Iain McLean has previously worked at Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Warwick, and held visiting appointments at Washington & Lee, Stanford, Yale and Australian National Universities. He has written copiously about UK public policy; political history; and historical applications of rational choice theory. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and his previous two OUP books have been awarded the W. J. M. McKenzie Book Prize. He is Professor of Politics at Oxford University, and a fellow of Nuffield College.