José Tomás Labarca

Hi there! Welcome to my professional website. 

I am an Isaac Newton Trust Academic Career Development Fellow, with a focus on British politics, at the Department of Politics and International Studies of the University of Cambridge. I am also a Bye-Fellow and Director of Studies in Human, Social, and Political Sciences at St Edmund's College, University of Cambridge. Before coming to Cambridge, I was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of European and International Studies, King's College London, working on the Leverhulme Trust-funded project The Political Economy of Growth Models in an Age of Stagnation. 

My academic background is interdisciplinary. I earned a BA (Hons) in History and an MA in Sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and received my PhD in Sociology from The University of Edinburgh. In 2023, the Political Studies Association awarded my PhD with the Walter Bagehot Prize for the best dissertation in the field of government and public administration. 

My current research agenda looks at the state, government elites, expert knowledge, and economic policymaking in the UK. Previously, I have also worked on the fiscal sociology of Latin America, with a primary focus on the case of Chile, and the historical sociology of co-operatives.