Dr Elisabeth Carter Lecturer Room: CBA1.024 Tel: +44 (0)1782 734248 Fax: +44 (0)1782 733592 Email: e.carter@pol.keele.ac.uk

Courses Taught

• The Extreme Right in Western Europe (Level 3)
• Researching and Dissertation-Writing in Politics and International Relations (Level 3)
• Research Design and Process (MRes)

Current Research Interests

• Comparative European Politics
• Political Parties and Party Systems
• Elections, Electoral Institutions and Electoral Behaviour
• Right-Wing Extremism

Prospective students interested in pursuing doctoral research in these areas are welcome to get in touch.

Elisabeth Carter is a member of the Keele European Parties Research Unit (KEPRU) and a member of the Keele Research Institute for Law, Politics and Justice.

Background Information

Elisabeth Carter received her undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Manchester. She gained a BA in European Studies and Modern Languages (French and German) and an MA in European Politics and Policy before going on to complete a PhD that examined the electoral fortunes of right-wing extremist parties across Western Europe. She came to Keele in 2003 as a researcher within the Keele European Parties Research Unit (KEPRU) and became a lecturer in Politics in 2005.

She has been involved in a number of cross-national research groups and has worked on several international collaborative projects including an ESRC-funded project (based at Keele) on the Europeanization of national political parties and, more recently, on the EU Profiler, a voting advice application for the European Parliament elections of 2009. She is also co-convenor of the European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) Standing Group on Extremism and Democracy.

Publications

Books

• (2007), The Europeanization of National Political Parties: Power and Organizational Adaptation, Abingdon: Routledge, co-edited with Poguntke Thomas, Nicholas Aylott, Robert Ladrech and Kurt Richard Luther.
• (2005), The Extreme Right in Western Europe: Success or Failure?, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Refereed journal articles

• (2009 forthcoming), ‘How European Integration Changes National Parties: Evidence from a 15-Country Study’, West European Politics, with Thomas Poguntke.
• (2009 forthcoming), ‘Christian Religiosity and Voting for West European Radical Right Parties’, West European Politics, 32(5): 985-1011, with Kai Arzheimer.
• (2009), ‘How (not) to Operationalize Subnational Political Opportunity Structures: A Critique of Kestilä and Söderlund's Study of Regional Elections’, European Journal of Political Research, 48(3): 335-58, with Kai Arzheimer.
• (2006), ‘Political Opportunity Structures and Right-Wing Extremist Party Success’, European Journal of Political Research, 45(3): 419-43, with Kai Arzheimer.
• (2004), ‘Does PR Promote Political Extremism? A Rejoinder’, Representation, 41(1): 63-6. 
• (2004), ‘Does PR Promote Political Extremism? Evidence from the West European Parties of the Extreme Right’, Representation, 40(2): 82-100.
• (2002), ‘Proportional Representation and the Fortunes of Right-Wing Extremist Parties’, West European Politics, 25(3): 125-46.
• (2001), ‘Comparative Mapping of Extreme Right Electoral Dynamics: An Overview of EREPS’, European Political Science, 1(1): 42-53, with Kai Arzheimer, Gianfranco Baldini, Tor Bjørklund, Jocelyn Evans, Stephen Fisher and Gilles Ivaldi.

Chapters in edited volumes

• (forthcoming), ‘Electoral Systems and Election Management’, in Lawrence LeDuc, Richard G. Niemi and Pippa Norris (eds), Comparing Democracies 3, Thousand Oaks CA: Sage, with David M. Farrell.
• (2007), ‘Government Change, Organizational Continuity: The Limited Europeanization of British Political Parties’, in Thomas Poguntke, Nicholas Aylott, Elisabeth Carter, Robert Ladrech and Kurt Richard Luther (eds.), The Europeanization of National Political Parties: Power and Organizational Adaptation, Abingdon: Routledge, with Robert Ladrech.
• (2007), ‘European Integration and Internal Party Dynamics’, in Thomas Poguntke, Nicholas Aylott, Elisabeth Carter, Robert Ladrech and Kurt Richard Luther (eds.), The Europeanization of National Political Parties: Power and Organizational Adaptation, Abingdon: Routledge, with Kurt Richard Luther and Thomas Poguntke.
• (2006), ‘Sistemi elettorali, leggi elettorali e fortune dei partiti politici in Europa occidentale’, in Luciano Bardi (ed.), Partiti e sistemi di partito, pp. 145-70, Bologna: Il Mulino, with Shaun Bowler and David M. Farrell.
• (2003), ‘Changing Party Access to Elections’, in Bruce E. Cain, Russell J. Dalton and Susan E. Scarrow (eds.), Democracy Transformed? Expanding Political Opportunities in Advanced Industrial Democracies, pp. 81-111, Oxford: Oxford University Press, with Shaun Bowler and David M. Farrell.