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Professor Paul Kenny

Areas of expertise: political economy; comparative politics; Asian politics

HDR Supervisor accreditation status: Full

Email: Paul.Kenny@acu.edu.au

Location: ACU Melbourne Campus

ORCID ID: 0000-0001-6960-7167

Paul Kenny is Professor in the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Australian Catholic University. He specializes in political economy and comparative politics. He received his PhD in political science from Yale University and has degrees in economics and political economy from Trinity College Dublin and the London School of Economics. Prior to joining the ACU, Professor Kenny worked at the Australian National University, where he was Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Political and Social Change.

He is the author of two previous books, Populism and Patronage: Why Populists Win Elections in India, Asia, and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2017), which won the American Political Science Association’s 2018 Robert A. Dahl Award, and Populism in Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

His research on populism, inequality, and other topics in comparative political economy has been published in the British Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, and Political Research Quarterly among other leading journals.

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Books

• Populism in Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2019)
• Populism and Patronage: Why Populists Win Elections in India, Asia, and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2017)

Journal articles

• "A new penal populism? Rodrigo Duterte, the war on drugs, and public opinion in the Philippines." (with Ronald Holmes), Journal of East Asian Studies (2020)
• “Does asylum seeker immigration increase support for the far right? Evidence from the United Kingdom, 2000-2015”, (with Charles Miller), Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2020)
• ““The enemy of the people”: Populists and press freedom,” Political Research Quarterly 73(2) (2020): 261-275
• “The structure of ethnic inequality and ethnic voting” (with Christian Houle and Chunho Park), The Journal of Politics 81(1) (2019): 187-200
• “The political and economic consequences of populist rule,” (with Christian Houle) Government and Opposition, 53(2) (2018): 256-287
• “The origins of patronage politics: State building, centrifugalism, and decolonization” British Journal of Political Science, 45(1), (2015): 141-171
• “A mixed blessing: Karen resettlement to the United States” (with Kate Lockwood-Kenny), Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(2) (2011): 217-38

Projects

• Supporting the Rules-Based Order in Southeast Asia (SEARBO), Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Co-Investigator, 2018—2021 (AU$ 2,102,244)

Accolades and awards

• Winner of the American Political Science Association’s 2018 Robert A. Dahl Award for scholarship of the highest quality on the subject of democracy for Populism and Patronage: Why Populists Win Elections in India, Asia, and Beyond