Dr Stephen Bates

Dr Stephen Bates

Department of Political Science and International Studies
Senior Lecturer in Political Science

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 414 6264
Email
s.r.bates@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
POLSIS - School of Government
Muirhead Tower
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Stephen is a Senior Lecturer in Political Science. His research is in the field of legislative studies, where he mainly focuses on the UK Parliament.

Qualifications

PhD Political Science (Birmingham)

Biography

Stephen is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Political Science & International Studies. His research is mainly in the field of legislative studies where he focuses on the UK and, in particular parliamentary roles and careers, the effectiveness of parliamentary scrutiny and accountability mechanisms, and levels and foci of MPs' specialisations. He was a UK House of Commons Parliamentary Academic Fellow in 2021-22.

Stephen convenes the second year module, UK Politics in Times of Crisis, and the final year module, Parliamentary Studies. Both modules have guest speakers each week from the world of policy making and/or the UK Parliament. You can watch an introductory video for Parliamentary Studies here.

Teaching

  • Parliamentary Studies 
  • UK Politics in Times of Crisis 

Postgraduate supervision

Stephen is interested in supervising postgraduate research in parliamentary and legislative studies and/or British politics.

Past Students

• Matthew McKenna: Learning during times of failure and blame: How English local government responds to central government intervention.
• Nathan Critch: (De)politicization and the Politics of Containment: Reconceptualizing the Position of the Public Inquiry within British Governance.
• William Horncastle: How do nations control political finance and why do refoms occur? A nested mixed-methods analysis of political finance reforms in Canada, New Zealand, and Commonwealth Caribbean small states.
• Darcy Luke: The political economy of the management of public expenditure in Britain: The introduction of cash limits under the 1974-79 Labour government.
• Cherry Miller: Gender in the UK Parliament: An Ethnographic Study.
• Liam Stanley: The everyday politics of the global financial crisis in the UK.
• Fran Amery: Abortion Politics in the UK: Feminism, Medicine and the State.
• Martin Monahan: A Historical Institutionalist Analysis of the Post-Major Conservative Party.
• Mark Goodwin: Education Governance and Policy Failure under New Labour.

Current Students

• Jules Singh: Government Regulation of Widening Access to University.
• Ceri Ames: The Impact of Populism on Welfare Discourse and Policy in the UK 2010-19.
• Andre Vella: The Limits of Parliamentary Privilege: Transparency & Accountability.

Research

  • UK Parliament
  • Parliamentary committees
  • Parliamentary roles
  • Parliamentary careers
  • MPs' specialisations
  • Critical realism

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Bates, SH, Bhattacharya, C & McKay, S 2026, 'Backbench roles in the twenty-first century UK House of Commons: a Latent Class Analysis', Parliamentary Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsag005

Bhattacharya, C & Bates, S 2025, 'Policy specialisation in the twenty-first century UK House of Commons', The Journal of Legislative Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2025.2540209

Bates, S, Horncastle, W, Bhattacharya, C & McKay, S 2024, 'Which MPs get elevated to the UK House of Lords?', Parliamentary Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsae038

Bhattacharya, C, Hart, G, Haughey, S, Bates, S & Meakin, A 2022, 'The state of the sub-discipline: mapping parliamentary and legislative studies using a survey and bibliometric analysis of three of its journals', Parliamentary Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsac011

Bates, S 2021, 'Re-structuring parliamentary roles', International Journal of Parliamentary Studies, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 22–46. https://doi.org/10.1163/26668912-bja10017

Goodwin, M, Bates, S & McKay, S 2020, 'Electing to do women’s work? Gendered divisions of labour in UK Select Committees, 1979-2016', Politics & Gender. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X19000874

Bates, S, Amery, F, McKay, S, Miller, C & Pflaeger Young, Z 2020, 'Response to Women in the Profession? Assuming Gender in the Analysis of the Composition of UK Politics Departments', Politics, pp. 1. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920920796

Pflaeger Young, Z, Amery, F, Bates, S, McKay, S, Miller, C, Billings, T, Hayton, R, Holt, M, Khatri, J, Marvin, M, Ogunsanya, L, Ramdehal, A & Sullivan, R 2020, 'Women in the profession: an update on the gendered composition of the discipline and political science departments in the UK', Political Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920905503

Gaines, B, Goodwin, M, Bates, S & Sin, G 2019, 'A bouncy house? UK Select Committee newsworthiness, 2005-18', The Journal of Legislative Studies, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 409-433. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2019.1662612

McKay, S, Goodwin, M & Bates, S 2019, 'A means to an end and an end in itself: select committee membership, parliamentary roles and parliamentary careers, 1979-present', Parliamentary Affairs, vol. 72, no. 4, pp. 799-820. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsz038

Gaines, B, Goodwin, M, Bates, S & Sin, G 2019, 'Conclusion: prospects for analysing committees in comparative perspective', The Journal of Legislative Studies, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 434-441. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2019.1662613

Bates, S & Sealey, A 2019, 'Representing women, women representing: backbenchers' questions during Prime Minister's questions, 1979-2010', European Journal of Politics & Gender, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 237–256 . https://doi.org/10.1332/251510819X15490283059237

Gaines, B, Goodwin, M, Bates, S & Sin, G 2019, 'The study of legislative committees', The Journal of Legislative Studies, vol. 25, no. 3, pp. 331-339. https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2019.1662614

Chapter

Bates, S, Thompson, L, Goodwin, M & McKay, S 2021, Still deviant? The development and reform of the UK House of Commons committee system (1979 to present). in S Siefken & H Rommetvedt (eds), Parliamentary Committees in the Policy Process. Library of Legislative Studies, Routledge, London, pp. 302-319. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003106579-17

Editorial

Bhattacharya, C, Hart, G, Haughey, S, Bates, S & Meakin, A 2022, 'The past, present and future of parliamentary and legislative studies', Parliamentary Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1093/pa/gsac007

View all publications in research portal

Expertise

  • Prime Minister's Questions
  • UK Parliament

Media experience