins, 2021.
Randall Kiser, Soft Skills for the Effective Lawyer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
E. J. Mishan and Euston Quah, Cost-Benefit Analysis, 6th edition. London: Routledge, 2021.
Brodie Gregory Riordan, Feedback Fundamentals and Evidence-Based Best Practices: Give It, Ask for It, Use It. London: Routledge, 2021.
Christian Rudder, Dataclysm: What our online lives tell us about our online selves. London: Fourth Estate, 2014.
Kai Ruggeri (ed.), Behavioral Insights for Public Policy: Concepts and Cases. London: Routledge, 2019, esp chapter 4.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz (2017). Everybody Lies: What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. New York:Bloomsbury.
Cass R.Sunstein, Simpler: The Future of Government. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013.
Philip E. Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment: How Good is It? How Can We Know? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005.
Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner, Super-forecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction. London: Random House, 2019.
Richard Thaler & Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2009.
PUBLIC OPINION
Dennis Chong and James Druckman, ‘Dynamic Public Opinion’ (essay)
Stephen Coleman and Jay Blumler, ‘The Wisdom of Which Crowd?’ (essay)
Dan Kahan, et al, ‘Cultural Cognition of Scientific Consensus’ (essay)
Peter John, et al, ‘Nudge, Nudge, Think Think’ (essay)
Paul Whitely, ‘Why Did the Polls Get It Wrong in the 2015 General Election? Evaluating the Inquiry into Pre-Election Polls’ (essay)
Thom Brooks, “Should We Nudge Informed Consent?” American Journal of Bioethics 13(6) (2013): 22-23.
Brittany Hennessy, Influencer: Building Your Personal Brand in the Age of Social Media. New York: Citadel Press, 2018.
Ronald D. Smith, Strategic Planning for Public Relations, 6th edition. London: Routledge, 2021.
Joan van Tassel, Mary Murphy and Joseph Schmitz, The New News: The Journalist’s Guide to Producing Digital Content for Online and Mobile News. London: Routledge, 2020.
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION & NEGOTIATION
Dan Kahan, ‘Fixing the Communications Failure’ (essay)
BBC News, ‘Miliband, Clegg and Cameron: Three speeches compared’ (website)
John Rawls, ‘The Idea of Public Reason Revisited’ (essay)
Jean Sternlight and Jennifer Robbennolt, ‘Good Lawyers Should Be Good Psychologists: Insights for Interviewing and Counselling Clients’ (essay)
‘Persuasion – Empirical Evidence’ (website)
Nicole Mayer, ‘”Think” versus “Feel” Framing Effects in Persuasion’ (essay)
John Barkai, ‘Speaking Body Language’ (essay)
Ray Fells, Effective Negotiation, 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini, Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven ways to be Persuasive. New York: Free Press, 2010.
Ross Guberman, Point Made: How to Write Like the Nation’s Top Advocates, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Kenny F. Heglend, Trial and Lawyering Skills in a Nutshell, 5th edition. St Paul: West Academic Publishing, 2016.
Brian K. Johnson and Marsha Hunter, The Articulate Advocate: Persuasive Skills for Lawyers in Trials, Appeals, Arbitrarions and Motions, 2nd ed. Santa Fe: Crown King Books, 2016.
Geoff Mulgan, The Art of Public Strategy: Mobilizing Power and Knowledge for the Common Good. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Al Ries and Jack Trout, Positioning: How to Be Seen and Heard in the Overcrowded Marketplace. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Florence Kennedy Rolland, The Persuasive Negotiator: Tools and Techniques for Effective Negotiating. London: Routledge, 2021, esp. chapters 7 and 9.
Richard Rumelt, Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. London: Profile Books, 2012.
Joel P. Trachtman, The Tools of Argument: How the Best Lawyers Think, Argue and Win. 2013.
