School of Social and Political Science

Background

Qualifications

• Baccalauréat ès sciences sociales, science politique (Université d'Ottawa)
• MSc Social Research (Edinburgh)
• PhD Politics (Edinburgh)

Current Teaching and Research Interests

Professor Ailsa Henderson FRSE FAcSS CStat is Associate Dean of Research Impact for the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Professor Henderson conducts research on political culture(s) and political behaviour in federal and multi-national states, and focuses in particular on variations in political culture at the sub-state level. Her publications explore how national identity, federalism, devolution or institutional design can affect regional variations in political attitudes and behaviours.  She is the Principal Investigator for the ESRC-funded Scottish Election Study, and co-directs the Future of England Survey/State of the Union survey, a 360 degree review of attitudes to the union in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Recent international grants cover political parties and voting behaviour in Scotland and Quebec (SSHRCC) and the Provincial Diversity Project, a study of attitudinal variation across the ten Canadian provinces (SSHRCC).

Professor Henderson teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in quantitative methods, research methods and research design, British/Scottish and comparative politics.

A member of the 2021 UK REF sub-panel (Politics and International Studies), Henderson is currently Chair of Boundaries Scotland, which sets electoral and ward boundaries for local and Holyrood elections, and is a commissioner on the Boundary Commission for Scotland (for Westminster elections). She was recently an expert witness for the UK's COVID inquiry, on multi-level governance, devolution and public opinion, and an exert advisor to the Welsh Senedd finance committee on electoral reform.

Professor Henderson is a member of the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties research group, the Territorial Politics research group, Centre on Constitutional Change and Q-Step group.  

Edinburgh Research Explorer profile can be accessed here:

http://www.research.ed.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/ailsa-henderson(2a671f20-7c70-436c-8114-496900403ff2).html

Publications

Books (2021-)

Ailsa Henderson, Robert Johns, Jac M Larner and Christopher J Carman (2022) The Referendum That Changed a Nation: Scottish Voting Behaviour 2014-2019 (Palgrave)

Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones (2021) Englishness: The Political Force Transforming Britain (Oxford University Press) Pick of the summer New Statesman, Telegraph. Wall St Journal: Seven books to understand the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The book also appears in the 2023 Grayson Perry painting 'Vote for Me!'

Ailsa Henderson and Mike Medeiros, Eds (2021) Identities and attitudes to decentralization in multi-level states: Understanding the territorial scales of political life (special issue of Comparative European Politics) 

Books (2007-2018)

Éric Bélanger, Richard Nadeau, Ailsa Henderson and Eve Hepburn (2018) The National Question and Electoral Politics in Quebec and Scotland (McGill-Queen's University Press) UK nominee, International Council of Canadian Studies Pierre Savard Award 2020

Ailsa Henderson, Charlie Jeffery and Daniel Wincott, Eds (2013) Citizenship After the Nation State (Palgrave)

Ailsa Henderson, Ed, (2011) Why Regions Matter: Small Worlds in Comparative Perspective (Routledge) 

Ailsa Henderson, Ed, (2009) Nunavut at Ten (special issue of the Journal of Canadian Studies 43(2) 

Ailsa Henderson (2007) Hierarchies of Belonging: national identity and political culture in Scotland and Quebec (McGill-Queen's University Press)

Ailsa Henderson (2007) Nunavut: Rethinking Political Culture (UBC Press). Shortlisted, CPSA Donald Smiley Prize. Best book in Canadian political science 2008 

Colin Coates and Ailsa Henderson, Eds,  (2005) Scotland-Quebec: An Evolving Comparison (special issue of British Journal of Canadian Studies 18 (1/2).

Articles (2019-2024)

Stephen White, Antoine Bilodeau, Luc Turgeon and Ailsa Henderson (2023) "Residential Concentration and Political Engagement among Racialized Canadians: The Moderating Role of Intragroup Contact" Political Geography 107

James Griffiths, Richard Wyn Jones, Ed Gareth Poole, Jac Larner, Ailsa Henderson, Fraser McMillan (2023) "Diverging Electoral Fortunes in Scotland and Wales: national identities, national interests and voting behaviour" Regional and Federal Studies 33(4): 487-510

Antoine Bilodeau, Stephen White, Luc Turgeon and Ailsa Henderson (2022) “Ethnic minority belonging in a multilevel political community: The role of exclusionary experiences and welcoming provincial contexts in Canada” Territory, Politics, Governance Online first https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2022.2080758 

Karlo Basta and Ailsa Henderson (2021) “Multinationalism, constitutional asymmetry and COVID: UK responses to the pandemic” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 27(3): 293-310

Ailsa Henderson and Mike Medeiros (2021) “Identities and attitudes to decentralization in multi-level states: Understanding the territorial scales of political life” Comparative European Politics https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41295-020-00229-y 

Ailsa Henderson and Richard Wyn Jones (2021) “Unions of the Mind: the United Kingdom as a subjective state” Comparative European Politics https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41295-020-00231-4 

Ailsa Henderson, Ed Gareth Poole, Richard Wyn Jones, Daniel Wincott, Jac Larner and Charlie Jeffery (2020, online first) “Analysing vote choice in a multinational state: national identity and territorial differentiation in the 2016 Brexit vote” Regional Studies 

Antoine Bilodeau, Audrey Gagnon, Steve White, Luc Turgeon and Ailsa Henderson (2020) “Attitudes towards ethnocultural diversity in multi-level political communities: comparing the effect of national and subnational attachments in Canada” Publius 

Ailsa Henderson, Rob Johns, Jac Larner and Chris Carman (2020) “Scottish Labour as a Case Study in Party Failure: Evidence from the 2019 UK General Election in Scotland” Scottish Affairs 29(2): 127-40

Luc Turgeon, Antoine Bilodeau, Steve White, Ailsa Henderson and Alain-G Gagnon (2019) “Symbolic Predispositions, Interests and Official Languages Legislation: Exploring the Principle-Implementation Gap in Canada” Politics, Groups and Identities 

Luc Turgeon, Antoine Bilodeau, Stephen E. White and Ailsa Henderson (2019) “A Tale of Two Liberalisms? Attitudes toward Minority Religious Symbols in Quebec and Canada” Canadian Journal of Political Science 52(2): 247-65. Winner, John McMenemy Prize, best article appearing in CJPS in 2019

Robert Liñeira and Ailsa Henderson (2019) “Risk Attitudes and Independence Vote Choice” Political Behavior 

Iain Hardie, Ailsa Henderson and Charlotte Rommerskirchen (2019) “The impact of treasury yields on US presidential approval, 1960-2010” New Political Economy 25(6) 1022-40

Ailsa Henderson, Steven D. Brown and S. Mark Pancer (2019) “Curriculum Requirements and Subsequent Civic Engagement: Is there a difference between ‘forced’ and ‘free’ community service?” British Journal of Sociology 70(4): 1297-1322

Chapters (2019-2024)

Ailsa Henderson, Roger Awan-Scully and Jonathan Tonge (2021) ‘The Devolved Nations’ in Robert Ford, Tim Bale, Will Jennings and Paula Surridge, Eds, The British General Election of 2019. Palgrave Macmillan

James Mitchell and Ailsa Henderson (2021) “Tribes and Turbulence: The 2019 General Election in Scotland” in Jonathan Tonge, Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Eds, Britain Votes 2019. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Ailsa Henderson, Rob Johns, Christopher Carman and James Mitchell (2020) “Political Behaviour” in Michael Keating, Ed, Oxford Handbook of Scottish Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press 

James Mitchell and Ailsa Henderson (2020) “Elections and Electoral Systems” in Michael Keating, Ed, Oxford Handbook of Scottish Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press

Ailsa Henderson (2019) “The Myth of Meritocratic Scotland” in Philip Cowley and Rob Ford, Eds Sex, Lies and Politics. London: Biteback Press, 197-202

Ailsa Henderson (2019) “Attitudes to Constitutional Change” in Gerry Hassan, Ed, The Story of the Scottish Parliament: the first two decades explained. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 45-51