Ben W. Ansell

I am Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions at Nuffield College and the University of Oxford and Fellow of the British Academy.

My work covers a broad range of issues in political economy from education, to inequality, to housing, to democracy.

I was the BBC’s 2023 Reith Lecturer, giving a series of lectures titled ‘Our Democratic Future‘.

I’m the host of the podcast ‘What’s Wrong with Democracy?‘ produced by Tortoise Media.

I’m the author of Why Politics Fails (Viking / PublicAffairs).

I write the Substack Political Calculus.

I’m co-editor (with David Samuels) of Comparative Political Studies.

I was Principal Investigator of the ERC funded WEALTHPOL project on the politics of wealth inequality.