Dr Simon Lightfoot

Senior Lecturer in European Politics; POLIS Director of Student Education

Photo of Dr Simon Lightfoot

Before he came to Leeds since 2005, Simon Lightfoot worked at Liverpool John Moores University. He has been a visiting fellow at the National Europe Centre, Australian National University and the Corvinus University of Budapest. He is co-organiser of the UACES Research Network "The Governance of Sustainability: Multiple Dimensions, Multiple Approaches" and the EADI Working Group ‘Development Aid of the Non-DAC Donors’.

He has an interest in learning and teaching issues. In 2009 he won the Political Studies Association's Bernard Crick Prize for Outstanding Teaching and was awarded a full University Teaching Fellowship.

Research Interests

My current research projects focus on the folllowing.

EU Development Policy and the enlargements of the EU in 2004 and 2007
Attitudes of social democratic parties to European integration, especially in CEE states
The organisational development of Europarties
The EU and Sustainable Development

Teaching

I currently teach Governing the EU (Undergraduate Level 2) as well as the EU and the Developing World (MA).

PhD Supervision

I currently supervise seven Phd students and would be interested in supervising people in the following areas.

EU Development Policy
EU Environmental Policy, especially the EU as a global actor for sustainable development
Social Democratic Parties and European Integration
Europarties

Key Publications

Edited books

Gormley-Heenan, C & S. Lightfoot (2012) Teaching Politics and International Relations, Palgrave Macmillan.

Books

Lightfoot, S (2005) Europeanising Social Democracy: The Rise of the Party of European Socialists? Oxford: Routledge: 041534803X.
Burchell, J. & S. Lightfoot (2001) The Greening of the European Union: Assessing the EU's Environmental Credentials. Sheffield, Continuum.

Journals

Geyer, Robert and Lightfoot, Simon (2010) 'The Strengths and Limits of New Forms of EU Governance: The Cases of Mainstreaming and Impact Assessment in EU Public Health and Sustainable Development Policy', Journal of European Integration, 32: 4, pp. 339-356.
Lightfoot, S (2010) 'The Europeanisation of International Development Policies: The Case of Central and Eastern European States'. EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES, 62, pp. 329-350.
Vittek, M and Lightfoot, S (2010) 'The Europeanization of Slovak Development Cooperation?', Contemporary European Studies, (1), pp. 21-37.
Lightfoot, S. (2008) Enlargement and the Challenge of EU Development Policy, Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 9(2) pp. 128-142.
Holmes, M. and Lightfoot, S. (2007) 'The Europeanisation of left political parties: limits to adaptation and consensus'. Capital and Class 93, pp. 101-19.