Philip Cowley
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Philip Cowley is a British political scientist and an academic at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.
He is particularly notable for two things: one the analysis of Parliamentary voting behaviour in the UK House of Commons and House of Lords and secondly his opposition to a lowering of the UK voting age below 18.
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[edit] Parliamentary Revolts
In the first he is involved in the continuous production of highly detailed and closely analysed briefing papers and reports of divisions in the UK Parliament, with eye-witness accounts of whipping practices in action, counts and comparisons of rebellious voting by Parliamentarians and discussion of how such activity impacts on its political context. He co-ordinates this work through the maintenance of a website - www.revolts.co.uk - produced in a blog format. He is assisted by his colleagues Mark Stuart, also of the University of Nottingham, and Lord Norton of the University of Hull. They are funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and through previous research by their respective universities and the Leverhulme Trust. The project is not affiliated to any political party, nor does it receive funding from any other source.
[edit] "Votes For Adults"
In the second he has produced a website entitled "Votes for Adults" in which he claims to dismiss comprehensively the arguments put forward in support of a reduction of the voting age to 16. This is in opposition to the Votes at 16 campaign, supported by a broad coalition of youth charities and other organisations, and contains Cowley's thoughts as to the complete and total illogicality of such a change and how it fundamentally differs from all previously proposed extensions of the franchise. Since the adverse report of the Electoral Commission towards a reduction in the voting age in the near future, Cowley's maintenance of the website has ceased as a result of his success. In producing a platform for his arguments he has clearly presented the case for maintaining the status quo: a cause which, by its very nature, does not normally benefit from positive advocation.
[edit] Bibliography
- Developments in British Politics 8, Macmillan, 2006 (ed. Patrick Dunleavy, Richard Heffernan, Philip Cowley & Colin Hay)
- Rebels: How Blair Mislaid His Majority, Politico's 2005 (shortlisted for the Channel 4 Political Awards Book of the Year)
- Revolts and Rebellions: Parliamentary Voting Under Blair, Politico's, 2002 (Winner of W J M Mackenzie Prize for best book published in political science in 2002)
