General

Jack Vowles was Professor and Head of Department until 2006. He left to take up a Chair in Politics at the University of Exeter in the middle of 2007. He retains an Adjunct Professorship in the Department, and will continue to be a regular visitor and research collaborator with staff in the Department. Jack was appointed as a Professor in Political Studies in March 2002, and was appointed Head of Department in March 2003 for a three-year term, stepping down at the beginning of 2006. His arrival at Auckland in 2002 was his second return to Auckland, as he is a BA and MA graduate of the department, and went on to gain his doctorate at the University of British Columbia in 1980. He returned to a lecturership in the department between 1982 and 1989, before taking another detour, this time to the University of Waikato.

Jack leads the New Zealand Election Study (NZES) funded by the Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology from 1996 until 2003. He held a James Cook Fellowship from 2000 to 2002.

His current research interests are in New Zealand and comparative politics, elections, public opinion, and the consequences of electoral systems.

Jack has published extensively in New Zealand and international journals. He is a member of the Planning Committee of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (see www.cses.org), and is co-author or co-editor of all five books arising out of the NZES. These provide authoritative analysis of New Zealand elections from 1990 onwards, and have been published by Auckland University Press. The most recent is Voters' Veto (2004).

He is currently working on various papers on aspects of electoral system change and hopes to move on to a book covering elections and public attitudes in New Zealand over the longer term. He continues to conduct ongoing research into the question of electoral accountability in parliamentary democracies.