Critical Global Politics
We bring together scholars undertaking cutting-edge research on issues that face global politics.
Our research cluster brings together scholars dedicated to exploring critical perspectives on global issues, including security, conflicts and war, migrations, gender politics, ethics, environmental politics, peace, resistance, international institutions, social movements and geopolitics.
Our work, moreover, critically examines how knowledge is produced and shared, particularly within academic and policy-making spheres.
Our members regularly convene and participate in research seminars, roundtables, workshops, and conferences nationally and globally. In these forums, we engage in rigorous debate, collaborative research, and impactful discussions. Together, we strive to uncover insights that drive both scholarly understanding and practical solutions to global challenges.
Highlights
- Elena Barabantseva is the Manchester lead on the four- year UKRI funded project UKRI Network Plus ‘Shifting Global Polarities: Russia, China, and Eurasia in Transition’ (2024 – 2028) She has also been a member of the British Academy’s ‘Chinese Global Orders’ Global Convening Programme (2023-2026).
- Toni Haastrup’s research on feminist peace was funded through a ISRF Mid-Career Fellowship (2023 – 2025).
- Michael Magcamit’s peacebuilding work has been funded by Leverhulme Trust’s International Fellowship for the project Decolonising Peacebuilding through the Affective Peace Framework (2024 – 2025). He continues to collaborate with colleagues across at Leicester University on the Everyday Peace Project.
- James Pattison held the British Academy mid-career fellowship, which informed the his latest monograph Prioritizing Global Responsibilities published by Oxford University Press (2024).
- Andreja Zevnik will publish her book The Politics of Unbelonging: racialisation and marginalisation of Roma in Europe and beyond co-authored with Andrew Russell, University of Liverpool, with Manchester University Press (2025). Andreja works regularly with Roma community organisers such as Preporod on pathways of political empowerment, and with governmental institutions on ways of addressing wide-spread antigypsyism amongst the majority populations.
- Members of the cluster contribute extensively to the disciplinary area and wider sector as editors of leading disciplinary journals like the Journal of Global Security Studies and Security Dialogue; as leaders in professional associations like the British International Studies Association and University Association for Contemporary European Studies. This is in addition to the delivery of numerous keynotes, participation in major conferences and research seminars nationally and internationally, as well as a vibrant public engagement portfolio.
Our people
Academic staff
- Dr Elena Barabantseva Research interests: migration, borders, citizenship, identity, and nationalism in the context of globalising China, audio-visual research methods.
- Dr Luke Bhatia
- Dr Carl Death Research interests: African politics, development studies, environmental politics, protest and resistance, and speculative fiction.
- Dr Jonathan Gilmore Research interests: Ethics and foreign policy; Applied cosmopolitanism in world politics; the English School of International Relations; Human Security; Critical Military Studies; Humanitarian Intervention & R2P; Post-Liberal world ordering; Everyday practices of global citizenship; the politics of internationalised protection.
- Professor Peter Gries
- Professor Toni Haastrup Research interests: Feminist International Studies Africa’s International Relations; Foreign Policies; decolonial feminisms; global governance.
- Dr Jamie Hagen Research interests: Feminist security studies; queering international relations; gender, peace and security; decolonizing peace and development studies.
- Dr Michael Magcamit Research Interests: Affect and ethnoreligious otherings, conflicts, and peacebuilding; populism, humanitarianism, and securitisation in ‘realist’ foreign policymaking; security politics & political economy of international trade; Southeast and East Asian Politics and IR.
- Dr Cristina Masters
- Dr Laura Mcleod
- Dr Aoileann Ní Mhurchú Research interests: International Migration; Identity and Belonging; Bordering Practices; Critical Citizenship Studies; Postcolonialism/Decolonialism; Poststructuralism; sovereignty; Aesthetics.
- Professor James Pattison Research interests: Just war theory; intervention and the responsibility to protect; post-liberal order and responding to global authoritarianism; prioritisation ethics.
- Dr Sandra Pogodda
- Dr Jasmin Ramovic
- Professor Oliver Richmond
- Dr David Stroup Research interests: Chinese Politics, China’s ethnic politics, Islam in China, nationalism and ethnic politics, everyday nationalism, the politics of authoritarian states, state-society relations.
- Dr Shogo Suzuki Research interests: international relations theory with reference to East Asia; international history; Chinese foreign policy; Japanese foreign policy; Sino-Japanese relations.
- Dr Robert Watt
- Professor Angelia Wilson
- Dr Hannah Wright
- Dr Andreja Zevnik Research interests: psychoanalytic and postcolonial understanding of identity; political mobilisation & protest politics; impact of racialisation on marginalised communities (Roma communities and Black communities in the West); decolonial knowledge practices & pedagogies.
Postgraduate Researchers
- Abdulghani Alkidni
- Cressida Arkwright
- Beatriz Buarque
- Helen Chan: 'An exploration of intercultural parent-child relationship in UK Chinese families.' Supervisors: Elena Barabantseva and Richard Fay.
- Sophie Clarke: ‘Biometrics, Data Infrastructure and the Management of Displaced Populations in the UK.' Supervisors: Aoileann Ní Mhurchú and Nat O'Grady.
- Carys Coleman
- Thomas Crofts
- Sofia Doyle
- Nelly-Helen Ebruka. 'The Final Frontier of Interregionalism? An institutional study of Africa-EU Space cooperation in Earth Observation.' Supervisors: Toni Haastrup and Carl Death.
- Jake Flavell
- Gareth George
- Marion Greziller
- Nicholas Gribble. 'Violent Bodies: How Wounded Bodies (Re)Produce Social Ontologies in and of Sierra Leone.' Supervisors: Andreja Zevnik and Jenny Edkins.
- Ellen Hietch. 'Anxiety, Historical Memory, and Intergenerational Trauma in Post-Authoritarian Spain.' Supervisors: Andreja Zevnik and Meghan Tinsley.
- Jennifer Hobbs
- Zixuan Hu: 'How do British Chinese view their homeland (China) and the new home (the UK)?’ Supervisors: Elena Barabantseva and Peter Gries.
- Precious Kennedy: 'Responding to Racial Militarism: Black Caribbean Women’s Transnational Organising.'
- Rana Khalaf
- Kwanchanok Kittiwanich
- Caitlin Lewis. 'The influence of Robert Kennedy’s advocacy for civil rights with reference to the 1968 election and the perspectives of African American citizen.' Supervisors: Angie Wilson and Andreja Zevnik.
- Shanglin Liu. 'Racialised representations, class struggle, and the culture of resistance among Roma people in contemporary UK.' Supervisors: Meghan Tinsley and Andreja Zevnik
- Julia Loginovic. 'Neoliberalism as subjectivity and individualisation discourse in global development: The case of the World Bank.' Supervisors: Stuart Shield and Carl Death.
- Marcelle Martins
- Valerie Momas: 'Spectres of the Sweatshop: A Hauntological Analysis of Racial Capitalism.' Supervisor: Aoileann Ní Mhurchú.
- Isabel Morrell: ''Everyday Refugee Settlement politics in the UK.' Supervisors: Elena Barabantseva and Andreja Zevnik.
- Siobhan O'Neill
- Malgorzata Polanska
- Magdalena Rodekirchen
- David Rubin
- Zeenat Sabur
- Nazanin Shahbazi. 'Mapping the contours of subjectivity of the social movement in 2022-2023 in Iran: a psychoanalytic political study.' Supervisors: Andreja Zevnik and Luke Bhatia.
- Yujia Shi
- Rahima Siddique
- Michanne Steenbergen
- Sam Toscano. 'Investigating the sustainability strategies and communications of corporate environmental pacts.' Supervisors: Carl Dearth and Dan Welch.
- Moises Vieira
- Peninah Wangari-Jones. 'How Coloniality Shapes Black Activism.' Supervisors: Andreja Zevnik and Marta Cantijoch Cunill.
- Charlotte Weatherill
- Joanna Wilson
- Grace Worrall
- Pengfei Xu: 'Chinese Governmentality – a Foucauldian analysis of China’s social credit system.' Supervisors: Elena Barabantseva and David Stroup.
- Riki Yamochi
- Leona Yang: 'Reimagination of Contemporary Humanitarianism through an Examination of Activist Engagement by Migrants and Pro-migrant Grassroots Activists in the UK.’ Supervisors: Aoileann Ní Mhurchú and Tanja Müller.
- Chengzhi Zhang: ’Race Identity and Educational Equality: Children of Immigrants in China’s Public Schools.' Supervisors: Elena Barabantseva and Bridget Byrne.
Alumni
- Dr Joshua Barritt: 'Governing Multi-level Transformations in Biodiversity Conservation: Politics, Policy and Practice' (2024)
- Dr Beatriz Lopes Buarque: 'The power of the alt-right multitude: how and why alt-right conspiracy theories have been legitimised in online spaces' (2024)
- Carys Coleman: 'How Does the Use of Biometric Data in the Identification of Asylum Applicants Create Forms of Inequality?' (2024)
- Dr Kai Heron: 'Many Struggles, One Fight: Deleuze, Guattari, Lacan, and the US Anti-Fracking Movement'
- Dr Marcelle Martins: 'Wounded Bodies in East Timor'
- Siobhan O'Neil: University of Kent as a postdoc
- Dr Manuela Latchoumaya: ‘Ethnic and religious minorities’ identity formation process: Guadeloupeans of Indian descent and Muslim Mahorais in colour-blind France’ (2024)
- Dr Qiaochu Zhang: 'China and the Contestation of the Responsibility to Protect' (2024)
- Dr Charlotte Weatherill: 'Vulnerability and resistance: Islanding climate change politics' (2023)
- Dr Jake Flavell: 'Capitalism with a ‘Human Face’: Face-to-Face Charity Fundraising and the Critique of Ideology' (2022)
- Dr Jasper Van der Kist: 'Knowing Asylum Seekers: The Chain of Country of Origin Information' (2022)
- Dr Amanda Kallstig: 'Humouring the state? Zimbabwean stand-up comedians as political actors' (2021)
- Dr Siobhan O’Neil: 'The Dynamics of Race, Racism & Whiteness in Politics: How do racially minoritised students experience and navigate the whiteness of Politics disciplines in British Higher Education?'
- Dr Josephine Biglin: 'An analysis of Immigration Narratives and Photovoice Accounts of Place, Belonging and Citizenship' (2021)
- Amanda Kallstig: 'Humouring the State? Zimbabwean Stand-up Comedians as Political Actors’ (2021)
- Dr Tao Wang: 'Bringing Culture back In: Explaining Constituency Service in Taiwan' (2021)
- Jennifer Hobbs: ‘Bodily Fluids and Queer Feminist Curiosity : Exploring the Distribution of Life-Death in Biopolitical Security Assemblages’ (2020)
- Dr Quint Hoekstra: 'The Effect of State Support for Rebel Groups on Conflict Outcome' (2019)
- Kai Heron: “Many Struggles, One Fight:” Deleuze, Guattari, Lacan, and the US Anti-Fracking Movement’ (2015-2019)
- Dr Sabrina Villenave: 'Racialisation of Security Apparatus on Brazil' (2018)
- Dr Moises Moreira Viera: 'Politics of Hospitality in the NHS: Immigration Enforcement through the Provision of Healthcare in England'
- Dr Bolarinwa Adediran: 'Beyond Reforms: Implementing the Responsibility to Protect' (2018)
- Dr. Muhammad Rakhmat: 'Examining the implications of the silk road initiatives and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on China-GCC Relations’ (2018)
- Muhammad Rakhmat: ‘Examining the implications of the Silk Road initiatives and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on China-GCC relations’
- Michanne Steenbergen: ‘Women ex-combatants and post-conflict insecurity: Examining the paradox between empowerment in conflict and post-war (re-)marginalization in Sierra Leone and Liberia’
- Henrique Tavares Furtado: ‘The politics of remembering terror: a temporal analysis of the Brazilian National Commission of Truth’
- Sabrina Villenave: ‘Enforced Disappearances in Brazil: A military Regime Pheonomenon?’
- Andrew Slack: ‘Doing something about Modern Slavery: Scenes of Responsibility, Practices of Hospitality’.
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