Dr Kathryn Simpson

About

Dr Kathryn Simpson is an expert in comparative European politics, political behaviour and public opinion. Her research covers how attitudes to inequality are linked to attitudes to European integration as well as the link between public attitudes to inequality and public attitudes to the European Union in the context of economic crisis. She is Editor of the Journal of Contemporary European Research (JCER, www.jcer.net) and has worked as a broadcaster and journalist for Euradionantes; a European affairs radio station funded by the European Commission based in Nantes, France (www.euradionantes.eu).

Dr Simpson joined the University of Manchester in May 2014 as a Research Associate in the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research (CMIST) within the School of Social Sciences. Prior to this, she was Assistant Lecturer (Political Science) in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent (Canterbury).

Dr Simpson studied a Ph.D in Politics and Government at the University of Kent (Canterbury). Her Ph.D thesis was entitled “Support for the European Union and the Role of Inequality: a Cross-National Examination and the Case of the Republic of Ireland”. The thesis analysed political behaviour and attitudes as they relate to both inequality and political change in European Union (EU) member states and the Republic of Ireland subsequently influencing mass public opinion support for the European Union (EU). She also holds a joint MA (hons) in Contemporary European Studies: Politics, Policy and Society (Euromasters) from the University of Bath and Sciences-Po Paris, and a BA (hons) in European Studies and French from Queen’s University Belfast.