Dr Ben Yong

Position: Honorary Research Associate
Email: b.yong@ucl.ac.uk

Ben joined the Constitution Unit in May 2010. He has a BA, LLB(Hons) and LLM from Victoria University of Wellington. After spending two years in Nanjing, China, Ben then went on to do a PhD in law at the LSE, successfully defending his thesis Becoming National: Contexturalising the construction of the New Zealand Nation-State in November 2008. Previously, Ben worked as a research assistant to Professor Andrew Ladley and the late George Barton QC; and more recently as a researcher of the Constitution Society. From February to July 2010, Ben was at the Ministry of Justice working on the UK Cabinet Manual project. For the second half of 2010, he worked on the Ministers From Outside Parliament project; and in 2011, he was the co-leader on the project on Coalition Government in the UK.

He is currently working on the special advisers project, asking who they are, what they do, and how can they be made more effective and more accountable; and leading on the government lawyers project.

Ben was also a teaching fellow in public law in UCL's Faculty of Law.

Ben Yong has now been appointed as a Lecturer of Public Law at Queen Mary University of London

Publications

“New Zealand’s Experience of Multiparty Government” in Robert Hazell and Akash Paun (eds) Making Minority Government Work (Constitution Unit and Institute for Government, London, 2010)

Putting Goats amongst the Wolves - Appointing Ministers from outside Parliament Ben Yong and Robert Hazell (Constitution Unit, 2011)
Ben Yong “Book Review: The Minister as a Hero of Our Time” (2012) 83(1) Political Quarterly 187-9
Ben Yong “Muddling through the Constitution (Again)” (2012) 83(2) Political Quarterly 435-8
Ben Yong and Patrick O'Brien "Constitutional Systems of the World: Problems of Perspective in Comparative Constitutionalism" (2012) 10(3) Political Studies Review 359-69