University of Liverpool Management School
Dr Michael Cole Senior Lecturer in Organisation and Management
R Research programme

Research

I'm a governance and public administration specialist, and my work has ranged across local government, devolution and accountability — and, in recent years, public leadership in China and the net-zero agenda. The themes below organise that work; the full record sits on the Publications page.

I began with quangos — the subject of my MPhil thesis — and with the question that has shaped much of my career since: how is power held to account? Across early research appointments and my PhD on local government modernisation, that question played out through executive and scrutiny reforms, member allowances, the roles of councillors, local elections, departmentalism, community appraisals, consultations and boundary change. Since arriving at Liverpool I have extended it to UK devolved governance and, latterly, to a more managerial agenda — students' unions, workplace issues, and public leadership in China.

Working papers Publication record
R.01

Governance, Public Administration & Local Government

The accountability of quangos and quasi-government, and the modernisation of British local government — executive and scrutiny reforms, member allowances, councillor roles, local elections, departmentalism and structure.

  • Quangos & quasi-government
  • Local government modernisation
  • Member allowances
  • Councillor roles
  • Local elections
  • Accountability

Key outputs

R.02

Devolution, Scrutiny & Constitutional Reform

How devolution reshaped the way legislatures hold the executive to account — committee scrutiny in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, studied comparatively and across constitutional settings. Includes a report used to inform the reform of Welsh governance.

  • UK devolution
  • Committee scrutiny
  • National Assembly for Wales
  • Consociational governance
  • Constitutional reform

Key outputs

R.03

Public Leadership & Governance in China

Public leadership and governance in China — provincial perspectives on the promotion and performance of political leaders, the workings of the Chinese stock market, and the state's use of social media during COVID-19. Much of this work is with Dr Jiajing Sun.

  • Public leadership in China
  • Promotion & performance
  • Government social media (WeChat)
  • Chinese stock market

Key outputs

R.04

Net Zero, Innovation & Decarbonization

My latest completed project addresses the net-zero agenda: the relationships between innovation, governmental capability and carbon dioxide emissions. It includes global, comparative studies of decarbonization as a 'super-wicked problem' and a re-reading of the pollution haven hypothesis through 'climate capitalism'.

  • Net zero
  • CO₂ emissions
  • Decarbonization
  • Innovation
  • Pollution haven hypothesis
  • Regulatory quality

Key outputs

R.05

Students' Unions, Workplace & Higher Education

A more managerial line of enquiry: the changing functions of university students' unions in UK and comparative perspective, workplace issues, and the 'shared workplace' agenda.

  • Students' unions
  • Higher education
  • Workplace issues
  • Shared workplace agenda

Key outputs

WP Working papers

Working papers

Current collaborative papers in progress and preprints, listed with public project or preprint links where available.

2026 Working paper

Political Turnover and Innovation-System Resilience: Patent and R&D Evidence from 45 Economies

Jiang, W., Dong, J., Sun, J., & Cole, M.

Treats political turnover as a stress test for innovation-system resilience, using R&D and patent indicators for 45 economies from 1980 to 2020. The analysis distinguishes leader-only turnover from leader-and-party turnover and estimates dynamic switcher-based difference-in-differences models for recurring political-turnover events.

  • Innovation systems
  • Political turnover
  • Patent indicators
  • Institutional capacity

Public project page

2026 Preprint

Membership Rules and Realized Entitlements: Gateway Enforcement in China's Hukou System

Sun, J., Cole, M., Yan, F.-C., & Han, Y.

Analyses China's Hukou system as a membership architecture in which formal status assigns claims, while administrative gateways determine whether those claims become usable entitlements. The paper uses an original 2018 survey from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to examine healthcare, housing, education and consumption outcomes.

  • Hukou
  • Public goods
  • Administrative gateways
  • China

ResearchGate preprint

Recurring threads

At various points across my career, I have also researched and published on:

  • The NHS
  • The UK Parliament
  • National & regional elections
  • The UK Civil Service
  • The Chinese stock market

Research centre

  • Advanced Methods for Big Data Analytics Research Centre

See collaborations & co-authors →