Prof Lucy Barnes
Biography
I am a Professor in Comparative Politics. I joined the Department in 2016 from the University Kent, where I worked as Lecturer in Quantitative Politics. I studied Political Economy and Government (AM, PhD) at Harvard University, and Philosophy, Politics and Economics (BA) at Oxford. I have also held research fellowships at Trinity College, Dublin, and was Prize Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford, where I remain an Associate Member.
Research
My research focuses on the politics of economic policymaking in rich, western democracies (including the UK). I am currently working on the UKRI-funded Mental Models in Political Economy project, which seeks to understand how various types of people understand the economy. In other projects, I am interested in examining the interface between political science and political philosophy, the politics of inequality and redistribution, of fiscal policy and government budgets, and the politics of taxation.
Podcast: UCL Uncovering Politics

Hear Prof Barnes speak about her research on the following podcast episodes:
S1 Ep2 | Is Risk Good for Us?
S4 Ep10 | Public Preferences on Taxes and Spending
Publications
- Journal articles
2022
- Barnes, L., Blumenau, J. and Lauderdale, B. E. (2022) ‘Measuring Attitudes toward Public Spending Using a Multivariate Tax Summary Experiment’, American Journal of Political Science, 66(1), pp. 205–221.
- Barnes, L. and Hicks, T. (2022) ‘Are Policy Analogies Persuasive? The Household Budget Analogy and Public Support for Austerity’, British Journal of Political Science, 52(3), pp. 1296–1314.
2021
- Barnes, L. (2021) ‘Taxing the Rich: Public Preferences and Public Understanding’, Journal of European Public Policy, 29(5), pp. 787–804.
- Barnes, L. and Hicks, T. (2021) ‘All Keynesians Now? Public Support for Countercyclical Government Borrowing’, Political Science Research and Methods, 9(1), pp. 180–188.
2020
- Barnes, L. (2020) ‘Trade and Redistribution: Trade Politics and the Origins of Progressive Taxation’, Political Science Research and Methods, 8(2), pp. 197–214.
- Baderin, A. and Barnes, L. (2020) ‘Risk and Self-Respect’, British Journal of Political Science, 50(4), pp. 1419–1437.
2018
- Barnes, L. and Hicks, T. (2018) ‘Making Austerity Popular: The Media and Mass Attitudes toward Fiscal Policy’, American Journal of Political Science, 62(2), pp. 340–354.
- Barnes, L., Feller, A., Haselswerdt, J. and Porter, E. (2018) ‘Information, Knowledge, and Attitudes: An Evaluation of the Taxpayer Receipt’, Journal of Politics, 80(2).
2016
- Barnes, L. (2016) ‘Private Debt and the Anglo-Liberal Growth Model’, Government and Opposition, 51(4), pp. 529–552.
2015
- Barnes, L. (2015) ‘The Size and Shape of Government: Preferences over Redistributive Tax Policy’, Socio-Economic Review, 13(1), pp. 55–78.
- Book chapters
- Barnes, L. (2021) ‘Public Investment in the Knowledge Economy’, in J. Hacker, A. Hertel-Fernandez, P. Pierson and K. Thelen (eds.) The American Political Economy: Politics, Markets and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 351–374.
- Barnes, L. (2018) ‘The Politics of Domestic Taxation’, in Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Politics. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
- Barnes, L. and Hall, P. A. (2013) ‘Neoliberalism and Social Resilience in the Developed Democracies’, in P. A. Hall and M. Lamont (eds.), Social Resilience in the Neoliberal Era. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 209–238.
- Barnes, L. and Wren, A. (2012) ‘The Liberal Model in (the) Crisis: Continuity and Change in Great Britain and Ireland’, in N. Bermeo and J. Pontusson (eds.), Coping with Crisis: Government Reactions to the Great Recession. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, pp 287–324.
Teaching
I am interested in supervising PhD students proposing to study the political preferences or institutions shaping, and shaped by, economic policy and economic outcomes, and especially any projects that may complement the Mental Models in Political Economy project.