Dr Joshua Townsley

Josh is a UX Researcher at Meta and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics. He currently leads international research projects in the emerging platforms team at WhatsApp - the largest messaging app in the world. Before this, he worked on WhatsApp integrity and public policy.

Prior to joining Meta, Josh was a Fellow in Quantitative Methodology at the London School of Economics, and Deputy Head of Insight and Data at the UK Liberal Democrats. He spent 7 years as an academic political scientist. Josh published in a number of international peer-reviewed journals, and delivered quantitative methods and data analysis courses at leading UK universities.

Josh received his PhD in political science from the University of Kent in 2019. Before that, he received a Research Masters (MRes) from the University of Nottingham and a BSc in Politics and Economics from the University of Bath.

Publications:

• Townsley, J. & Cutts, D. 2022. How do voters want to be contacted and are parties listening? Evidence from a recent election in Wales. Political Studies.
• Turnbull-Dugarte, S., Townsley, J., Foos, F., & Baron, D. 2021. Mobilising support when the stakes are high: Mass emails affect constituent-to-legislator lobbying. European Journal of Political Research.
• Townsley, J., Trumm, S., & Milazzo, C. 2021. The ’personal touch’: Campaign personalisation inBritain. British Journal of Politics and International Relations.
• Townsley, J., Turnbull-Dugarte, S., Trumm, S., & Milazzo, C. 2021. Who votes by post? Understandingthe drivers of postal voting in the 2019 British general election. Parliamentary Affairs.
• Turnbull-Dugarte, S. & Townsley, J. 2020. Political engagement and turnout among same-sex couples in Western Europe. Research & Politics 7(4).
• Milazzo, C., Trumm, S., & Townsley, J. 2020. Crowdsourcing campaigns: A new dataset for studyingBritish parties’ electoral communications. Political Studies Review.
• Trumm, S., Milazzo, C., & Townsley, J. 2020. The 2016 referendum: Explaining support for Brexit among would-be MPs. Political Studies 69(4): 819-836.
• Townsley, J. & Turnbull-Dugarte, S. 2020. Can parties recruit postal voters? Experimental evidence from Britain. Electoral Studies 64(1).
• Townsley, J. 2020. Drowned out by the noise? The downstream mobilisation effects of party campaigning between local and general elections. Journal of Experimental Political Science 7(3): 188-198.
• Milazzo, C. & Townsley, J. 2020. Conceived in Harlesden: Candidate-centred campaigning in Britishgeneral elections. Parliamentary Affairs 73(1): 127-146.
• Townsley, J. 2018. Is it worth door-knocking? Evidence from a UK-based GOTV field experiment on the effect of leaflets and canvass visits on voter turnout. Political Science Research and Methods.
• Trumm, S., Sudulich, L., & Townsley, J. 2017. Information effect on voter turnout: How campaign spending mobilises voters. Acta Politica 52(4): 461-478.

Expertise

Political science; elections and campaigning; political behaviour; British politics; quantitative methods