Nick MARTIN

Bio

Nick has a PHD in political science from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and, from October 2024, will be a postdoctoral researcher at CEVIPOL with the Fonds national de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS-FNRS).  Prior to starting his PHD at UvA, Nick had a long career as a senior executive and manager culminating in the position of Chief Executive of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW).  In this role he was responsible for national and local election campaigning, communication strategies, and strategic planning.  He was the party’s national Campaign Manager for the general election of 2017.

Nick’s doctoral research focused on the connections between political parties and organized civil society in Western Europe in the 21st century. He sought to understand how such connections matters for parties in contemporary Western Europe and what explains why different parties have more intense connections than others. His research included two comparative case studies of political parties in Belgium.  His postdoctoral research will explore patterns of connections between political parties and civil society at the meso level through a comparative study of three medium-sized municipalities in Western Europe.
 

CV

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Areas of research

• The relationship between political parties and organized civil society
   
• Interest representation and the articulation of new claims by social movements
   
• Comparative analysis of elections, campaigns and electoral volatility
   
• The electoral and political strategies of political parties, especially parties of the mainstream and radical left
   
• Application of ecological thinking to the study of parties and civil society

Publications

Peer reviewed journals

Martin, N. (accepted with Politics of the Low Countries – forthcoming) ‘From divergence to convergence: degrees of formality in the connections between two Flemish progressive political parties and organised civil society’, source details to follow.

Martin, N. (2024) ‘Remaining close or drifting apart? Explaining the divergent paths taken by Belgium’s socialist parties in connecting to civil society’, Acta Politica, 59, 289-319. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41269-023-00293-8

Martin, N., De Lange, S.L. and van der Brug, W. (2022a) ‘Holding onto voters in volatile times: Bonding voters through links with civil society’, Party Politics, 28:2, 354-364. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1354068820980304

Martin, N., De Lange, S.L. and van der Brug, W. (2022b) ‘Staying connected: explaining parties’ enduring connections to civil society’, West European Politics, 45:7, 1385-1406.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01402382.2021.1986784

Selected other

Martin, N. and Krouwel, A. (2024) ‘The Netherlands – still European in the eye of the populist storm’, LSE European Politics Blog, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2024/05/31/the-netherlands-still-european-in-the-eye-of-the-populist-storm/

Martin, N. and Krouwel, A. (2023) ‘Joint platforms never work – but can the Dutch left buck the trend?’, LSE European Politics Blog, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2023/09/19/joint-platforms-never-work-but-can-the-dutch-left-buck-the-trend/