About
Jonathan Havercroft is Professor of International Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Southampton. He is the Director of the Centre for Global Constitutionalism.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- 17th Century European Political Theory
- International Relations Theory
- Global Constitutionalism
- Political Philosophy of Language (with a focus on Cavell, Wittgenstein, and J.L. Austin)
- Disobedience, Public Assembly, and Political Rioting
Current research
His research currently centres on two issues in democratic theory. The first is a focus on the political philosophy of disruptive protests ranging from non-violent disobedience to political rioting. Havercroft is interested in both phenomenological and normative issues raised by acts of disobedience and public assembly. This project will culminate in a monograph and an accompanying set of essays that explore if and under what conditions political rioting might be justified. The book project, entitled Just and Unjust Riots: A Normative Analysis of Militant Protest, argues the political rioting might be justified under a limited set of conditions: when a politically marginalized group is resisting an unjust form of oppression and means of ending this oppression through ordinary parliamentary means is systematically blocked by a hegemonic elite. To explain what these conditions are, Havercroft develops eleven criteria for assessing the legitimacy of political rioting, he then applies these criteria to recent historical cases of rioting in Europe and North America that raise difficult normative dilemmas. The book then considers three common forms of violence within rioting: property destruction, looting, and interpersonal violence, and considers under what circumstances each of these forms of violence might be permissible.
The second project is a multi-year study funded by the British Academy examining how protest is policed in Brazil, the U.S., and the U.K. called the “Policing Protest Project” The past three years has seen a global upswell in the number of protests. These disruptive protests have raised important questions about the nature of global order. While the existing literature tends to focus on actors, motivations, resources and tactics of dissent, scholars need a better understanding of the tensions between authorities maintaining public order and protecting the human right of public assembly. To address this gap, the Policing Protest Project will develop an interdisciplinary and international research team in Brazil, the U.S., and the U.K., to study political protest and state responses to protest as a global phenomenon. The project will generate three peer reviewed articles, one monograph, a dataset of protests in Brazil, the U.K., and the U.S., a podcast series, and training workshops for activists.
Research projects
Active projects
Completed projects
Publications
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Teaching
Jonathan is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has won a Vice Chancellor’s Award for teaching excellence. He teaches undergraduate and post-graduate modules in political theory and international relations. While the modules he teaches vary from year to year historically he has taught modules in the following areas:
- History of Political Theory
- Contemporary Political Theory
- International Relations Theory
- International Political Theory
- Politics of Protest, Disobedience, and Dissent
He is able to offer PhD supervision in any area related to his teaching or research expertise. PhD applicants are strongly encouraged to clearly explain in their applications how their research proposal relates to Jonathan’s research and teaching interests.
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Jonathan Havercroft joined the University in 2013. Before moving to Southampton, Jonathan was an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Oklahoma. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Minnesota, and has held a Postdoctoral position at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of the books Captives of Sovereignty (CUP, 2011) and Stanley Cavell’s Democratic Perfectionism (CUP, 2023). His essay “Why is there no just riot theory?” won the 2020 Brian Barry prize for best essay in political science. He has held fellowships from the British Academy, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Institute for Advanced Studies in Humanities at the University of Edinburgh. He is the primary investigator (PI) on the 2023 British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Grant: “The Policing Protest Project: An Analysis of Public Assembly Rights and Anti-Riot Technology in the U.K., U.S.A., and Brazil”. His peer reviewed articles have appeared in such journals as the British Journal of Political Science, Political Theory, International Studies Quarterly and Constellations. He is the editor of the interdisciplinary journal Global Constitutionalism.
Prizes
- Brian Barry Prize in Political Science (2020)