Research themes
The Division of Politics & International Relations has a broad research base with specialisms across a range of different areas, including political systems and institutions, international relations and international political economy, political theory and philosophy, environmental politics and global governance.
We are particularly interested in working across these boundaries and have therefore organised our research output around five broad, interdisciplinary strands:
Citizenship and democracy
Citizenship, both as an idea and as a lived experience, is changing. Here we seek to examine these changes in emerging transnational and global contexts, as well as study innovations in democratic practice from the local to the international level.
- Dr Alexandra Kelso
- Professor Graham Smith
- Professor David Owen
- Professor Gerry Stoker
- Dr Russell Bentley
Post-carbon futures
The prospect of a post-carbon future is now firmly on the agenda among policymakers at all levels and in general public discourse. But how do we go about achieving a post-carbon future? What are the political and economic challenges to be tackled? We seek to provide answers to these questions in a variety of ways, both theoretical and empirical.
- Dr Clare Saunders
- Professor Graham Smith
- Dr Christopher Holmes
- Dr Chris Armstrong
- Dr Oliver Hensengerth
Economy, (in)security and power
Against a backdrop of political, economic and cultural globalisation, the nature and exercise of power is shifting and changing in ways that cannot be captured easily. In this research strand, we aim to unpack how global political economic relations work and how they might work better. We also ask conceptual questions: what is the nature of political and economic power? Do different understandings of power yield different perspectives on political reality?
Governance and its discontents
Here we seek to tackle a range of challenging research issues that have surfaced in response to new mechanisms of governance currently emerging, including the nature of governance failure and the conditions for effective governance in an uncertain world. Similarly, effective governance can be found to have fostered resistance and political dissent among a variety of marginalised groups.
- Professor David Owen
- Dr Pia Riggirozzi
- Professor Gerry Stoker
- Dr John Glenn
- Dr Oliver Hensengerth
- Dr Alexandra Kelso
- Dr Valbona Muzaka
Faces of inequality and expressions of justice
In this research strand, we look at international and transnational justice, underscored by the ever-present reality of global poverty and of inequality in general. We ask how such questions should be approached analytically, how they might be answered in practice and what can be learned from existing social movements.
To find out more about our research, please visit Centre for Citizenship, Globalization and Governance for more detail.
