Political Theory

The Political Theory Research Group brings together scholars working within a range of theoretical traditions, with different methodological approaches and substantive interests. In the broadest terms, political theory is the study of the nature of politics, both descriptively (what it is like) and normatively (what it should be like). Such study is carried out both by engaging with great texts and thinkers, and through first-order normative theorising about the central concerns of politics.

Prof. Alasdair Cochrane

Prof. Cochrane is co-editing a book with Mara-Daria Cojocaru from the Munich School of Philosophy on Solidarity with Animals.  This book continues his scholarship in the so-called 'political turn' in animal ethics. While much work in this political turn has been done on concepts like 'justice', 'agency', 'representation', etc., only very few animal scholars have talked about 'solidarity'. The edited collection brings together the leading thinkers in the fields of animal ethics, politics, social philosophy, world religions, and the law to explore this lacuna and thus provide the first book length treatment of solidarity between the species.

Dr Edward Hall

The Liberalism of Fear in the Twenty-First Century

This research has benefited from the award of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship. 

In this project, Dr Hall argues that a negative and preventative version of liberal politics, best described by Judith Shklar as the ‘liberalism of fear’, transforms our understanding of many of the most daunting political challenges of the twenty-first century and powerfully explains how the political cruelties we witness on a daily basis can be ameliorated.

Luke Ulaş

This research has benefited from the award of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship.

This book explores the concept of cosmopolitanism from the perspective of personal experience, examining what it means and what it means to be cosmopolitan. This approach is rare but insightful, providing a clearer understanding of the challenges facing global politics today and new insights into ongoing debates about cosmopolitan visions of global order, arguing for a qualified form of "global holism," contrasting it with attempts to reconcile cosmopolitanism with the concept of self-determination.