Dr Maxine David

Biography

Dr Maxine David is a Lecturer in the School of Politics, University of Surrey, UK. She convenes and leads modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including on International Intervention, Foreign Policy Analysis, Globalisation and Eastern Europe. She is a regular guest lecturer at the American University in London, where she lectures on EU actorness in the context of a globalising world. She has also participated in teaching exchanges with the University of Agriculture, Jelgava, Riga. She adopts an experiential approach to learning. Thus, her students are encouraged to understand the necessity of active involvement in, and a reflective approach to, learning, which stimulates critical thought and conceptualisations.

Her research to date has focused on the foreign policies of Russia and the European Union. She is currently joint coordinator and co-editor of a project mapping the 27 EU Member States relations with Russia and is responsible for writing the chapter on UK and Irish relations with Russia. A Special Issue with Journal of Contemporary Studies was published in 2011, which covers 15 of these relations. In 2013 a book covering the entirety of the bilateral relations will be published with Routledge. She is particularly interested in the role of structure, both domestic and international, and its effects on the capacity of states to operate as independent actors. Her future research projects will concentrate on the pressures that states face in an increasingly interconnected and interdependent world, especially in relation to sovereignty and the role of new technologies in the empowerment of citizens.

Research Interests

• European Union External Relations
• Foreign Policy Analysis
• Russian Foreign Policy
• IR Theory

Areas of Dissertation Supervision

• Foreign Policy
• Russia
• European Union
• Eastern Europe
• European Enlargement

Research Collaborations

RESEARCH FUNDING BIDS, AWARDS AND PRIZES

2011 with Prof. M Breen-Smyth, British Academy International Partnership Scheme, On the Receiving End: Towards More Critical and Inclusive Perspectives on International Intervention 

2010 Okukubo Prize, Best PhD Thesis, Department of Politics, University of Surrey

2010 UACES and European Security funding for Workshop, Bilateral Relations with Russia and the Impact on a Common EU Policy towards Russia. King’s College London (with J Gower)

2009 Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Surrey funding for Workshop, Responsibility 2 Rebuild: Linking Infrastructure Development, Governance and Democratisation.

2007 TENT (Teaching with New Technologies) Award for EUWiki: Democratising Knowledge of the EU University of Surrey (with R Guerrina)

2005 UACES funding: Workshop, The EU and Russia after the 2004 Enlargement: Lessons for Cooperation and Integration.   University of Surrey

Publications

PUBLICATIONS

Forthcoming 2013, 'The UK's and Ireland's Relations with Russia', M David, J Gower, H Haukkala (eds.) National Perspectives on Russia; European Foreign Policy in the Making, Routledge.

Forthcoming 2012, with R Guerrina ‘Gender Norms and the EU’s Normative Power in the External Dimension’, Special Issue of Women’s Studies International Forum.

2011, ‘A Less than Special Relationship - the UK’s Russia Experience’, Special Issue Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 19, 2: 189-200

Feb 2008, ‘Exploiting Marginality: The Case of Russia’ in Parker, N (ed) The Geopolitics of Europe’s Identity: Centers, Boundaries and Margins.  Basingstoke, Hants: Palgrave

WORK IN PROGRESS

New Technologies: Empowering Citizens in Russia

Teaching

Pedagogical Principles

My approach to teaching is most clearly embedded in the Problem-Based Learning literature, which facilitates the application of theory and requires students to take responsibility for their own learning. Most importantly, it relegates me increasingly to the role of a facilitator versus a transmitter of knowledge, and encourages independent and deep learning through collaborative practices. 

I treat the classroom as a collaborative learning arena. This is perhaps most noticeable in my year 3 Case Studies in Globalisation where classes are fully discursive and collaborative. Results in the last academic year were impressive: 15 of the 21 students received marks in the good degrees classifications (2:1 or 1st). Students responded well to the teaching style, making comments such as: 

• “Seminar discussions are excellent. Great debate and discussion and a great environment for learning”;
• "I liked the way she got us involved teaching a class. Peer reviews on each other. Providing each other with useful criticisms. Group work and analysing the effect this has on us as individuals”;
• “Lots of group discussions – new ideas”.

Such comments result from putting students centre stage and ensuring building blocks are in place from year 1. 

Further evidence of my commitment to best pedagogical practice lies in the fact that I received the Vice Chancellor's Excellence in Teaching award in April 2012. As a result, I received funding to run a project with our students, which will commence in October 2012 and run through the academic year. It is entitled: Building a Research Culture from Day 1, Year 1 and its aims are fourfold:
1) To help students make the transition from A level to degree level work;
2) To promote active (vs passive) learning processes;
3) To build the research culture (incorporating enquiry, evaluation, argument, synthesis) necessary to Politics;
4) To address the typical resistance to Study Skills modules. Their position in the driving seat means students make their own connections between skills development and discipline.

Module Leader Responsibilities 

• International Intervention I (MA)
• The Changing Face of Eastern Europe (MA)
• Case Studies in Globalisation (Level 3)
• Foreign Policy Analysis (Level 2)
• Introduction to Study Skills and Research Methods (Level 1)

Previously supervised UG and MA dissertations include:

• The Limits of Hegemony: The USA, Turkey and the EU
• The EU: A Partner or Victim of Russian Energy Politics?
• Liberal Intergovernmentalism and the Codification of ESDP at Nice
• EU Development Policy and the Common Agricultural Policy
• The History of EU Security and Its Future Role
• Turkey, an Ordinary Candidate for EU Membership?
• CFSP: the EU as a Global Actor
• Identity Construction in Central Europe since 1989
• Security and the Need for Cooperation: The Case of Russia

Departmental Duties

I am Undergraduate Programme Director

Affiliations

I am responsible for delivery of International Intervention in a Globalised World, one of three courses at the Summer School run by the Center for Comparative Conflict Studies. CFCCS is a research and educational center at the Faculty of Media and Communications (FMK), Belgrade Singidunum University.

I am a Guest Lecturer at the American University in London.

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES

Executive Committee member designate of University Association of Contemporary European Studies (UACES)

Member of:

• UACES
• BISA
• PSA
• BASEES

CONFERENCE RELATED ORGANISATION

September 2012 Panel Organiser: The EU-Russia Partnership for Modernisation: Realising the Potential, UACES 42nd Annual Conference

April 2011 Workshop co-organiser Engagement and Impact: How To Connect Communities, Pre-conference event for PSA, London 18 April 2011

April 2011 Workshop organiser and Chair Russia’s Place in the Post-Soviet World, Pre-conference event for PSA, London 18 April 2011

April 2011 Academic Convenor (with R Guerrina, S Usherwood and T Capelos)   PSA Annual Conference, London, 19-21 April 2011

June 2010 Workshop Co-organiser, Responsibility 2 Rebuild: Linking Infrastructure Development, Governance and Democratisation. Funded by the Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Surrey

April 2010 Workshop Co-organiser, Bilateral Relations with Russia and the Impact on a Common EU Policy towards Russia. Funded by UACES and European Security

May 2005 Workshop Organiser, The EU and Russia after the 2004 Enlargement: Lessons for Cooperation and Integration Funded by UACES