Staff Profile

Professor Nick Vivyan, BSc, MRes & PhD (LSE)

ORCID profile

Personal web page

Professor in the School of Government and International Affairs

Telephone: +44 (0) 191 33 45881

Room number: SE115, Southend House

Member of the Centre for Institutions and Political Behaviour

Fellow in the Durham Research Methods Centre

(email at nick.vivyan@durham.ac.uk)

Biography

Nick joined Durham University in 2010 as Lecturer in Quantitative Social Research and became Professor of Politics in 2018. He received his PhD in Political Science from the London School of Economics in 2010. During 2008 he was also a Visiting Researcher at Stanford University.

Nick uses quantitative (and often experimental) methods to study political behaviour, accountability and representation, particularly in the United Kingdom. He serves on the Editorial Board of the journal Electoral Studies. He is Deputy Director of the Centre for Institutions and Political behaviour at Durham University.

Nick welcomes enquiries regarding PhD supervision in the areas of British and comparative politics, electoral behaviour and legislative politics. He is particularly interested in supervising candidates interested in carrying out rigorous empirical research.

Research Groups

School of Government and International Affairs

Institutions and Political Behaviour

Research Interests

British Politics
Legislative Politics
Political Economy
Public Opinion and Elections
Quantitative Methods

Teaching Areas

SGIA 2341: Research Project (10 hours/year.)
SGIA 3461: Parties, MPs and Parliamentary Politics in Britain (52 hours/year.)
SOCI 59215: Statistical Exploration and Reasoning (30 hours/year.)

Publications

Chapter in book

Vivyan, Nick (2014). Attention-seeking constituents? How voters want MPs to spend their time. In Sex, Lies & the Ballot Box: 50 things you need to know about British elections. Cowley, Philip & Ford, Robert London: Biteback Publishing.

Journal Article

Kuhn, Patrick M, Mellish, Samuel & Vivyan, Nick (2021). Psychological Threat and Turnout Misreporting. Electoral Studies 70: 102276.
Kuhn, Patrick M. & Vivyan, Nick (2021). The Misreporting Trade-off Between List Experiments and Direct Questions in Practice: Partition Validation Evidence from Two Countries. Political Analysis
Hanretty, Chris, Lauderdale, Benjamin E. & Vivyan, Nick (2020). A Choice-Based Measure of Issue Importance in the Electorate. American Journal of Political Science 64(3): 519-535.
Glinitzer, Konstantin, Vivyan, Nick & Wagner, Markus (2020). Costly signals: Voter responses to parliamentary dissent in Austria, Britain and Germany. Legislative Studies Quarterly 45(4): 645-678.
Nick Vivyan, Markus Wagner, Konstantin Glinitzer & Jakob Moritz-Eberl (2020). Do Humble Beginnings Help? How Politician Class Roots Shape Voter Evaluations. Electoral Studies 53: 102093.
Eggers, Andrew C. & Vivyan, Nick (2020). Who Votes More Strategically?. American Political Science Review 114(2): 470-485.
Campbell, Rosie, Cowley, Phil, Vivyan, Nick & Wagner Markus (2019). Legislator dissent as a valence signal. British Journal of Political Science 49(1): 105-128.
Campbell, Rosie, Cowley, Philip, Vivyan, Nick & Wagner, Markus (2019). Why friends and neighbors? Explaining the electoral appeal of local roots. Journal of Politics 81(3): 937-951.
Hanretty, Chris, Lauderdale, Benjamin E. & Vivyan, Nick (2018). Comparing Strategies for Estimating Constituency Opinion from National Survey Samples. Political Science Research and Methods 6(3): 571-591.
Eggers, Andrew C., Vivyan, Nick & Wagner, Markus (2018). Corruption, accountability, and gender: Do female politicians face higher standards in public life?. Journal of Politics 80(1): 321-326.
Lauderdale, Benjamin E., Hanretty, Chris & Vivyan, Nick (2018). Decomposing Public Opinion Variation into Ideology, Idiosyncrasy, and Instability. Journal of Politics 80(2): 707-712.
Kuhn, Patrick M. & Vivyan, Nick (2018). Reducing Turnout Misreporting in Online Surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly 82(2): 300-321.
Hanretty, Chis, Lauderdale, Benjamin E. & Vivyan, Nick (2017). Dyadic representation in a Westminster system. Legislative Studies Quarterly 42(2): 235-267.
Hanretty, Chris, Lauderdale, Benjamin E. & Vivyan, Nick (2016). Combining national and constituency polling for forecasting. Electoral Studies 41: 239-243.
Vivyan, Nick & Wagner, Markus (2016). House or Home? Constituent preferences over legislator effort allocation. European Journal of Political Research 55(1): 81-99.
Vivyan, Nick & Wagner, Markus (2015). What do voters want from their local MP?. Political Quarterly 86(1): 33-40.
Wagner, Markus, Tarlov, Jessie & Vivyan, Nick (2014). Partisan bias in opinion formation on episodes of political controversy: evidence from Great Britain. Political Studies 62(1): 136-158.
Vivyan, Nick & Wagner, Markus (2012). Do voters reward rebellion? The electoral accountability of MPs in Britain. European Journal of Political Research 51(2): 235-264.
Vivyan, Nick, Wagner, Markus & Tarlov, Jessica (2012). Representative misconduct, voter perceptions and accountability: Evidence from the 2009 House of Commons expenses scandal. Electoral Studies 31(4): 750-763.
Hix, Simon, Høyland, Bjørn & Vivyan, Nick (2010). From doves to hawks: A spatial analysis of voting in the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. European Journal of Political Research 49(6): 731-758.

Supervises

Selected Grants

2018: Causes and Consequences of Electoral Violence: Evidence from England and Wales 1832-1914 (£504,077 from the ESRC/AHRC). Patrick Kuhn (PI), Gidon Cohen and Nick Vivyan.
2017: Reducing Turnout Misreporting Through Contextualization (£10,000.00 from the British Academy). Nick Vivyan (PI) and Patrick Kuhn.
2013: Estimating Constituency Opinion in Britain (£115,433 from the ESRC). Nick Vivyan (PI) and Chris Hanretty.
2012: Voter Approval of the Activities of Members of Parliament (£9,900 from The British Academy). Nick Vivyan (PI) and Markus Wagner.