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Robert Ford (academic)

British political scientist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJan 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ124538050 ↗
Source-derived summary

Robert Ford is a British academic and a professor of political science at the University of Manchester. He frequently writes for The Guardian. His interests include diversity, immigration, and right-wing political parties.

Ford wrote Revolt on the Right (2014) alongside Matthew Goodwin, which focuses on the rise of the right-wing UK Independence Party following its success in the 2014 European Parliament election. The book relates the party's history and examines its voter base.

He later edited Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box: 50 Things You Need to Know About British Elections (2015) with Philip Cowley. This was followed by More Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box: Another 50 Things You Need to Know About Elections (2016), also edited by Ford and Cowley.

Ford authored Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics (2020), alongside Maria Sobolewska, which examines British identity, diversity, and immigration in the aftermath of Brexit. He authored The British General Election of 2019 with Tim Bale, Will Jennings, and Paula Surridge about the 2019 general election.

In January 2023, Ford was appointed as a senior research fellow at UK in a Changing Europe, a think tank which examines the ever-changing relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Robert Ford (academic)” as british political scientist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2014, 2015, 2016, 2020—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1980. The account is most persuasive where Robert, Ford and academic can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british political scientist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q124538050. VIAF identifies the subject as 309563918. The Library of Congress control number is no2009175237. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2020.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Robert Ford (academic)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Robert Ford (academic) primary sources, Robert Ford (academic) archive and Robert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Robert Ford (academic)”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Robert Ford (academic)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.