Professor Alasdair Cochrane
Department of Politics and International Relations
Professor of Political Theory
+44 114 222 1650
Full contact details
Department of Politics and International Relations
Modular Teaching Village
Northumberland Road
Sheffield
S10 1AJ
- Profile
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Alasdair Cochrane received a First Class BA in Politics from the University of Sheffield in 2000. He then went on to complete an MSc in Political Theory, a PGCHE and his PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was then Fellow in Human Rights and then Lecturer in Human Rights at the LSE.
Alasdair rejoined the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield as Lecturer in Political Theory in January 2012.
Alasdair Cochrane’s main research interests include: contemporary political theory, rights theory, human rights, environmental ethics, animal ethics and bioethics.
- Research interests
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- The Ethics of Imprisonment
- Cosmopolitan approaches to animal rights.
- The anthropocentrism of human rights.
- Global Food Justice (PDF:108KB)
Prizes and fellowships
- AHRC / BBC New Generation Thinker 2014
- Leverhulme Research Fellowship 2014-15 (for work on ‘Beastly Cosmopolitanism’)
- Publications
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Books
- Solidarity with Animals. Oxford University PressOxford.
- Should Animals Have Political Rights?. Polity.
- Sentientist Politics: A Theory of Global Inter-Species Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Animal Rights Without Liberation - Applied Ethics and Human Obligations. Columbia University Press.
- An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory. Palgrave MacMillan.
Journal articles
- A case for the provision of assisted dying in prisons founded on the right to self-determination: creating equivalence between prisoners and non-prisoners?. Medical Law International.
- Should we protect animals from hate speech?. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 41(4), 1149-1172.
- Democratising food : the case for a deliberative approach. Review of International Studies, 46(4), 435-455.
- Justice through a multispecies lens. Contemporary Political Theory, 19(3), 475-512.
- Animal ethics and the political. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 21(2), 261-277.
- Prison on Appeal: The Idea of Communicative Incarceration. Criminal Law and Philosophy.
- International Animal Protection: An Introduction. Global Policy, 4(4), 369-370.
- Cosmozoopolis: The Case Against Group-Differentiated Animal Rights. Law, Ethics and Philosophy, 1, 127-141.
- Evaluating 'Bioethical Approaches' to Human Rights. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 1-14.
- Undignified bioethics.. Bioethics, 24(5), 234-241.
- Ownership and Justice for Animals. Utilitas, 21(4), 424-442.
- Do animals have an interest in liberty?. Political Studies, 57(3), 660-679.
- Book reviews. International Affairs, 85(4), 871-914.
- Animal Rights and Animal Experiments: An Interest-Based Approach. Res Publica, 13(3), 293-318.
- Solidarity with wild animals. Ethics, Policy & Environment.
- Veganism as political solidarity : beyond ethical veganism. Journal of Social Philosophy.
- ‘Humane intervention’: the international protection of animal rights. Journal of Global Ethics, 12(1), 106-121.
- From human rights to sentient rights. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy.
Chapters
- Introduction, Solidarity with Animals: Promises, Pitfalls, and Potential (pp. 1-16).
- Introduction, Solidarity with Animals (pp. 1-16). Oxford University PressOxford
- Afterword (pp. 184-186). Oxford University PressOxford
- Animals in social and political theory, Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Social and Political Theory (pp. 584-592).
- Good work for animals In Blattner CE, Coulter K & Kymlicka W (Ed.), Animal Labour Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- RIGHTS, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism (pp. 480-483).
- ANIMALS, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism (pp. 16-21).
- Labour Rights for Animals In Garner R & O'Sullivan S (Ed.), The Political Turn in Animal Ethics Rowman & Littlefield International
- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Specifying the Rights of Animals In Visak T & Garner R (Ed.), The Ethics of Killing Animals (pp. 201-214). Oxford University Press, USA
- Born in Chains? The Ethics of Animal Domestication In Gruen L (Ed.), The Ethics of Captivity (pp. 156-173). Oxford University Press, USA
- Conclusions, An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (pp. 136-146). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Introduction: Animals and Political Theory, An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (pp. 1-9). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Marxism and Animals, An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (pp. 93-114). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Feminism and Animals, An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (pp. 115-135). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Animals in the History of Political Thought, An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (pp. 10-28). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Communitarianism and Animals, An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (pp. 72-92). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Utilitarianism and Animals, An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (pp. 29-49). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- Liberalism and Animals, An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory (pp. 50-71). Palgrave Macmillan UK
- The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Animal Minds Routledge
- Solidarity with Animals. Oxford University PressOxford.
- Research group
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Alasdair Cochrane is currently supervising, and is interested in supervising, PhD projects on a range of issues in contemporary political theory, including: human rights; non-human rights; environmental political theory; and bioethics.
- Teaching activities
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The modules that I teach in the Department explore some extremely contentious political issues: minority rights; abortion; humanitarian intervention; animal rights; euthanasia; and many more besides! The wonderful thing about studying political theory, in my view, is that it provides individuals with the tools to tackle such difficult topics directly and confidently. As such, in my teaching practice, my primary aim is to help students to develop the skills necessary to do that. I thus build classes around helping students to expose and critically reflect on their preconceptions. And my ultimate objective is to enable students to construct clear and robust arguments in relation to some of the most important topics in modern political life.
Professor Alasdair Cochrane discusses how and why we establish human rights, and what implication this has for the rights of animals.
- Professional activities and memberships
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Co-Director of ShARC (Sheffield Animals Studies Research Centre)
Radio broadcasts
- Supervision Expertise
- Animal politics
- Environmental political theory
- Most other areas of political theory