Contributors

Brian Klaas

LSE Fellow in Comparative Politics, London School of Economics and Political Science Dr. Brian Klaas is a Fellow in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics. He focuses on democracy, global politics, political violence, voting, and elections. Klaas is the author of the forthcoming book: "The Despot's Accomplice: How the West is Aiding & Abetting the Decline of Democracy."

Amy Brown

Associate professor of child public health, Swansea University Amy's background is in psychology and she now applies psychology to understanding health behaviour and developing behavioural interventions. Amy is particularly interested in infant and maternal health during pregnancy and the first year postpartum and how varied psychological, social and cultural factors can affect decisions and experiences at this time. Amy specialises in research around how babies are fed; whether they are breast or formula fed, how they are introduced to solid foods and the impact these decisions could have on their long term eating behaviour and weight. Over the last twelve years she has explored how choices made around how babies are fed are rarely simply those suggested by policy as ideal, but instead affected by a multitude of complex factors, often outside the mothers' control. In particular, her research focusses on why feeding babies is a public health issue, affected heavily by societal and cultural beliefs and behaviours, and therefore why responsibility for feeding should not lie solely with the mother. Interventions to improve infant feeding choices should instead be targeted at wider society. Her long-term aim is to develop interventions to support new mothers to feel confident, informed and supported in their choices. Amy's book "Breastfeeding Uncovered' is published in October.

Simon Tormey

Professor of Political Theory and Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney Simon Tormey is Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney. A political theorist, Simon is the author of numerous books and articles including Anti-Capitalism – recently revised with Oneworld. His latest book, The End of Representative Politics, has just been published by Polity. Prior to his appointment at Sydney in 2009 he was Professor and Head of the School of Politics and International Relations and founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (CSSGJ) at the University of Nottingham UK. He was educated at the University of Wales, Swansea receiving his doctorate in 1991. He was a Research Scholar and Lecturer at the University of Leicester before joining Nottingham in 1990. In 2005 he was awarded a personal chair ('professorship') in Politics and Critical Theory. Simon appears regularly in the media commenting in particular on European politics for Sky Business, Sky News, ABC News, Bloomberg and the BBC.

Jennifer Johns

Senior Lecturer in International Business and Economic Geography, University of Liverpool Dr. Jennifer Johns’ research interests are primarily concerned with network approaches to economic development and have two interrelated strands: industrial agglomeration local economic development, and geographies of innovation and entrepreneurship. Previous research projects include creative industries in the North West, temporary staffing markets in Japan, Sweden, Australia and the UK, and the global production networks of the video games industry. Primary research has been conducted in a wide range of international contexts. Her current research projects include innovation and entrepreneurship in collaborative spaces in Manchester, Tokyo and Barcelona and research on cities. Jennifer trained as an economic geographer before moving to management. She works on research issues of inter-disciplinary interest including globalisation, the agglomeration of economic activities, entrepreneurship and innovation and global trade and production networks.

Peter Sivey

Associate Professor, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University Dr Peter Sivey is an Associate Professor in the School of Economics, Finance and Marketing at RMIT University. He is working on research on healthcare markets including hospital waiting times, hospital performance reporting, doctor pricing and financial incentives for doctors

Bettina Friedrich

Academic Researcher, PhD Supervisor, University of Sydney Dr. Bettina Friedrich is a psychologist and researcher. Bettina has worked in the in the research areas of mental health and mental health stigma at different international academic research departments: USA (UCSD), Australia (USyd), England (King's College London) and Germany (University of Würzburg). In addition to this she has worked for a year as a free-lance journalist for the Braunschweiger Zeitung. Her main areas are Clinical Psychology, Media Psychology and Cross Cultural Psychology. She is particularly interested in social-psychiatric questions in health communication. She is investigating for example how we use media to communicate about mental health and how this impacts on mental health related stigma and self-stigma. She has also worked on the evaluation of Time to Change, the national mental health campaign of England which is the biggest of its kind world-wide. Bettina is also involved with the Global Anti Stigma Alliance (GASA), a network of 120+ stigma researchers and health educators from five continents. She produces the quarter-annual newsletter for GASA. Bettina obtained her PhD from the University of Glasgow in Scotland (Department of Psychology).