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Politics and International Relations (PIR)

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By arrangement

Qualifications

• BA (Columbia)
• MA (Yale)

Previous Posts

In 2012, Charles Raab resumed his Chair as Professor of Government, which he held from 1999 to 2007 before retiring as Professor Emeritus and Honorary Professorial Fellow. He has served as a member of staff since 1964. He has held visiting positions in the Oxford Internet Institute, the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (Tilburg University, The Netherlands), Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, and the Victoria University of Wellington (NZ). He was a Fellow at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg (Institute for Advanced Study) in Delmenhorst, Germany. He is an Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).

Research Interests

His main general research interests are in public policy, governance and regulation, and more specifically in information policy (privacy protection and public access to information; surveillance and security; identity and anonymity; information technology and systems in democratic politics, government and commerce; and human rights implications of information processes). His research has been funded by the ESRC, the Nuffield Foundation, the National Science Foundation (USA), the European Commission (including 6th and 7th Framework Programmes), and the former Scottish Office. He has engaged in advisory and consultancy work for UK and Scottish government departments, the Office of the Information Commissioner, the European Commission, the New Zealand Law Commission, Liberty, and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Resarch (NWO), among others. He was the Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution for their inquiry, resulting in Surveillance: Citizens and the State, 2nd Report, Session 2008-09, HL Paper 18 and HL Paper 114. He is a member of the editorial or advisory boards of nine journals in the fields of information policy and public policy, and on the advisory boards of several research projects. He is a member of the Surveillance Studies Network, and participates in the Canadian-funded project on ‘The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting’ and on the Management Board of the European Union’s COST Action on ‘Living in Surveillance Societies’ (LiSS).  

He participates in the Research Groups on Policy and Governance and on International Relations.

Recent Publications

(with W Webster, E Töpfer and F Klauser, eds.), Video Surveillance: Practices and Policies in Europe (IOS Press, 2012); (with B Goold), Protecting Information Privacy, Research Report 69 (Equality and Human Rights Commission, 2011); (with C Bennett) The Governance of Privacy: Policy Instruments in Global Perspective (Ashgate, 2003; 2nd edition MIT Press, 2006); (with M Arnott, eds.), The Governance of Schooling: Comparative Studies of Devolved Management (Routledge/Falmer, 2000); (with M Anderson et al.), Policing the European Union (Clarendon Press, 1996); (with A McPherson), Governing Education: A Sociology of Policy Since 1945 (Edinburgh U.P., 1988) and many contributions to academic journals and edited volumes. He co-authored the Surveillance Studies Network's Report on the Surveillance Society (2006), commissioned by the Office of the Information Commissioner, and an Update Report in 2010.

Recent articles and chapters include: 'Privacy, Social Values and the Public Interest', in A Busch and J Hofmann (eds.), 'Politik und die Regulierung von Information' ['Politics and the Regulation of Information'], Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Sonderheft 46, 2012, pp. 129-151; (with D Wright), 'Surveillance: Extending the Limits of Privacy Impact Assessment', in D Wright and P De Hert (eds.), Privacy Impact Assessment (Springer, 2012), pp. 363-383; 'The Meaning of "Accountability" in the Information Privacy Context', in D Guagnin et al (eds.), Managing Privacy Through Accountability (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), pp. 15-32; 'Regulating Surveillance: The Importance of Principles', in D Lyon et al, (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies (Routledge, 2012), pp. 377-385; (with D Wright), 'Constructing a Surveillance Impact Assessment', Computer Law and Security Review, 28, 6, 2012, pp. 613-626; (with E Keymolen and C Prins), 'Trust and ICT: New Challenges for Public Administration', in I Snellen et al (eds.), Public Administration in the Information Age: Revisited (IOS Press, 2012), pp. 21-35, 'Networks for Regulation: Privacy Commissioners in a Changing World', Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 13, 2, 2011, pp. 195-213; (with P 6 and C Bellamy), 'Information Sharing Dilemmas in Public Services: Using Frameworks from Risk Management', Policy and Politics, 38, 3, 2010, pp. 465-481.   

Current Research

He takes part in two EU FP7 projects: PRISMS (The Privacy and Security Mirrors: Towards a European Framework for Integrated Decision-Making) and IRISS (Increasing Resilience in Surveilance Societies), and chairs the Ethics Committee of a third project, SIAM (Security Impact Assessment Measures). He is also engaged in further writing for publication in the fields of privacy theory and regulatory practice, surveillance, personal identity, and related topics. With colleagues at the University of Stirling and the Open University, he is a Director of CRISP (Centre for Research into Information, Surveillance and Privacy; see under 'Research' on the Politics & International Relations website), and is a founder of the Scottish Privacy Forum. 

PhD Supervision

Charles Raab is able to offer supervision on the above topics and on related ones in the broader field of public policy and governance.