William Cross

William Cross is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Carleton University. Dr. Cross is a student of comparative political institutions and his work emphasises the connections between civil society and political parties and legislatures. His recent work includes studies of intra-party democracy, changing methods of party leadership selection, Australian and New Zealand political parties, party members, candidate selection and local party activity more generally. Dr. Cross's writing has appeared in many political science journals including Electoral Studies, Party Politics, Political Research Quarterly, Government and Opposition, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Representation, the Australian Journal of Political Science, American Behavioral Scientist and others. His recent books include:  The Political Party in Canada (UBC Press 2022), The Politics of Party Leadership (Oxford 2016), Fighting for Votes: Parties, the Media and Voters in an Ontario Election (UBC Press 2015), The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies: A Comparative Study (Routledge 2014), The Challenges of Intra-Party Democracy (Oxford 2013) and Politics at the Centre: the Selection and Removal of Party Leaders in Anglo Parliamentary Democracies (Oxford 2012) which was awarded the Donald Smiley Prize from the Canadia Political Science Association. From  2009 to 2020, Dr. Cross was the innaugural Bell Chair in Canadian Parliamentary Democracy at Carleton University.  Between 2000 and 2010 he served as director of the Canadian Democratic Audit and in 2004-05, he was Director of Research for the New Brunswick Commission on Legislative Democracy. Dr. Cross is a past President of the Canadian Political Science Association.

Dr. Cross joined Carleton in 2005 after teaching for eight years at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick where he was the Edgar and Dorothy Davidson Chair in Canadian Studies. Prior to that, he was a SSHRC post-doctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia.   A 'retired' lawyer, he previously served as Legal Counsel to the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C. and in-house, Staff Counsel to the Dukakis Presidential Campaign in Boston, MA.