Dr. Margherita De Candia

Biography

Margherita de Candia is a Lecturer in Comparative Politics at King's College London. She is part of the Department of Political Economy and contributes to the educational leadership team of the department. As a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, she has also served as an external examiner at the University of Bristol. Joining the Department of Political Economy in autumn 2025, she has spent six years at King’s Foundations, teaching global politics to ambitious international students who are preparing for university studies in the UK. Previously, she was a Teaching Fellow in Politics and International Relations at the University of Reading, where she lectured on a wide range of political science subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her research focuses on multilevel party politics within the European Union, particularly examining how party actors on the fringes of the ideological spectrum leverage the European Parliament to achieve goals in their domestic political contexts. This research interest is reflected in her recent publications on Fratelli d’Italia and the European Conservatives and Reformists group within the European Parliament. In addition to her political science research, she has a strong interest in higher education pedagogy and the teaching of Political Science. In the academic year 2023-24, she served as the academic lead on a project funded by KCL's College Teaching Fund, focusing on generative AI in essay writing and received the CIEL Faculty Innovation Teaching Award for her lecture co-creation initiative.

Research Interests