Dominic Burbidge is Lecturer in Politics at St Peter’s College, a Research Director in the University of Oxford, and a Research Associate of DPIR. He was formerly Departmental Lecturer in the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies and a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Faculty of Law. He previously worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Politics in Princeton University. Dr Burbidge additionally serves as Director of the Canterbury Institute.
Research
Dr Burbidge focuses on the nature of democracy, social trust and human connectivity, with particular empirical material drawn from East Africa. He recently published the book An Experiment in Devolution and is currently leading the research project Citizenship in a Networked Age. In his work he seeks to look at the connection between social trust and the social contract.
Publications
Introduction to 'Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: A Special Edition on the Thought of Alasdair MacIntyre'. Politics & Poetics, Vol. 4 (2021), pp. i-x (with Nathan Pinkoski)
'Genuine Development: Reflections on Agency and Passivity'. Ch 4 of Carozza, P. G. & Sedmak, C. (eds.), The Practice of Human Development and Dignity (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2020), pp. 83-97
'Transition to Subnational Democracy: Kenya's 2017 Presidential and Gubernatorial Elections'. Regional & Federal Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (2020), pp. 387-414
'Regional Politics in the Time of Devolution - Central: Self-sufficiency through local government'. Ch 47 of Cheeseman, N., Kanyinga, K. & Lynch, G. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Kenyan Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020) (with Thomas Raji), pp. 1-18
'Corruption'. Ch 30 of Lynch, G. & VonDoepp, P. (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Democratization in Africa (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020) (with Mark Philp)
'Laboratory Games'. Appendix 3 of Cheeseman, N., Lynch, G. & Willis, J., The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa: Democracy, Voting and Virtue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020) (with Amma Panin)
‘Trust and Social Relations in African Politics’. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019)
An Experiment in Devolution: National Unity and the Deconstruction of the Kenyan State (Nairobi: Strathmore University Press, 2019).
‘The Inherently Political Nature of Subsidiarity’. American Journal of Jurisprudence, Vol. 62, No. 2 (2017), pp. 143-164
‘The uncomfortable question of urgency for liberal thought: A dialogue between John Locke’s Two Treatises of Government and contemporary liberal theory’. Politics & Poetics, Vol. 2 (2017), pp. 1-27
‘Trust, Ethnicity and Integrity in East Africa: Experimental Evidence from Kenya and Tanzania’. Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics (with Nic Cheeseman), Vol. 2 (2017), pp. 88-123
‘Security and devolution in Kenya: Struggles in applying constitutional provisions to local politics’. Strathmore Law Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2017), pp. 131-155
‘Space for virtue in the economics of Kenneth J. Arrow, Amartya Sen and Elinor Ostrom’. Journal of Economic Methodology, Vol. 23, No. 4 (2016), pp. 396-412
The Shadow of Kenyan Democracy: Widespread Expectations of Widespread Corruption (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015)