Dr Eleanor Woodhouse
Biography
I am a Lecturer in Public Policy. I joined the Department in 2020 from the European University Institute (EUI), where I was a Max Weber postdoctoral fellow. I received my PhD in Public Policy and Administration (cum laude) from Bocconi University in 2019, before joining the Department of Economics at the EUI for my postdoctoral fellowship.
I hold a Master’s degree in Modern European Studies from UCL and a Bachelor’s degree in French and Italian from Balliol College, Oxford University. I received a Fulbright-Schuman fellowship in 2016/2017 to conduct research at Harvard University’s Department of Economics.
I spent two years working for the European Commission’s Directorate-General of Education and Culture. This experience shaped the direction of my research, which lies at the interface between political institutions and public administration.
Research
My research spans comparative politics, public administration and public policy. I aim to better understand how agency relations function in modern governance.
My current projects fall into three strands. In the first, I explore the political determinants of the adoption of public-private partnerships (PPPs). In a series of papers and a Cambridge Element manuscript (under contract), I theorise and analyse the distributive patterns of PPPs, the way in which their networks are modelled, and their effect on voters.
In the second, I investigate how national politics can affect local bureaucratic outcomes. Using data on a political scandal in Italy, I provide evidence that a sudden increase in electoral accountability for national deputies can increase corruption amongst local public officials.
In the third, I use a novel within-country research design to show that changing the national electoral rule from majoritarian to proportional increased the number of women elected, while not decreasing the overall quality of politicians.

Podcast: UCL Uncovering Politics
Hear Dr Woodhouse speak about her research on the following podcast episode:
S6 Ep2 | Voting Systems and the Representation of Women
Publications
- Journal articles
- Woodhouse, E. F. (2022) ‘Accountability and Corruption Displacement: Evidence from Italy’, Journal of Public Policy, 42(4), pp. 730–754.
- Profeta, P. and Woodhouse, E. F. (2022) ‘Electoral Rules, Women’s Representation and the Qualification of Politicians’, Comparative Political Studies, 55(9).
- Woodhouse, E. F., Belardinelli, P. and Bertelli, A. M. (2022) ‘Hybrid Governance and the Attribution of Political Responsibility: Experimental Evidence from the United States’, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 32(1), pp. 150–165.
- Amaya, C. A., Bertelli, A. M. and Woodhouse, E. F. (2020) ‘The Political Cost of Public-Private Partnerships: Theory and Evidence from Colombian Infrastructure Development’, Governance, 33(4), pp. 771–788.
- Bertelli, A. M., Mele, V. and Woodhouse, E. F. (2020) ‘Corruption, Democracy and Infrastructure Agreements’, Administration & Society, 53(3).
- Books
- Bertelli, A. M., Woodhouse, E. F., Castiglioni, M. and Belardinelli, P. (2021) Partnership Communities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Book chapters
- Bertelli, M. and Woodhouse, E. F. (2022) ‘New Frontiers in the Politics of Public-Private Partnerships’, in G. A. Hodge and C. Greve (eds.), A Research Agenda for Public–Private Partnerships and the Governance of Infrastructure. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 103–114.
- Policy papers
- Woodhouse, E., Ortega Nieto, D. and Alves de Albuquerque Tavares, R. (Forthcoming) ‘Using Microdata for Strategic Human Resource Management and Fiscal Planning in the Public Sector’, in D. Rogger and C. Schuster (eds.) Government Analytics: An Empirical Guide to Measurement in Public Administration.
- Woodhouse, E., Rogger, D. and Williams, M. (Forthcoming) ‘Government Analytics Using Data on Task and Project Completion’, in D. Rogger and C. Schuster (eds.) Government Analytics: An Empirical Guide to Measurement in Public Administration.
Teaching
I teach on the undergraduate Policy Making module, and on the postgraduate Theories and Actors of the Policy Process module.