Dr Ben Worthy

Lecturer in Politics

Contact Details

Email b.worthy@bbk.ac.uk

Telephone: 0203 073 8047

Research interests and supervision

• Transparency, Government Openness and Open Data
• Political leadership
• The Information Society, E-government and Digital Democracy
• British and Comparative Politics
• Public Policy and Policy-making

Recent Highlights

• A recent paper for the PSA on leadership here ( for a summary see here)
• Evidence given to the Justice Committee on the Impact of Freedom of Information see here

Selected Publications

Articles

• Worthy, Ben (2012) 'A Powerful Weapon in the Right Hands? How Members of Parliament have used Freedom of Information in the UK' Parliamentary Affairs doi: 10.1093/pa/gss091 First published online: December 21, 2012 http://pa.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/12/20/pa.gss091.abstract.html?papetoc
• Worthy, Ben, Hazell, Robert and Bourke, Gabrielle (2012) ‘Open House: Freedom of Information and its Impact on the UK Parliament’. Public Administration (forthcoming-available online)
• Worthy, Ben (2010) ‘More Open But Not More Trusted? The Effect of FOI on the UK Central Government’. Governance 23 (4) 561-582
• Worthy, Ben ‘The Sword: How MPs and Peers Have Used FOI’ (forthcoming)
• Worthy, Ben ‘Institutionalising Distrust? Reconceptualising the Link between Transparency and Trust’ (forthcoming)
• Worthy, Ben and Hazell, Robert ‘Some Are More Open Than Others: The Impact of FOI on Local Government in England’ (forthcoming)

Monograph

• Hazell, Robert, Worthy, Ben and Glover, Mark (2010) Does FOI Work? The Impact of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 on British Central Government. London: Palgrave Macmillan

Chapters

• Worthy, Ben ‘Freedom of Information and the MPs’ Expenses Scandal’ in Hudson, J (forthcoming) At the Public’s Expense? The Political Consequences of the 2009 British MPs’ Expenses Scandal (in preparation)
• Worthy, Ben and Holsen, Sarah, ‘Local Government and FOI in England 2005-2007’ in Chapman, R. and Hunt, M. (2010) Freedom of Information: Local Government and Accountability Ashgate: Farnham, pp 27-43

Conference Papers

• Worthy, Ben and Grimmelikhuijsen, Stephan (2012). ‘Transparency and Trust in the UK and Netherlands’. Paper in preparation for Regional Transparency Conference June 2012
• Worthy, Ben and Bennister, Mark (2012). ‘Getting it, Spending it, Losing it: Exploring Political Capital’. Paper for the Political Studies Association Conference April 2012, Belfast available here

Reports

• Worthy, Ben, Hazell, Robert, Amos, Jim and Bourke, Gabrielle (2011) ‘Town Hall Transparency? The Impact of FOI on Local Government in England’. Constitution Unit: London available here
• Worthy, Ben and Bourke, Gabrielle (2011) ‘The Sword and the Shield: The Use of FOI by Parliamentarians and the Impact of FOI on Parliament’. Constitution Unit: London  available here

Other work

• Blog posts on transparency and Open Data  available here

• Columns from the Local Government Chronicle available here

• An article for Political Insight on FOI and Universities see here

• Giving evidence to the Justice Select Committee here

Teaching

• Contemporary British Politics (undergraduate)
• Qualitative Methods
• Public Policy
• Democracy and Authoritariansim