Senior Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences

I am a Senior Lecturer in Applied Social Sciences and Continuation & Success Lead for BSc Criminology. I successfully defended my PhD thesis, entitled “How do nations control political finance and why do reforms occur? A nested mixed-method analysis of Political finance reform in Canada, New Zealand, and Commonwealth Caribbean Small States”, at the University of Birmingham, in 2023. I am a comparative politics scholar with primary interests in electoral regulations, party systems, democratic institutions, and campaign finance. My present works focus on how inter- and intra-party dynamics influence the development of financing and electoral regulations.

I have achieved many milestones in my career to date, including solo- and co-authored research outputs in internationally renowned academic journals, such as Party Politics, Electoral Studies, Politics, and Parliamentary Studies, and receipt of prestigious awards such as the Michael K O’Rourke Publication Award, Rosamund Davies Memorial Fellowship, Universitas 21 Fellowship, and Gill Blowers Award. I have a strong research base which comprises expertise in application of numerous research methods and traditions including, but not limited to, Principal Components/Multiple Correspondence Analysis, Factor Analysis, Hierarchical and Model Based Clustering, OLS and Logistic Regression, Process Tracing, Congruence Analysis, and Bayesian Inference. While I primarily hold expertise in quantitative methods, including regular use of R, I also have experience in qualitative study, and have published research using a mixed-methods approach.

I was solely responsible for the initiation, development, and delivery of the award winning ‘Regulation of Political Finance Indicator’ (RoPFI) dataset (a global database of political finance regimes) and, working with a co-author at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, extended the project to develop the ‘Referendum Campaign Finance Regulation Indicator’ (RefCFRI). Alongside my academic outputs, I hold a keen interest in studying election campaigns. My analysis of political spending during the 2020 US Election was quoted by ITV News and featured in The Conversation, while I have also made contributions to ECPR’s The Loop, LSE’s US Politics and Policy blog, PSA’s Political Insight magazine and the People, Power, Politics Podcast, in recent years.

At present, I am working on numerous projects including a monograph provisionally titled ‘Political Finance in Westminster Democracies: Competition, Governance, and the Politics of Reform’, and a comparative study into Gender-Targeted Public Funding and Women’s Parliamentary Representation. In conjunction with these projects, I am in the early developmental stages of a study into political finance reform in small state contexts and a collaborative project on the British far-right. I am developing a new undergraduate unit, entitled ‘Applied Data Analysis for Social Scientists’, which focuses on the development of core quantitative research skills.

I am affiliated with the University of Bedfordshire’s Research Institute for Media, Art and Performance (RIMAP) and a member of the University of Nottingham’s Research Centre for the Study of Parties and Democracy (REPRESENT). I am interested in supervising postgraduate projects in any area linked to my below research interests and am open to serving in an advisory capacity to quantitative/mixed methods projects in wider topic areas.

Other References

• LinkedIn
• X (Twitter)
• ropfi.com

Qualifications

• PhD Political Science – University of Birmingham
• PGCert in Advanced Research Methods – University of Birmingham
• MA Criminology – University of Bedfordshire
• BA Hons Criminology – University of Bedfordshire
• Fellow of Advance HE

Teaching Expertise

• Crime and Politics
• Research Skills
• Quantitative and Qualitative Research
• SPSS

Research Interests

• Political Finance
• Democratic Institutions
• Comparative Research Methodologies
• Party Systems
• Machine Learning

Projects

• Developing the Regulation of Political Finance Indicator (RoPFI) - (2017-2022)

Publications

Journal Articles

• 2024: ‘Introducing the Referendum Campaign Finance Regulation Index (RefCFRI): A Continuous Indicator Comparing the Level of Regulation in 143 Countries, Politics, Online First. (with Toine Paulissen)
• 2024: ‘Which MPs get Elevated to the UK House of Lords?’, Parliamentary Affairs, Online First. (with Stephen Holden-Bates, Caroline Bhattacharya, and Stephen McKay)
• 2023: ‘Scandals and Competition as Primary Drivers of Reform? A Congruence Analysis of Australian Political Finance (1980–2020)’, Party Politics, Online First, pp.1-17. doi: 10.1177/13540688231202600.
• 2022: ‘Model based clustering of political finance regimes: Developing the Regulation of Political Finance Indicator’, Electoral Studies, 79 (1) pp.1—12. doi: 0.1016/j.electstud.2022.102524. *Winner of the 2023 Michael K. O’Rourke Best Publication Award
• 2018: ‘Marx’s Renaissance: Explaining the Growth of the left in the UK and beyond’, Political Insight, 9 (3) pp.16-19. doi: 10.1177/2041905818796575.

Research reports

• 2019: Measurement Tools for Comparative Political Finance: Excessive Reductionism or Valuable Simplicity? Electoral Regulation Research Network and Democratic Audit of Australia Working Paper Series No. 54. Available at: https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/3068502/WP54_Horncastle.pdf

Other publications

• 2024: ‘The 2024 General Election in the United Kingdom: A Victory for Labour and Record-Breaking Defeat for the Conservatives’, WhoGoverns.eu, 8 July. Available at: https://whogoverns.eu/the-2024-general-election-in-the-united-kingdom-a-victory-for-labour-and-record-breaking-defeat-for-the-conservatives/
• 2024: ‘All About Money? Elections, Campaign Spending and the Effects on Democracy’, People, Power, Politics Podcast, 24 May. Available at: https://newbooksnetwork.com/all-about-money-elections-campaign-spending-and-the-effects-on-democracy
• 2022: ‘A novel dataset of global political finance regimes’, ECPR The Loop, 10 October. Available at: https://theloop.ecpr.eu/a-novel-dataset-of-global-political-finance-regimes/
• 2022: Regulation of Political Finance Indicator (RoPFI) Dataset, v1.0. Available at: www.ropfi.com
• 2021: ‘The Parliament of New Zealand’, PSA Parl: Parliamentary Overviews, 20 April. Available at: https://psaparliaments.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/New-Zealand.pdf
• 2020: ‘The 2020 election was the most expensive in history, but campaign spending does not always lead to success’, LSE US Politics and Policy, 27 November. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/11/27/the-2020-election-was-the-most-expensive-in-history-but-campaign-spending-does-not-always-lead-to-success/
• 2020: ‘The scale of US election spending explained in five graphs’, The Conversation, 15 October. Available at: https://theconversation.com/the-scale-of-us-election-spending-explained-in-five-graphs-130651
• 2020: ‘Ten years on, the legacy of Citizens United still threatens representative democracy in the United States’, LSE US Politics and Policy, 21 January. Available at: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/01/21/ten-years-on-the-legacy-of-citizens-united-still-threatens-representative-democracy-in-the-united-states/

Conference presentations (last 5 years)

• 2025: ‘Political Finance in Westminster Democracies: Competition, Governance, and the Politics of Reform’, PSA 75^th Annual International Conference, University of Birmingham, 14-16 April.
• 2024: ‘Democratic Institutions and the Regulation of Political Finance’, ECPR General Conference, University College Dublin, 12-15 August (with Iain McMenamin).
• 2024: ‘Political Finance and Direct Democracy: Introducing the ‘Referendum Campaign Finance Regulation Index’ (RefCFRI)’, After (Neo-) Liberalism – Towards and Alternative Paradigm: 74th PSA Annual International Conference, University of Strathclyde, 25-27 March (with Toine Paulissen).
• 2023: ‘Towards an Integrated Theory of Political Finance Reform: Process Tracing the Diverse Cases of Canada, New Zealand, and Saint Lucia’, Political Futures: 73rd PSA Annual International Conference, University of Liverpool, 3-5 April.
• 2022: ‘Competition, Organization or Ideology? Process Tracing the Development of Australian Political Finance Reforms (1980—2020)’, REPRESENT Mini-Workshop, University of Nottingham, 10 November.
• 2021: ‘Electoral Competition or Party Ideology? Examining the Incentives Behind Political Finance Reform’, Random Access Memories Conference. PSA ECN, 5-9 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=CVMGBH_lkis
• 2020: ‘Patterns of Political Finance: Explaining Political Finance reforms in liberal democracies’, Research Methods Seminar Series. School of Government, University of Birmingham, 25 March.
• 2019: ‘Comparative political finance: Towards a unified approach for measuring and categorising political finance systems’, Making Sense of Contemporary Politics. PSA ECN, University of Exeter, 24 June.

Contact Details

E: william.horncastle1@beds.ac.uk