Politics, International Relations & Philosophy

I have been a member of the academic staff in Politics,at Keele since 1991, teaching political sociology, and doing research on environmentalism and protest. I studied Politics for my first degree at Durham University and I then did an MA in Political Thought at the University of Kent, during which time I also worked in a multicultural education resource centre at Christ Church College in Canterbury.  I then moved to Manchester University in 1998 where my PhD compared the ideologies of the British, French and German Green parties.

My principal research interest is in the relationship between radical ideas and actions, particularly in environmental movements. My work has therefore covered green parties, local environmental protesters, major NGOs, and environmental direct action in Britain and other countries. I have had funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for projects in 2000-02 and 2006-08 and from the Environment Agency for two projects in 2002-5.

I am currently working on two projects:

1.      A study of the internal processes of Friends of the Earth International. Timothy Doyle and I carried out a two year study of FoEI, funded by the ESRC as part of its Non-Governmental Public Action Programme. This included a survey of its member organisations, observation of key meetings and analysis of its internal debates. We are now working on publications from the project, including a book due to be published by Palgrave in 2012. The research concentrates on the sometimes contentions relations between Northern and Southern member organisations of FoEI. We were fortunate to be able to research FoEI while it was developing a strategic plan following political differences that had caused divisions in previous years. We argue that FoEI has developed a particularly productive form of solidarity which enables its members to work together despite their differences, and that the complex processes that create solidarity in transnational networks and organisations, while little appreciated or studied, are of great significance in showing how common action can be sustained transnationally.

2.      A study of activist commitment focusing specifically on the generation of protesters who got involved in environmental direct action against road-building, GM crops and environmental injustices. This is still in the development phase, but it builds on work that I carried out with Alexandra Plows and Derek Wall in 200o-2002. In a study of radical forms of political participation, funded by the ESRC, we compared activist communities in Manchester, Oxford and North Wales. In each case we found that previous generations of activists with similar values were still living in the same area. There is relatively little empirical work on British activist communities which examines particular groups in particular towns and cities over time and I plan therefore to do a follow-up study to examine what those whom we interviewed in 1990 have done since then and to examine their influence on the  recent generation of UK climate activists. The aim is to provide new longitudinal evidence on the nature of activist commitment (including burnout – a perennial issue of discussion amongst activists) which can complement the raft of studies on the US New Left. It will also examine the myriad connections between apparently marginal and radical activists and conventional politics.

PhD Supervision

I am keen to supervise students working on any area of the study of social movements and protest  , not only on environmental movements. Since 1998, I have supervised 5 PhDs and two MPhils.

I am currently supervising Jon Cope, who is working on a comparison of the discourses of neoliberalism, and its critics and Glenn Flint, who is studying the role of aesthetics in OTPOR, the Serbian Student Movement.

Topics that Research students have worked on in the past:

• Darren Hoad Governance and Participation in Local 1997 Environmental Campaigns: Manchester and Amsterdam.
• Ben Seel Strategy, Identity and Counter-Hegemony in British Environmental Groups
• Iosif Botetzagias A Network Analysis  of the Greek Environment Movement
• Darrell Whitman, The political structuring of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Philip Burton-Cartledge Contemporary Trotskyist Activism in Britain

Please feel free to contact me with an outline research proposal. This should include

• Your research question – clearly identified.
• How you propose to answer this question. What theoretical and/or empirical work do you expect to undertake (e.g. case studies)?
• How your research project relates to relevant academic debates or literatures on movements, activism or protest? What likely contribution do you expect to make to such debates or literatures?
• What research methodology do you expect to employ in your project?

I am the Director of the MA in Climate Change Studies: Policy, Justice and Global Politics (see SPIRE Masters Couurses), and co-ordinate the dissertation module.

I also co-ordinate the following undergraduate and Masters modules

Why Politics Matters (Politics, Level 1)

This aims to introduce students to the normative and contestable aspects of politics. It is taught by a team of SPIRE colleagues and covers the nature of politics, democracy, dissent, violence and terror, power, inequality and political disenchantment and political ideologies.

Power to the People: Understanding the Origins of Modern Western Politics (Politics Level 2)

Examines the major social changes that have shaped politics such as the emergence of capitalism, national identities, democratization, protest and political violence and grassroots movements. We focus on Britain, France, Germany and the USA.

Protest and Social Movements (Level 3)

Covers the debates about the role of protest in current democratic politics, the effects of the state on mobilization, activist cultures and identity, movements against authoritarian regimes, and trans-national movements – with reference to theories of social movements or normative theories of political dissent.

Human Rights and Global Politics (MA)

This is a module for the MA in Human Rights Globalisation and Justice, taught by several colleagues and some external speakers. It examines the role of NGOs and international organizations in human rights, causes of terror and repression, the practices of human rights defenders and resistance to human rights abuse, and the politics of peace-building and truth and reconciliation.

Green Movements (MA)

This module is an option on the MA in Environmental Politics, which fits closely with my main research. We look at environmental movements past and present – from a thematic perspective, examining the comparative impacts of political systems on environmental movements; the bureaucratic pressures on large environmental NGOs; the culture of local environmental campaigns; direct action protesters; radical environmentalism in the global South, how transnational environmental networks manage their differences; the heroes and villains of green movement history and whether we are now seeing the 'end of environmentalism'.

Editing

• Co-editor of Social Movement Studies since 2005 (Managing Editor 2006 – 2010) and a member of the Editorial Board since 2001.
• Book Reviews Editor of Environmental Politics from 1996 until 2003 and have been a member of the Editorial Board since 1992.
• Member of the Editorial Board of Sociology Compass (Social Movements section) since 2007.
• Co-Editor of a series of biographies of left-activists called Revolutionary Lives for Pluto Press.

External Examining

• University of Kent, 2007-10 BA Environmental Social Science; MA in Political Sociology and Msc Environmental Social Science
• Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, 1996-2000 MA in the Politics of Democracy,
• Research Degrees: Sheffield University, Bristol University, University of Paisley; Newcastle University, University of Kent, University of Manchester, Queen’s University Belfast and the University of East Anglia.

Community:

• Member of the Board of Directors of Manchester Environmental Resources Centre Initiative  2001-2005.
• Advisor to The Kindling Trust (2007-present)