HEATH PICKERING

Special Adviser to Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece, Honorary Fellow in Public Administration at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, and former Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Melbourne

About me

I am an Adviser to Lord Mayor of Melbourne Nick Reece. Prior to this I was a Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Melbourne. I also hold an Honorary Fellowship at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute in Belgium.

I joined the Lord Mayor's Office at Melbourne Town Hall in early 2025, where I provide advice on urban policy and city politics. Outside of this role, I continue to conduct research on political leadership.

This website is primarily catered to my academic work. Much of my research is comparative, commonly among the four traditional Westminster family members: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. My interests span issues such as the revolving door of politics, politicisation, institutional change, policy promises, and government transparency and accountability.

My new book, Chief of Staff: The Rise of Political Craft in Westminster Democracies, published with Edward Elgar (2025), explores the evolution and professionalisation of political advisers, with a special focus on the prime minister's chief of staff.

Another ongoing project is a comparative survey on political advisers. The project is currently seeking respondents from former British special advisers - click here for more information.

I completed my PhD at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute in Belgium. Prior to moving to Brussels, I worked at the University of Melbourne for six years in several roles, including in Strategy and Government Relations in the Chancellery, Media and Communications at the Melbourne School of Government, and Teaching Assistant at the School of Social and Political Sciences. In other professional work, I also supported the PoliticsHQ show on Sky News Australia (2016-2018) and spent a year supporting a foreign aid project in Solomon Islands (2015).

Contact

Email me at heath.pickering@unimelb.edu.au
Email me at heath.pickering@melbourne.vic.gov.au
Find me on LinkedIn
Profile on Google Scholar

Play the YouTube links below for summary podcasts of my research. These podcasts were automatically generated using Google's NotebookLM.

Pickering, H., Bellens, T., & Brans, M. 2024. The Prime Minister's Chief-of-Staff: A Profile and Changing Trends in Westminster Democracies, 1990-2021. Governance, 37(4), 1231-1249.

Brenton, S., & Pickering, H. 2022. Trustworthiness, Stability and Productivity of Minority Governments in Australia, Parliamentary Affairs, 75(2), 308-339.

Orchard, D., Gouglas, A., & Pickering, H. 2024. Life after Whitehall: The Career Moves of British Special Advisers, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 26(1), 149-169.

Publications

Book (monograph)

Pickering, H. 2025. Chief of Staff: The Rise of Political Craft in Westminster Democracies. Edward Elgar.

Peer-reviewed articles

Pickering, H., Bellens, T., & Brans, M. 2024. The Prime Minister's Chief-of-Staff: A Profile and Changing Trends in Westminster Democracies, 1990-2021. Governance, 37(4), 1231-1249.

Pickering, H., Craft, J., & Brans, M. 2024. Ministerial Advisers as Power Resources: Exploring Expansion, Stability, and Contraction in Westminster Ministers’ Offices, Parliamentary Affairs, 77(2), 305-327. (including supplementary material: ministerial adviser datasets and also features of ministers' offices in the four classic Westminster countries)

Orchard, D., Gouglas, A., & Pickering, H. 2024. Life after Whitehall: The Career Moves of British Special Advisers, The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 26(1), 149-169.

Brenton, S., & Pickering, H. 2022. Trustworthiness, Stability and Productivity of Minority Governments in Australia, Parliamentary Affairs, 75(2), 308-339.

Krajňák, S., Staronova, K., & Pickering, H. 2020. Ministerial Advisers in Slovakia: Profiles and Career Paths, 2010–2020, NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, 13(2), 115-140.

Book chapters

Pickering, H., Brans., & Peters, B. G. 2023. The comparative method in ministerial adviser research. In R. Shaw (eds), Handbook on Ministerial and Political Advisers. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 137-154.

Meert, A., Pickering, H., Brans., & Gouglas, A. 2023. Systematic Literature Reviews: Opportunities and limits in ministerial adviser research. In R. Shaw (eds), Handbook on Ministerial and Political Advisers. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 173-195.

Pickering, H. 2023. Glossary: common terms and concepts found in the literature on ministerial and political advisers. In R. Shaw (eds), Handbook on Ministerial and Political Advisers. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 419-426.

Book reviews

Pickering, H. 2022. Advising Governments in the Westminster Tradition: Policy Advisory Systems in Australia, Britain, Canada, and New Zealand, by Jonathan Craft and John Halligan, Public Administration Review, 82(4), 778-780 (book review).

Pickering, H. & Brans, M. 2020. Government ministers and their "Special Advisers", Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 30(3), 521–523 (double book review).

Articles in progress (with other co-authors)

Executive Advisory and Support Offices: Exploring the Institutional Architecture of Ministers’ Offices

Sample of op-ed articles

Pickering, H & Gouglas, T 2023. Most Special Advisers become lobbyists after leaving government – new research, 28 February, The Conversation, London

Pickering, H 2020. Covid-19 to entrench 'big government' policies for good, 28 April, The Mandarin, Canberra

Pickering, H 2019. Why Canada has so many political advisers, 17 October, The Conversation, Toronto

Pickering, H 2018. Surviving Australian politics: 4 reforms to stop ousting leaders, 30 August, Pursuit, Melbourne

Pickering, H 2017. Australia’s Referendum Drought, 16 August, Pursuit, Melbourne

Brenton, S & Pickering, H 2016. The rise of LGBTIQ Politicians, 30 June, Election Watch, Melbourne

Pickering, H 2016. Brexit proves Baby Boomers should get less of a vote, 27 June, VICE

Past teaching experience

I was a subject coordinator / co-teacher at the University of Melbourne, Australia

2024 Politics and the Media (undergraduate level)

2024 Governance (graduate level)

2024 Business and Government (graduate level)

2024 Professional Practice in Policy Research (graduate level)

Teaching Assistant in the Public Governance Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium

2021–22 Policy Analysis (undergraduate level)

2019–20 Comparative Public Policy in Europe (graduate level)

Methods and research network

I have published academic research using and/or explaining the following methods and techniques:
> Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)
> Demographic analysis (sometimes called Prosopography)
> Systematic Literature Review (including the systematic scoping review)
> Comparative Methods
> Formulating typologies and indices

I am also a member of a European-based research network:

Comparative Research on the Executive Triangle (CoREx), which is a pan-European network of researchers studying the relationships of executive politicians, top civil servants, and ministerial advisers from an internationally comparative perspective: https://www.cost-corex.com/about

Google Sites

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