Anwen Elias
Lecturer in Comparative Politics
BA University of Cambridge
MA College of Europe, Bruges
PhD European University Institute, Florence
Contact
Email: awe@aber.ac.uk
Phone: +44 (0)1970 621819
Fax: +44 (0)1970 622709
Office: 2.06
Profile
Anwen Elias joined the Department in February 2005. Her research and teaching encompasses European politics, comparative regionalism, nationalism, and political parties and party systems. Anwen was awarded an ESRC Post-doctoral fellowship in 2007-08, and she is currently the holder of a three-year New Career Development Fellowship, awarded by the Nuffield Foundation. She was also awarded the Aberystwyth University Teaching Excellence Award in 2009. From April 2009, she has been the Department’s Director of Welsh-medium Provision.
Research
Anwen’s research has focused on the attitudes of minority nationalist parties towards European integration from the 1970s until the present day. On the basis of extensive empirical analysis of minority nationalist parties in Wales, Galicia and Corsica, her work has challenged the standard scholarly portrayal of these actors as pro-European. This work is part of a broader interest in the role of the regional level within European politics. More recently, Anwen has undertaken an analysis of the ideological and organisational implications of minority nationalist parties’ shift from protest to power in many western European states. Anwen’s current research examines the electoral performance of statewide and autonomist parties in regional contexts in Western Europe, with a particular focus on the UK and Spain. The project employs a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in order to assess how different factors impact upon the performance of political parties in regional elections. The project will provide new insights into the ways in which electoral dynamics at the regional level can create pressures on the constitutional integrity of states.
Teaching Areas
Undergraduate
GW11220 Cyflwyniad i Wleidyddiaeth
IP33820/GW33820 European Politics/Gwleidyddiaeth Ewropeaidd
IP39920/GW39920 Nationalism in Theory and Practice/Cenedlaetholdeb mewn Theori a Realiti
IP34020 EU Simulation
GW30040 Traethawd Hir
Masters
IPM0230 Politics of the European Union
IPM3930 Regionalism and Nationalism in Europe
PhD Supervision
Comparative regionalism
Devolution in the UK
Comparative regionalism
Nationalism
Political parties and party systems
Staff Publications
Key Publications
Elias, A. and Tronconi, F. (eds) (2011) From Protest to Power: Autonomist Parties and the Challenges of Representation. Austria: Braumüller.
Elias, A. and Tronconi, F. (2011) 'Autonomist parties in government', Party Politics, Vol. 17, No. 4, 505-524.
Hepburn, E. and Elias, A. (2011) 'Dissent on the periphery: Island nationalisms and European integration', West European Politics, Vol. 34, No. 4, 859-882.
Elias, A. (2009) Minority Nationalist Parties and European Integration. London: Routledge.
Elias, A. (2009) ‘From marginality to opposition to government: Mapping the ideological evolution of Plaid Cymru and the Bloque Nacionalista Galego’, Regional and Federal Studies, Vol. 19, No. 4/5, 533-558.
Elias, A. (2008) ‘From Euro-enthusiasm to Euro-scepticism? A re-evaluation of minority nationalist party attitudes towards European integration’, Regional and Federal Studies, Vol. 18, No. 5, 557-582.
Works in Progress
Elias, A. (forthcoming) Regional Electoral Politics and the Transformation of States (single authored book).