Oscar Nowlan

Photo credit: Isaac Qureshi

I am a final-year PhD candidate at the Department of Government, London School of Economics and Political Science and Research Fellow at LSE Cities.

From September 2026, I will be joining the European University Institute as a Max Weber Fellow.

I study how governments are organised, how they deliver public services, and how they are held accountable. My PhD focuses on how blame is allocated and contested in public services and executive politics, and how policymakers respond to it. I am also interested more widely in the study of bureaucracy, regulation, and policymaking. My research has been published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.

Beyond academia, I have direct experience working on public policy in the United Kingdom, having previously worked as a Senior Policy Advisor at HM Treasury and in other Civil Service and local government roles.