Emeritus Professor of Politics at Oxford University and Professorial Fellow at Mansfield College, where I engaged in teaching and research from 1978 until 2011. Former Director of the Centre for Political Ideologies at the DPIR and founding editor of the Journal of Political Ideologies. Professor of Politics, University of Nottingham, 2013-2015. Professorial Research Associate, SOAS, University of London, 2016-2019. ESRC Professorial Fellow from 2004 to 2007. Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow, 2016-2019. FAcSS, FRHist.S.
Sir Isaiah Berlin Prize for Lifetime Contribution to Political Studies Award of the UK Political Studies Association, 2012.
Medal for Science, Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Bologna, 2012.
Research
My main interest is in the study of actual political thinking at various levels of articulation. Ideologies are the vehicles through which access to such political thinking invariably takes place, constituting as they do patterns of political thought and conceptual arrangements. In parallel and intersecting with that I have worked extensively on two other themes: liberal thought from the 19th century to the present. and most recently the specifically political features of political thinking and the distinctive methodologies that students of political thought might develop. I have just completed a project exploring silences and absences in political theory. In addition I have written on welfare thinking and rights, on the nature and attributes of political concepts, on eugenics, on New Labour, on political practice, and on conceptual history.
Research interests
Political Theory, Emotions, Ideology, Liberalism, Methods, Rights and justice
Teaching
Currently DPhil supervisor in political theory
