The UK has become one of the most regionally unequal industrialised economies in the world, and this PhD project will test whether government policies meant to fix that inequality also reduce political discontent. Policymakers are already spending billions on regional development—boosting infrastructure, jobs, and opportunities in struggling areas—but no one has systematically asked whether these policies actually make people feel less alienated from politics or less receptive to populist, isolationist messages. This project fills that gap by combining elite interviews, survey analysis, and causal inference techniques to ask five specific questions: what policies exist, whether they have political effects beyond economic ones, which types dampen discontent, how local conditions like immigration or employment levels change the picture, and whether those effects are truly causal. If the research succeeds, it could reshape how the UK and other countries design regional policy—not just to grow local economies, but to strengthen democratic resilience by addressing the place-based resentments and anti-government sentiment that fuel political polarisation. The findings would matter for any government trying to hold together a divided electorate while investing in left-behind regions.
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"The aim of this PhD project is to assess the political consequences of regional policy in the UK. Globalisation has been associated with widening inequalities at the sub-national level. Living in non-economically dynamic areas entails experiencing lack of opportunities and limited prospects. These economic anxieties tend to be associated with concerns about losing one's place in a changing world and often feelings of being 'left behind'. Citizens who live in such places tend to be receptive to polarizing, isolationist and populist messages. Over time the UK has become one of the most regionally unequal country of the world's industrialised economies. Legislators and policymakers in the UK and worldwide are debating and implementing policies to address such inequalities. However, beyond some studies on their economic effects, we still do not know whether such policies have political consequences in terms of improving democratic resilience. This question is pressing considering the rise of populism and disaffection with politics in the UK and across the world. The proposed PhD project seeks to address this gap, by asking the following interrelated questions: 1. What specific policies have been enacted to address regional inequality in the UK? 2. Beyond their economic outcomes, do these policies have political consequences? 3. Which types of regional policy are associated with dampening political discontent among the public? 4. Do these relationships vary depending on region characteristics (e.g., immigration or employment levels, socio-demographic make-up, regional identities)? 5. Can we attribute a causal effect to these relationships? These questions are addressed through a mixed-methods empirical strategy, combining both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis. These include elite interviews, survey analysis and state-of-the-art causal inference techniques. It is important to understand whether people on the ground feel that different types of regional policy decrease economic inequalities and opportunity gaps, and the extent to which such policies dampen place-based resentments, political alienation, and anti-government sentiment. The findings from this research have significant policy implications in terms of addressing political discontent in the UK, and beyond. "
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