Peter Saunders

The following is a biographical note current at September 2007:

Peter Saunders took up his current position as Social Research Director at the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) in Sydney in September 2001. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Sussex in England, where he taught sociology for nearly twenty-five years, and is Adjunct Professor at the Australian Graduate School of Management.

Professor Saunders has held visiting academic posts at the University of Melbourne, the ANU, the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the University of Bremen (Germany), and Brown University in the USA. Between 1999 and 2000 he was Research Manager at the Australian Institute of Family Studies in Melbourne where he ran the Institute's research program and edited Reforming the Australian Welfare State, published in 2000.

His major publications include empirical studies of social mobility in Britain (Unequal But Fair, 1996), the impact of mass home ownership on British society (A Nation of Home Owners, 1990) and the political and social significance of privatisation (Privatization and Popular Capitalism, 1994). He has also published several theoretical and analytical works including Capitalism: A Social Audit (1995), Social Class and Stratification (1990) and Social Theory and the Urban Question (1981/1986). He is also co-author of a best-selling text book on British politics, now in its third edition, and of a new student text on survey methodology. His work has been translated into French, German, Italian, Rumanian, Korean and Mandarin.

Professor Saunders's research at CIS focuses mainly on ideas for welfare and tax reform in Australia. His latest book, Australia's Welfare Habit, and how to kick it, was published by Duffy & Snellgrove in August 2004, and he is editor of the CIS 'Perspectives on Tax Reform' series of papers. In addition to publishing with CIS, he appears regularly in the media as a contributor to newspapers and on television and radio.

In July 2008 Peter Saunders left the Centre for Independent Studies to work freelance.

Contact

Website http://www.petersaunders.org.uk

Affiliations

• Centre for Independent Studies
• Civitas