Foley’s theory that British politics is becoming increasingly similar to that of a presidential system. Dowding instead suggests that the British prime minister is gaining power, but only enhancing the responsibilities that he already possesses rather than adopting new powers that are more closely attributed to the United States’ President. More recently his work has examined why UK cabinet ministers resign based on a large dataset of all UK ministerial resignations and non-resignations, and compiled another on Australia. He is now working on a major project examining political careers in Australia. Recent activity Dowding left LSE and joined the political science programme in the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University (ANU) as a Research Professor of Political Science in July 2007 moving to the School of Politics and International Relations when the Arts Faculty coalesced with the Research School. The Careers of Cabinet Ministers This project comes under the rubric of SEDEPE. Dowding’s work so far has largely been concerned with ministers in the British Cabinet and thus far largely concerned with their resignations. But now he is working to extend this work into the careers of ministers more broadly, and to extend its scope beyond the UK most notably into ministers in the Australian states and Commonwealth government. Publications from this project include the following: ; . . Analytical Account of Freedom and Rights This is a joint work in collaboration with Martin van Hees. The object is to complete a book on the measurement of freedom and rights. Publications from this project include the following: Reprinted in Work on Amartya Sen Dowding is fascinated by empirical measurement of freedom and rights. He has worked as part of a team led by Paul Anand, Open University, UK. They have been empirically examining Amartya Sen's capability approach through survey data ('Capabilities and Well-Being: Operationalizing the Capabilities Framework'). This research was supported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Board. Currently he is writing a book on the works of Amartya Sen which is expected to be published soon. Policy Agendas in Australia With Aaron Martin (Melbourne University) Dowding worked on the Australian franchise of the Policy Agendas and Comparative Agenda Project. His interest in methodology and explanation has led to a reflection on precisely what is being measured in these projects, as discussed in his Journal of Public Policy articles and opening chapters on the Policy