Edmund Kelly

5778 2150

Politics (2022 cohort)

I research the factors that influence how much trust people place in democratic institutions and whether/how political trust matters for democracy. This contributes to our understanding of the relationship between citizens’ attitudes and democracy and informs policy designed to improve trust in democratic institutions.

I hold an ESRC Advanced Quantitative Methods scholarship. I use a range of quantitative methods from different disciplines. For my MSc thesis, I am using data from a series of twin studies to examine the psychological foundations of political trust.

I graduated with a first-class BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford in 2022. For my undergraduate thesis, I used the quasi-experimental variation in MPs’ implication in the 2009 UK parliamentary expenses scandal to study the impact of scandals on political trust.