Michael Laver is Visiting Professor, Data Science Institute, London School of Economics and Emeritus Professor of Politics, New York University. He was Professor of Political Science and Sociology at University College Galway 1983-93, Professor of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin 1993-2005, and a member of the Constitution Review Group. Among his twenty books are The Politics of Private Desires (1981) and The Governance Cycle in Parliamentary Democracies (2023).