Dr Laurence Cooley

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• PhD Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, 2013
• MA Political Science (Research Methods), University of Birmingham, 2008
• MA Politics, Queen's University Belfast, 2006
• BSc Economics and Politics, Bath, 2004
• Associate, Higher Education Academy

Laurence Cooley is a political scientist whose research investigates the relationship between social identities and political institutions, with a focus on power-sharing institutions and the politics of the census in deeply divided societies.

The first person in his family to attend university, Laurence studied at the University of Bath and Queen's University Belfast. He came to the University of Birmingham in 2007 to start an ESRC-funded MA and PhD. His PhD on the EU's approach to conflict resolution in the Western Balkans was supervised by Thomas Diez, Michelle Pace and Tim Haughton. During his PhD, Laurence spent time as a visiting student at both the Centre for EU Studies at Ghent University and the Penn Program in Ethnic Conflict at the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2013, Laurence was appointed as a Teaching Fellow in IDD, following a period as a visiting lecturer in POLSIS and CREES and as part-time Impact and Outreach Assistant for the GSDRC. Between February 2017 and January 2019, he was a Research Fellow funded by the ESRC Future Research Leaders scheme, working on a project about the relationship between power sharing and the politics of the census in deeply divided societies. Linked to this project, he was also a Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen's University Belfast between June 2017 and January 2020.

Laurence rejoined POLSIS as Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Comparative Politics in September 2021 and was promoted to Associate Professor in August 2024. He has been a member of the board of Research Committee 14, 'Politics and Ethnicity' of the International Political Science Association since July 2021, was vice-chair of that RC between July 2023 and July 2025 and is currenting acting chair. He is also co-convenor, with Dr Giuditta Fontana, of the Political Studies Association's Ethnopolitics Specialist Group.

Laurence's work has been quoted in the UK House of Commons and he recently gave evidence to Parliament's Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, on the implications of the 2021 census results.

Laurence is the POLSIS departmental UCU rep.

• Research Design (second-year undergraduate)
• Conflict and Peace in Deeply Divided Societies (final-year undergraduate)

Laurence's core research interest is in the relationship between social identities and political institutions. His PhD research, which was undertaken in Birmingham's Department of Political Science and International Studies, explored the EU's approach to conflict resolution in the Western Balkans, and sought to explain the apparent preference of EU actors for consociational power-sharing mechanisms of managing conflict in deeply divided societies. The main outcome of this research was his first monograph, published as part of the Routledge Studies in European Foreign Policy series in 2019.

From February 2017 to January 2019, Laurence worked on a postdoctoral project, funded by the ESRC Future Research Leaders scheme, which investigated the relationship between census politics and the design of power-sharing institutions, with a particular empirical focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kenya, Lebanon and Northern Ireland. He is currently working on completing the last outputs from this project and from a further stream of research, funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant, into the politics of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data collection through national censuses.

He has recently started working on a new area of research, into the politics of environmental crises in Northern Ireland, with a particular focus on Lough Neagh. This work has been supported by a Birmingham Institute for Sustainability and Climate Action (BISCA) Sustainability Summer Internship held by POLSIS student Elliott Hill.

Member of:

• Association for the Study of Nationalities
• International Political Science Association (Research Committee 14: Politics and Ethnicity)
• Political Studies Association (Ethnopolitics Specialist Group)
• European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on South East Europe

Professional appointments:

• Board member (since July 2021) and vice-chair (since July 2023), International Political Science Association Research Committee 14: Politics and Ethnicity