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Staff profile: https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/jack-newman

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Bio:

Career

I am a Research Associate at The Productivity Institute and the Department of Politics, University of Manchester. My current research sits within the Productivity Institute’s ‘Institutions & Governance’ theme, asking whether UK productivity is constrained by the structure of its political institutions.

Previously, I worked at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, collaborating with the Institute for Government on a review of the UK constitution. This followed a post at the University of Surrey’s Centre for Research in Social Simulation on the LIPSIT research project, which analysed the link between local economies and the design of political institutions. Across these projects, I have written academic papers, media pieces, and policy reports about English devolution, the “levelling up agenda”, and the effectiveness of place-based policymaking.

In 2019, I completed a PhD at the University of Leeds, focused on the underlying (ontological) assumptions of UK social policy and the Conservative governments of the 2010s. I also hold an MA Politics from Leeds (2014) and a BA Politics from the University of Liverpool (2010).

I am active in academic networks relating to British politics, regional studies, and critical realism. I am an active member of the Critical Realism Network, a council member of the International Association for Critical Realism, and sit on the editorial committee of the Journal of Critical Realism.

Research

My current research sits within the Productivity Institute’s ‘Institutions & Governance’ theme, asking whether UK productivity is constrained by the structure of its political institutions. This particularly considers whether UK governance is too centralised, too fragmented, and too short-termist to improve productivity and tackle regional inequalities.

More broadly, my research concerns how institutional structures and underlying assumptions affect the policymaking capacity of the UK’s political institutions. This overarching interest entails several specific strands of research:

1. The development of devolution and central-local relations in England.
2. The impact of governance structures on place-based policymaking and regional inequality.
3. The underlying (ontological) assumptions of social and economic policy in the UK.
4. The influence of the private sector on politics and policymaking.

This research is underpinned by mixed-methods approaches and an active engagement in the philosophy of social science, with a particular focus on critical realism, social ontology, network analysis, and critical discourse analysis.

Key words: UK politics; devolution; UK constitution; local government; regional politics; social ontology; critical realism; critical discourse analysis; social theory; social security policy.

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