In the pursuit of a career-long interest in American Studies Philip Davies is best known for his expertise on US election campaigns, but has also been able to publish work on many other aspects of US politics, society and culture. He has authored and edited around thirty books and special journal issues and dozens of articles and book chapters, often in partnership with respected colleagues, on such subjects as US politics and film, politics and science fiction, the American city, the US Constitution, political marketing, the US presidency, and on many aspects of US elections. He has also written about the US religious group, the Shakers, as well as publishing several articles on Latvian electoral politics in the early post-Soviet years. He is co-author with Robert McKeever of the successful textbook, Politics USA.
Currently President of the European Association for American Studies, Professor Davies has also served as Chair of the American Politics Group of the UK, Chair of the UK Council of Area Studies Associations and Chair of the British Association for American Studies. He has taught at the Universities of Manchester, Coventry and at London University's School of Advanced Study in the UK, and at the Universities of Maryland and Massachusetts, Creighton University and Wartburg College in the USA. He is Director of the David and Mary Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library in London, where he manages a large programe of lecture, conferences and fellowships based on the Library's holding relating to Canada and the USA (see ).