Professor Jeremy Jennings, M.A. (Wales), D.Phil (Oxon)
Professor of Political Theory

Office Hours

Wednesday 1-2pm & Thursday 3-4pm

Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques

Director, Centre for the Study of the History of Political Thought

Research interests:

My research interests are primarily in the field of the history of political thought, with special reference to France. I have, in addition, published work on the role of intellectuals in politics and on contemporary political theory and ideologies.

I have recently published an edition of Destutt de Tracy's Principles of Political Economy and am presently writing a book entitled Travels with Tocqueville. With Michael Moriarty I am also acting as joint editor of the Cambridge History of French Thought.

I was founding editor of the European Journal of Political Theory and was formerly an editor of the British Journal of Politics and International Relations.

I have held visiting positions at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), the Columbia University Institute for Scholars (Paris) and the Institute for Advanced Study, Indiana University, Bloomington. From January-June 2006 I held the Vincent Wright Chair at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris.

I regularly write for the Times Literary Supplement, the Times Higher Education Supplement and the monthly magazine Standpoint.

I would be happy to supervise doctoral students in the fields of:

• the history of political thought
• political ideologies
• contemporary political theory.

Publications:

Books

Revolution and the Republic: A History of Political Thought in France since the Eighteenth Century.  OUP: Oxford: 2011

Tocqueville on America after 1840: Letters and Other Writings. CUP: Cambridge: 2009

Republicanism in Theory and Practice. Routledge: London, 2005. (ed) with Iseult Honohan

Critical Concepts: Socialism. Routledge: London, 2003, 4 Vols.. (ed)

Georges Sorel: Reflections on violence.CUP: Cambridge, 1999; 2nd ed. 2002; Chinese ed. 2003. Ed and translator

The Edinburgh Encyclopedia of Continental Philosophy. Edinburgh UP: Edinburgh, 1999. (eds) with simon Glendinning et al.

Intellectuals in Politics: From the Dreyfus Affair to Salman Rushdie. Routledge: London & New York 1997. (eds.) with Tony Kemp-Welch.

Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century France. Macmillan, London, 1993. (ed)

Syndicalism in France: A Study of Ideas. Macmillan: London, 1990.

Georges Sorel: the Character and Development of his Thought. Macmillan: London, 1985.

Journal articles (recent)

‘The View From Calais', Journal of the History of Ideas , 68 (3) 2007, pp.381-7.

'The Debate About Luxury in Eighteenth Century French Political Thought, Journal of the History of Ideas, 68, 2007, 79-106.

'France and the Anglo-Saxon model: contemporary and historical perspectives', European Review, 14, 2006, 537-54.

'Democracy before Tocqueville: Michel Chevalier's America', Review of Politics, 68, 2006, 398-27.

‘Doctrinaires and Syndicalists: Representation, Parties and Democracy in France’, Journal of Political Ideologies 11, 2006, 269-88.

(with Aurelian Craiutu), ‘The Third Democracy: Tocqueville’s Views of America after 1840’, American Political Science Review, 98, 2004, 391-405.

‘Raymond Aron and the Fate of French Liberalism’, European Journal of Political Theory, vol 2 2003, 365-71.

‘Intellectuals and the Myth of Decline’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, vol .6, 2003, 8-23. Reprinted in Dolan Cummings (ed), The Changing Role of the Public Intellectual. Routledge: London, 2005.

Book chapters (recent)

‘Political Thought in Twentieth-Century France”, Gerry Gaus and Fred d’Agostino (eds), Routledge Companion to Political and Social Philosophy (Routledge: London: 2012: forthcoming).

‘Early Nineteenth-Century Liberalism’, in George Klosko (ed), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Political Philosophy (OUP: Oxford: 2011), pp.331-47

‘Constitutional Liberalism in France: From Benjamin Constant to Alexis de Tocqueville’, in Claeys, G. and Stedman-Jones, G. (eds), Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Political Thought. CUP: Cambridge, 2011, pp 349-373.

‘French Visions of America : From Tocqueville to the Civil War', in Aurelian Craiutu and Jeff Isaacs (eds), America Through European Eyes (Penn State University Press: 2009), pp 161-84.

'Constant's Idea of Modern Liberty' in Helena Rosenblatt (ed), Cambridge Companion to Constant, CUP: Cambridge, 2009, pp 69-91.

‘Republicanism and the Politics of Integration’, in Lavdas, K.A. and Chryssochoou, D.N (eds), European Unification and Political Theory: The Challenge of Republicanism. Sideris: Athens, 2004, 203-34.

‘Political Thought in Continental Europe during the Twentieth Century’, (with Richard Bellamy and Peter Lassman) in Gaus, G. and Kukathas, C. (eds), Handbook of Political Theory. Sage: London, 2004, 395-409.

‘L’Egalité’, ‘La Liberté’, ‘ L’Universalisme’, in Duclert, V. & Prochasson, C. (eds) Dictionnaire Critique de la République. Flammarion: Paris, 2002, 169-76, 216-223, 275-82.

‘Deaths of the Intellectual: a Comparative Analysis’, in Small, H. (ed) The Public Intellectual. Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 2002,110-30.

'"Le retour des émigrés"?: The study of the history of political ideas in contemporary France', in Castiglione, D. and Hampsher-Monk, I., (eds) The History of Political Thought in National Context. CUP: Cambridge, 2001.204-27.

Recent conference papers

‘'The place of history in normative political theory', American Political Science Association Annual Conference, Boston, September 2008.

‘Ancient versus Modern Liberty : Thoughts on Constant, Breyer and Fried', The Benjamin Constant Moment in America , The Center for the Humanities, City University of New York , December 2007.

‘Travels in America : French Liberals and the American Experience', American Political Science Association Annual Conference, Chicago , September 2007.

‘Burke, Rivarol and the French Revolution', Edmund Burke and the Business of Affection , Faculty of English, Oxford University , June 2007.

'Montesqiueu, Constant and Tocqueville on the nature of despotism', American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, August  2006.

'The Debate on Luxury in Late-Eighteenth Century France', Society for French Historical Studies, Urbana-Champaign, April 2006.

‘Representation, Parties and Democracy in France’, Annual Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research, Granada, April 2005.

Michel Chevalier’s America’, America Seen Through Foreign Eyes, Indiana University, Bloomington, March 2005.
‘Luxury, Inequality and Commerce.’  American Political Science Association annual conference, Chicago, September 2004.

‘Liberty and Order in the Writings of Lamennais.’ Society for French Historical Studies, 50th Anniversary Conference, Paris, June 2004.

‘Republicanism and the French Political Tradition’, Conference on The Future of Republicanism: Confronting Theory and Practice in Contemporary Ireland, Institute of British-Irish Studies, University College Dublin, May 2004.

‘The Return of Liberalism?’ Conference on Liberalism’s Return: French Social Thought Since 1968, The Center for French and Francophone Studies, Columbia University, NY, April 2004.

‘The Third Democracy: Tocqueville’s Views on America after 1840’, American Political Science Association annual conference, Philadelphia, August 2003.

Invited opening plenary speaker at a conference entitled ‘Ideas, Intellectuals and the Public’, Institute of Ideas, London, June 2003.

‘Two philosophers of the republic: Pierre Renouvier and Jules Barni’ Annual Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research, Edinburgh. April 2003.

'La République', conference presentation with Christophe Prochasson, Marc-Olivier Baruch and Vincent Duclert, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, April 2001. This session figured as one of a series of conferences held on the subject of Le XXe siècle des historiens.

'Republicanism and the Politics of Integration', Annual Conference of the European Consortium of Political Research, Grenoble, April 2001.

'Deaths of the intellectual: a comparative autopsy', Conference on Intellectuels Français, Intellectuels Britanniques: Comparaison et Transferts, jointly organised by the Institut Français and the Institute for Historical Studies, London, March 2001.

'The re-birth of the French intellectual', Conference on The Republic of Letters, St Catherine's College, Oxford, September 2000.

Undergraduate teaching:

• Liberalism, Past and Present (Level 6)

Postgraduate teaching:

• Visions of Capitalism