Dr Morag McDermont

Summary

Housing Law & Policy; Administrative Law; Regulation and Risk; Social Theory

Biography

Morag McDermont is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law, University of Bristol, having been appointed as a Lecturer in Law in 2004. After 15 years working in housing organisations, Morag returned to full-time study in 1999. She completed a LL.M. in Public Law at the University of Bristol, and then a PhD at the University of the West of England. Her PhD research concerned the historical role played by the National Housing Federation (the representative organisation for housing associations in England) in the governance of social housing sector, and will be published in 2009 by Hart Publishing. She has also published a book with Dave Cowan, Regulating Social Housing: Governing Decline (Glasshouse, 2006). Recently completed projects include researching the role of tenants on the governing bodies of housing associations, and the relationships between local authorities and housing associations in housing households in need (funded by the Economic and Social Research Council).

Morag's current research, Barriers to Justice within the Employment Tribunal System: the Applicants' Perspective, is being carried out in collaboration with Nicole Busby at Stirling University and Bristol Citizens' Advice Bureau.

Morag's other research interests are in Public Law, particularly around legal responses to terrorism; and in the application of social theory, particularly governmentality, to empirical research.

Morag is also Programme Director for the MSc in Socio Legal Studies, and teaches Socio-Legal Studies.

Activities / Findings

Various housing policy issues: governance in housing associations; contractual arrangements between local authorities and housing associations; role of private funders in social housing; resistance in social housing: the tenants' campaign against stock transfer.

Risk and rights in legal responses to terrorism

Memberships

Organisations

University of Bristol Law School

Research group

• Regulation
• Socio-Legal Research

Recent publications

• McDermont, M, Bronwen, M & Cowan, D 2012, ‘Socio-legal Studies Module: the Bristol Experience’. in: Caroline Hunter (eds) Integrating Socio-Legal Studies into the Law Curriculum. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 19 - 36
• McDermont, M 2010, ‘Governing, Independence and Expertise: The Business of Housing Associations’. Hart
• Clarke, J, McDermont, M & Newman, J 2010, ‘Delivering Choice and Administering Justice: Contested Logics of Public Services’. in: M Adler (eds) Administrative Justice in Context. Hart, pp. 25 - 46
• McDermont, M 2010, ‘'Commentary' to Alternative Judgment by Helen Carr and Caroline Hunter to YL v Birmingham City Council and others’. in: R Hunter, C McGlynn, E Rackley (eds) Feminist Judgments: From Theory to Practice. Hart, pp. 311 - 317
• McDermont, M, Cowan, D & Prendergast, J 2009, ‘Structuring Governance: A Case Study of the New Organisational Provision of Public Service Delivery’. Critical Social Policy, vol 29., pp. 677 - 702
• Cowan, D, Morgan, K & McDermont, M 2009, ‘Nominations: An Actor-Network Approach’. Housing Studies, vol 24., pp. 281 - 300
• Cowan, D & McDermont, M 2009, ‘Obscuring the public function: A social housing case study’. in: Colm O'Cinneide, Jane Holder (eds) Current Legal Problems 2008. OUP, pp. 159 - 190
• McDermont, M 2007, ‘Territorializing Regulation: a Case Study of "Social Housing" in England’. Law and Social Inquiry, vol 32 (2)., pp. 373 - 398
• McDermont, M 2007, ‘Mixed Messages: Housing Associations and Corporate Governance’. Social and Legal Studies, vol 16 (1)., pp. 71 - 94
• Cowan, D & McDermont, M 2006, ‘Regulating Social Housing: Governing Decline’. Routledge Cavendish

View complete publications list in the University of Bristol publications system