Katana VentraIP

Ken Young

Kenneth George Young FAcSS FRHistS (3 January 1943 – 20 February 2019)[1][2][3] was a British political scientist and historian who was Professor of Public Policy at King's College London in its Department of War Studies.[4] Earlier he was instrumental in the creation of the Department of Political Economy at KCL in 2010, and was its founding head of department.[2]

For other people named Ken Young or Kenneth Young, see Kenneth Young (disambiguation).

Educated at the London School of Economics, Young was a research officer with the influential Greater London Group during his time there. Young taught at several institutions prior to coming to KCL, including the University of Kent at Canterbury; the University of Bristol, where he was a founding editor of the interdisciplinary-oriented journal Policy & Politics and where the annual Ken Young Best Paper Prize is named after him; the University of Birmingham, where he was director of the Institute of Local Government Studies; and at Queen Mary and Westfield College of the University of London, where he was head of the Department of Politics and Vice-Principal. Young is most known for his work in urban studies and policy studies, specially with regard to local government in England. He was also involved in the evidence-based policy movement, including serving as director of the Economic and Social Research Council's UK Centre for Evidence Based Policy and Practice and co-founding the journal Evidence & Policy.


He served on several governmental bodies, in particular being director of research for the Widdicombe Committee during 1985–86. Late in his career, he shifted his focus towards security studies and became a historian of the early Cold War. One of his journal articles in that field was awarded a Moncado Prize by the Society for Military History.

Government-related positions[edit]

Young had positions related to public affairs on a number of occasions. He served as Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee on Environment in 1982–83.[14]


Young then served as director of research to the Committee of Inquiry into the Conduct of Local Authority Business, known as the Widdicombe Committee, during 1985–86.[14] As director, Young made the case for local government, as opposed to centralisation, being better able to innovate, maximise the value of public choice, and lead to public participation and pluralism.[23] While not all agreed with the conclusions of the Widdicombe Committee's report, City of Westminster chief executive Rodney Brooke wrote that it "present[s] the most extensive and authoritative examination of the internal workings of local government for two decades."[26] Brooke also stated that Young's essay in the report was a "fascinating" piece.[26] Others too have praised the level and quality of research that went into the Widdicombe Report.[23]


In a follow-on report done in 1990 for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to examine changes in municipal government since Widdicombe, Young and his colleague Mary Davies found that local councils were putting adherence to partisan politics ahead of the interests of the general public.[27] In further work done for the Rowntree Foundation during 1993–94, Young and Rao explored the dissatisfactions of local councillors who were frustrated by slow, cumbersome processes overly influenced by party politics and leading to them departing office,[28] and the slow rate at which the percentage of women who were councillors was increasing.[29]


Young was a Commissioner of the Local Government Boundary Commission between 1990 and 1992.[30]

Awards and honors[edit]

Young was elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Historical Society.[36] He was also a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.[37]


In 2014, Policy & Politics journal began awarding an annual Ken Young Best Paper Prize, given to one article published in the previous year's volume that was most "judged to represent excellence in the field".[9]


Young's article "Special Weapon, Special Relationship: The Atomic Bomb Comes to Britain", published in The Journal of Military History, was awarded a 2014 Moncado Prize by the Society for Military History.[38]

Local politics and the rise of party: The London municipal society and the conservative intervention in local elections, 1894–1963 (Leicester University Press, 1975)

Essays on the Study of Urban Politics (Springer, 1975) [editor]

Strategy and conflict in metropolitan housing: Suburbia versus the Greater London Council, 1965–75 (Heinemann, 1978) [co-author with John Kramer]

Policy and Practice in the Multi-Racial City (, 1981) [co-author with Naomi Connelly]

Policy Studies Institute

Metropolitan London: Politics and Urban Change 1837–1981 (Edward Arnold, 1982) [co-author with Patricia L. Garside]

Ethnic Pluralism and Public Policy: Achieving Equality in the United States and Britain (Heinemann, D. C. Heath, 1983) [co-editor with ]

Nathan Glazer

Managing the Post-Industrial City (Heinemann, 1983) [co-author with Liz Mills]

National Interests and Local Government (Ashgate, 1983) [editor]

Urban economic development: New roles and relationships (Macmillan, 1983) [co-editor with Charlie Mason]

The London Employment Problem (Clarendon Press, 1986) [co-author with Nick Buck and Ian Gordon]

Abolition: the reform of metropolitan government in England 1983–86; a review and bibliography (Letchworth: Technical Communications, 1987) [co-author with Lesley Grayson]

Creating a Responsive Public Service (Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990) [co-author with Roger Hadley]

Local Government since 1945 (Blackwell Publishing, 1997) [co-author with ]

Nirmala Rao

The American Bomb in Britain: US Air Forces' Strategic Presence, 1946–64 (, 2016)

Manchester University Press

Super Bomb: Organizational Conflict and the Development of the Hydrogen Bomb (Cornell University Press, 2019) [co-author with ]

Warner R. Schilling

Faculty page at King's College London (archived)