Professor Michael Kenny, B.A. (Cambridge), M.A., Ph.D (Manchester)
Professor of Politics

Office Hours: 

Professor Michael Kenny is on leave as a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellow from September 2012 to August 2014. He will be working on a research project examining 'The Politics of English nationhood'.

Research interests:

My research interests are primarily in the fields of modern political thought, political ideologies and the role of ideas in public policy. I have also published work on: the position of intellectuals in Britain; the history of political science in Anglo-America; the politics of nationhood in the UK; political reform; and the use of the ideas of civil society in international politics.

I welcome Ph.D applications in the following areas:

    • History of modern political thought/political ideologies
    • Traditions and ideas in British politics
    • Contemporary political theory
    • Political theory and public policy

Publications:

Single Authored Books:

The Politics of Nationhood in England: Class, Culture and Governance after Devolution
(Oxford University Press, forthcoming).

The First New Left in Britain, 1956-64: British Intellectuals after Stalin (Lawrence  and Wishart, 1995; published in Mandarin by Jiangsu and Phoenix Presses, 2010).

The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of ‘Difference’ (Polity Press, 2004; published in Japanese by Nihon Keizai Hyoron Sha, 2006).

Co-edited/authored Books:

(With P.Diamond) eds, Reassessing New Labour: Market, State and Society under Blair and Brown (Blackwell, 2011)

(With M.Flinders, A.Gamble, and C.Hay) eds., The Oxford Handbook of British Politics (Oxford University Press, 2009)

(With M.Festenstein) Political Ideologies: A Reader and Guide (Oxford University Press, 2005).

(With R.Germain) eds., The Idea of Global Civil Society: Ethics and Politics in a Globalizing Era (Routledge, 2004).

(With R.English), eds., Rethinking British Decline (Macmillan, 2000).

(With J. Meadowcroft), eds., Planning Sustainability (Routledge, 2000).

(With R.Eccleshall) Western Political Thought: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings in English Since 1945 (Manchester University Press, 1995).

Recent Chapters in Edited Volumes:

‘Stuart Hall’ in A.Elliott and L.Ray, eds., Key Contemporary Social Theorists, (Blackwell, 2002), pp 154-61.

(With R.Germain) ‘Engaging Gramsci: International Relations Theory and the new Gramscians’, reprinted in J.Martin, ed., Antonio Gramsci: Critical Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers (Routledge, 2001).

‘Communitarianism’ in A.Finlayson, ed., Contemporary Political Thought: A Reader and Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 2003), pp 245-309.

(With A.Gamble) ‘Ideological Contestation, Trans-national Civil Society and Global Politics’, in R.Germain and M.Kenny, eds., The Politics of Global Civil Society (Routledge, 2004).

(With R.Germain) ‘The Idea(l) of Global Civil Society: Citizenship, Ethics and Politics’, in R.Germain and M.Kenny, eds., The Politics of Global Civil Society (Routledge, 2004).

‘The Birth of a Discipline: British Political Studies in the 1950s and 1960s’, in R.Adcock and M.Bevir, eds., Historicizing the Political: Anglo-American Approaches to a Historical Political Science since 1900 (Princeton University Press, 2006), pp. 158-79.

‘Politics as an Academic Vocation’, in M.Flinders, A.Gamble, C.Hay and M.Kenny, eds., The Oxford Handbook of British Politics (Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 3-24.

(With G.Lodge) ‘Time for Some New English Questions?’, in M.Perryman (ed.) The Future of the Union? (Lawrence & Wishart, 2009).

(With G.Lodge and K.Schmuecker) ‘English Questions in a Devolved United Kingdom’, in K.Stolz (ed.) Ten Years of Devolution in the United Kingdom: Snapshots at a Moving Target (Wißner-Verlag, Augsburg 2010).

‘In Defence of Political Understanding?’, in B.Jackson and M.Stears (eds.) Liberalism in Theory and Practice: Essays for Michael Freeden (Oxford University Press, 2011).

‘Ideologies and the Intellectuals’, in M.Freeden, L.T.Sargent and M.Stears (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Recent Journal Articles:

‘Socialism and the Romantic ‘Self’: the case of Edward Thompson, Journal of Political Ideologies, 5, 1, 2000, pp 105-27.

‘Isaiah Berlin’s Contribution to Modern Political Theory’, Political Studies, 48, 5, 2000, pp 1026-39.

(With R.English) ‘Public Intellectuals and the Question of British Decline’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 3, 3, 2001, pp 259-83.

‘Global Civil Society: A Liberal-Republican Argument’, Review of International Studies, 29 2003, pp 119-43.

‘Reckless Minds or Democracy’s Helpers? Intellectuals and Politics in the Twentieth Century’, Contemporary Political Theory, 3, 2004, pp 89-104.

‘The Case for Disciplinary History: British Political Studies in the 1950s and 1960s', British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 6, 2004, pp 565-83.

‘Neither Anglo nor America: the implications of The American Science of Politics for the history of political science’, European Political Science, 5, 2006, pp 150-62.

‘History and Dissent: Bernard Crick’s The American Science of Politics’ American Political Science Review, 100, 4, November 2006, pp 547-53.

‘Introduction: Exploring ‘the Utopian’ in Political Ideologies’, Journal of Political Ideologies 12 (3), 2007, pp 211-17.  

‘Britain’s Anti-intellectual Intellectuals: Thoughts on Stefan Collini’s Absent Minds’, Political Studies Review, 6, 1, 2008, pp 1-13.  

(With C.Berry) ‘André Gorz: Freedom, Time and Work in the Post-Industrial Economy’, New Political Economy, 13, 4, 2008, pp 463-74.

(With R.English and R.Hayton) ‘Understanding the “New Englishness” in Contemporary British Politics’, Political Quarterly, 78, 1, 2009, pp. 122-35.

(With R.English and R.Hayton) ‘Englishness and the Union in Contemporary Conservative Thought’, Government and Opposition, 44, 4, 2009, pp. 343-65.

‘The Political Theory of ‘Recognition’: the Case of the “White Working Class”’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations (May 2011).  

‘Towards a Progressive Politics of Recognition’, Public Policy Review, February 2011.

Recent conference papers and lectures:

‘The Current Debate on HE funding in Britain: the merits of taking the longer view’, Conference on “The Future University”,  Centre for Research into the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge, 2011

‘Competing ideas of the University: an intellectual history of political thinking about Universities from the 1950s to the 1980s’, Symposium on the Future of the Arts and Humanities, University of Cambridge,  2011

Plenary lecture: ‘The ‘National Popular’ in the Thinking of the Early New Left’, Conference on “The Naturalisation of Socialism in Britain and China”, organised by the Department of Philosophy, University of Nanjing, China, 2010

‘Towards a Progressive Politics of Recognition’, Conference  on  “The Cultural Challenges facing Social Democratic Parties in Europe”, organised by Policy Network,  Berlin,  2011

‘The Politics of Englishness under the Coalition’, Political Studies Association Annual Conference, 2011

(With R.English and R.Hayton) ‘Understanding the revival of Englishness in Contemporary British Politics’, American Political Studies Association, Annual Meeting, 2008

‘Higher Education policy after the Election’, Universities UK Conference, 2010

Neither Anglo nor America: the implications of The American Science of Politics for the history of political science’, American Political Studies Association, Annual Meeting, 2006

‘Civic republicanism and the idea of a trans-national civil society’, The John Whyte Memorial Lecture, the Queen’s University, Belfast, 2006

Lecture: ‘Political Studies in Britain – time for a discipline-history?’, Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, LSE, 2005

Symposium on Stefan Collini’s Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, University of Sussex, 2005

Professional activities and outreach:

Member of the Economic and Social Research Council’s College of Assessors

Research Associate, The Institute for Public Policy Research

Research Associate, Demos

Editorial Board Member:

• Political Quarterly
• Contemporary Political Theory
• Global Politics
• Open Political Science

Commissioning Editor:

• Public Policy Review