Career
King gained a Bachelor of Arts in History and Economics at Queen"s University, Ontario, before he came to the United Kingdom as a Rhodes Scholar to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford, after which he gained a Doctorate.Phil. with thesis titled Some aspects of the history of the Liberal Party in Britain, 1906–1914. He initially taught at Magdalen College, Oxford, before transferring to Essex. Since 1969, he has been Professor of Government at Essex.
He regularly appears on election results and their implications.
On a monthly basis, he analyses political opinion polls on voting intentions for The Daily Telegraph. He has also written many books on politics and was co-editor of the Britain at the Polls series of essays and, in 2008, The British Constitution.
King is co-author with David Butler of two Nuffield College election studies (those for 1964 and 1966) and author of Britain Says Yes: the 1975 Referendum on the Common Market and Running Scared: Why America’s Politicians Campaign Too Much and Govern Too Little. He is also co-author with Ivor Crewe of Social Democratic Party: The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party and The Blunders of our Governments.
He has edited The New American Political System, New Labour Triumphs: Britain at the Polls 1997, Britain at the Polls 2001 and Britain at the Polls 2005.
In 2010, he was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy. He also serves as an associate at the Institute for Government, a non-partisan charity that aims to improve the effectiveness of central Government in the United Kingdom. His current research includes: the changing British constitution. The British prime ministership.
American politics and government and the history of democracy.
King teaches the course GV100 – Introduction to Politics at the University of Essex. He has also taught at Princeton and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, in the United States.