Dr Matty Mckenna
About
About
Matty is a Political Science and Public Administration scholar. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher on the ARIA-funded project, Futuring Biological Commons.
Under the supervision of Catherine Durose and Stephen Bates, he completed his ESRC-funded PhD in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Birmingham. His thesis, entitled Policy learning during times of failure and blame: how English local government responds to central government intervention, explored how governance traditions shape practices and beliefs regarding cooperation, conflict, and power within central–local relations. Using a deliberative democratic lens, the thesis offers ways to overcome dysfunctional relational dynamics between conflicting groups.
Matty is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham, where he is involved in a number of ongoing interdisciplinary research projects on antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The first focuses on a comparative analysis of policy implementation and the street-level practices of healthcare professionals across Northern Europe and West Africa. Here, Matty is interested in how risk knowledge(s) are mobilised within the relational and affective practices of caring for patients. The second project examines AMR policymaking in the UK Parliament and Government, and the ways in which evidence is negotiated and translated in spaces where science and policy intersect.
Research Interests
- Urban governance
- Intersections between policy failure, policy learning and blame
- Deliberative policymaking
- Multi-level governance
- Policy implementation and state-citizen interactions
- Science-policy interactions
- Sociology of risk
- Evidence-based policymaking
- Epistemic politics
- Comparative analysis
Publications
McKenna, M., C, A. Rodrigues., P, Brown., Bradby, H., Gale, N. (Forthcoming). Tackling wicked problems through street-level diplomacy: the case of antimicrobial stewardship in Northern Europe. Social Science and Medicine.
Arnold, T. and McKenna, M., 2024. The ‘Great Survivor’lives on? Resilience, austerity and devolution in English local government. Local Government Studies, 50(6), pp.1105-1117.
Adams, R.L., McKenna, M., Allsopp, K., Saleem, S., Le Mesurier, N., Diar Bakerly, N., Turner, A.M. and Gale, N.K., 2024. “I know this is on my chest, let’s act”: a qualitative study exploring self-management of acute COPD exacerbations with a sputum colour chart to reduce unnecessary antibiotic use. NPJ Primary Care Respiratory Medicine, 34(1), p.41.
McKenna, M. and Gale, N., 2022. Tensions within the public encounter: Balancing individual and population health risks. In The politics of the public encounter (pp. 170-188). Edward Elgar Publishing.