Dr Matthew Donoghue

Matthew Donoghue
Departmental Lecturer in Comparative Social Policy
Admissions Tutor for Comparative Social Policy
01865 270343
matthew.donoghue@spi.ox.ac.uk

My work focuses on how to understand and address division and uncertainty, alongside how governments and other bodies can support households and communities in dealing with these problems. In particular, this involves examining the role of belonging and integration socially, economically and politically, and how welfare state institutions can best support people and help people support one another. 

Previously I was a Research Fellow on the FP7 funded project, RESCuE, which examined socio-economic household resilience in 9 European countries in the wake of the financial crisis, looking at how households could make ends meet, the practices they employed to do so, and the support they received (or didn't) from their governments. My PhD (Oxford Brookes) examined New Labour's approach to Community Cohesion and how it related to the party's welfare reform agenda. 

I have expertise in a range of qualitative methods, particularly household and expert interviews, focus groups, and various forms of documentary analysis (e.g. content anlaysis and discourse analysis).

My research draws inspiration from political economy, political sociology, and critical/interpretive policy studies. My fundamental interest lies in the nature and dynamics of citizenship, particularly regarding social citizenship and integration and the institutions that sustain them in the context of deep uncertainty and overlapping political and economic crises. This includes research on the politics of social/community cohesion, the future of European welfare settlements in the post-crisis and (post-) Brexit landscape, and the use of resilience as a social policy strategy.

I am happy to talk to students interested in carrying out research in these areas.

  • Gritty Citizens? Exploring the Logic and Limits of Resilience in UK Social Policy During Times of Socio-Material Insecurity

    2019
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    Journal article
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    Critical Social Policy

  • Back to the future of community cohesion? Learning from New Labour

    2018
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    Chapter
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    Social Policy Review 30: Analysis and debate in social policy 2018
    New Labour developed an ambitious programme to address what it saw as increasing social divisions in British society caused, primarily, by ethnic and cultural difference. Developed in 2001, community cohesion became embedded in many other social policy areas, especially regarding social inclusion, a commitment to empowering both individuals and communities, and developing a sense of British identity compatible with a rapidly globalising world. Though it was marginalised during the Coalition and Conservative governments, rising uncertainty and increasing division in the current period warrants a re-assessment of the utility of a discrete social cohesion policy framework. This chapter assesses New Labour’s approach to community cohesion, drawing out lessons from its use in the New Labour years and asks whether policymakers should return to a focus on social cohesion and what, if anything, should be done differently in a uncertain political and social landscape.
    social cohesion, New Labour, Integration, Ethnicity, Inequality

  • Beyond Hegemony: Elaborating on the Use of Gramscian Concepts in Critical Discourse Analysis for Political Studies

    2018
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    Journal article
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    Political Studies
    © 2017, © The Author(s) 2017. The work of Antonio Gramsci is important for the theoretical underpinnings of critical discourse analysis. However, many scholars’ engagement with Gramsci’s work within critical discourse analysis remains surprisingly thin. This article seeks to highlight the detriment to critical discourse analysis of having only a surface engagement with Gramsci. It critically assesses how Gramscian concepts such as hegemony and ‘common sense’ are currently employed within critical discourse analysis and provides more detailed discussion on the import of these concepts for critical discourse analysis. The article also argues that introducing the Gramscian concepts of the war of position and spontaneous and normative grammars enables the further realisation of critical discourse analysis’ ambition to be an emancipatory tool in political and social science. In so doing, the article contributes to work on critical discourse analysis as a method in political studies, particularly concerning the role of discourse in reproducing and maintaining asymmetrical power relations between classes and social groups, and potential challenges to this.

  • Resilience, Agency and Coping with Hardship: Evidence from Europe during the Great Recession

    2018
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    Journal article
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    Journal of Social Policy
    © Cambridge University Press 2018. This paper aims to contribute to the growing literature on resilience by focusing on coping with hardship during the Great Recession, drawing upon primary data gathered through household and key informant interviews in nine European countries. As the resilience approach highlights agency, the paper examines the nature of household responses to hardship during this period on the basis of the 'structure-agency problem'. An important contribution of this paper is to identify different forms of agency and discuss their implications. More specifically, we conceptualise three different types of agency in coping with hardship: absorptive, adaptive and transformative. Analysis of the findings indicates that structural constraints remain prominent. Most coping mechanisms fall under the category of absorptive and adaptive agency characterised here as burden-bearing actions that 'conform' to changing circumstances rather than shaping those circumstances.

  • When rhetoric does not translate to reality: Hardship, empowerment and the third sector in austerity localism

    2018
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    Journal article
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    Sociological Review
    © The Author(s) 2018. Austerity localism powerfully explains dynamics of (dis)empowerment at the local level, especially regarding the autonomy and accountability of local authorities and third sector organisations (TSOs) in the UK. Yet these dynamics at institutional level have also a clear impact on individuals, especially the socio-economically vulnerable. This is especially true in a time of cost-containment and welfare retrenchment. This article addresses a gap in the literature by focusing not only on TSOs but also on the experiences of vulnerable individuals under austerity localism. The discussion is centred on two types of TSOs: foodbanks and advice/advocacy organisations. Drawing upon primary qualitative data from three locations in England and Wales, the article argues that the emphatic rhetoric of empowerment within austerity localism, which others have shown to be problematic at the institutional level, does not translate into real-world empowerment for service users and other vulnerable individuals. In making the argument the article contributes to work on expanding the analytical scope of austerity localism, as well as further exploring the roles and prospects of TSOs in the current long period of austerity in the UK.

  • The narratives of hardship: the new and the old poor in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis in Europe

    2017
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    Journal article
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    The Sociological Review

  • Cohesion as ‘common sense’: Everyday narratives of community and cohesion in New Labour’s Britain

    2016
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    Journal article
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    Politics

  • Resilience, Hardship and Social Conditions

    2016
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    Journal article
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    Journal of Social Policy
    <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>This paper provides a critical assessment of the term ‘resilience’ – and its highly agent-centric conceptualisation – when applied to how individuals and households respond to hardship. We provide an argument for social conditions to be embedded into the framework of resilience analysis. Drawing on two different perspectives in social theory, namely the structure-agent nexus and path dependency, we aim to demonstrate that the concept of resilience, if understood in isolation from the social conditions within which it may or may not arise, can result in a number of problems. This includes misidentification of resilience, ideological exploitation of the term and inability to explain intermittence in resilience.</jats:p>

  • Welfare and cohesion contested: A critical discourse analysis of New Labour's reform programme

    2013
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    Journal article
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    British Politics
    Since the inception of Community Cohesion policy in 2001 and the ongoing welfare reform of the New Labour era, creating a cohesive, responsible and mutualist society has become an important goal for UK governments - something that is still partially true for the Coalition government thanks to their Big Society project. However, although New Labour intended to create such a society, their welfare and cohesion policies fell short of this goal. This is due, in part, to the creation and perpetuation of a number of discourses and discursive logics present in the policy literature and within British society as a whole. The article uses Critical Discourse Analysis to analyse a number of government documents on welfare reform and community cohesion between 2001 and 2010 to highlight the links between the spheres of cohesion and welfare, and to highlight how these linkages can shed new light on New Labour's political project. The article calls for a combined approach to understanding notions of cohesion, both academically and politically. © 2013 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
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