Dr John Stanton

Overview

Dr John Stanton studied LLB Law at the University of Surrey and has a PhD in Law from Kingston University London. John was appointed Lecturer in Law at Kingston University in 2010, before moving to City, University of London in 2012. He was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2015.

John's expertise is within the field of Constitutional Law. He teaches "Constitutional Law" and "Administrative Law and Human Rights" modules to first year LLB students and "Comparative Constitutional Law" to final years. John is co-author of "Public Law", a textbook with Oxford University Press written with Dr Craig Prescott (Bangor University). The second edition of the book was published in May 2020. John has been nominated on numerous occasions for teaching awards administered by the City Students' Union, winning the Learning Enhancement Award for Teaching in the City Law School in 2017.

John's primary research interests concern local government, democracy and devolution. His first book, entitled "Democratic Sustainability in a New Era of Localism" was published by Routledge in 2014 and he has contributed to a range of academic journals including Legal Studies, Public Law, the Environmental Law Review and the Journal of Environment and Planning Law. John's latest project, a book entitled "Law, Localism and the Constitution", examines central-local relations across the UK. It will be published by Routledge in 2021. John also has a keen interest in Comparative Constitutional Law, with a particular emphasis on the Republic of Malta. He has worked as a Visiting Lecturer in Law at the University of Malta since 2018 and, in 2019, published a paper in the Journal of International and Comparative Law exploring the Maltese system.

John frequently presents at conferences and seminars across the world. In June 2019, he was invited to speak on the "Constitutional Position of English Cities" at a workshop on "Cities in Federalist Theory" at the University of Melbourne, Australia. In December 2020 he will be speaking (virtually) on "Democratic Decay in Malta" at a workshop on Constitutional Decay, Breakdown and Renewal at the University of Melbourne, Australia and in 2021 he is due to speak at the International Society of Public Law Annual Conference at the University of Wroclaw, Poland.

John's expertise is often in demand outside the realms of academia. He has contributed to various online fora, including The Conversation, TheMJ, the UK Constitutional Law Association and the International Association of Constitutional Law. He has also been cited in The Independent. In March 2020, John was called to give oral evidence in Parliament to the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee on the "Progress of Devolution in England".

John is an active member of the Society of Legal Scholars, the UK Constitutional Law Association, the Political Studies Association and the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple.

Qualifications

1. PG Cert HE, Kingston University, United Kingdom, 2011
2. PhD, Kingston University London, United Kingdom, Sep 2007 – Jul 2010
3. LLB, University of Surrey, UK, Sep 2004 – Jun 2007

Employment

1. Senior Lecturer in Law, City, University of London, Aug 2015 – present
2. Lecturer in Law, City, University of London, Sep 2012 – Jul 2015
3. Lecturer in Law, Kingston University London, Sep 2010 – Aug 2012

Memberships of professional organisations

1. Deputy Convenor of Public Law, Society of Legal Scholars, 2012 – present
2. Fellow, Higher Education Academy (HEA)
3. Member, UK Constitutional Law Association
4. Member, Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

Teaching

Teaching

John teaches on and is Module Leader for Constitutional and Administraitve Law, a core LLB1 module. He gives all the first term lectures on the module, taking students through the various topics and principles of Constitutional Law.

He also runs a final year elective entitled Government, Law and Democracy, which runs for one term. This enables students to explore in detail the workings of the governmental, democratic and political system in the UK.

John has recently completed a new Public Law textbook with Oxford University Press, co-authored with his friend and colleague, Dr Craig Prescott from the University of Winchester. It has also been written with the assistance of Professor David Mead (UEA).

Research focus

John's research primarily focuses on localism in the UK, including local decision-making and democracy. He is interested in the nature and role of local government, central-local relations and the broader constitutional position it fulfils.

He is currently engaged in a large-scale empirical project exploring the relationship between local government and centralised government across the UK and Ireland.

His first book, entitled 'Democratic Sustainability in a New Era of Localism' was published by Routledge-Earthscan in 2014. He also published in a range of UK law journals, including Public Law and Legal Studies.

PhD supervision

John welcomes approaches for supervision from prospective PhD students in the area of constitutional law, particularly in relation to: decision-making, democracy and localism.

Publications by category