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Assistant Professor in British Politics and Security, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham

I joined the School of Politics and International Relations in September 2016. I studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford, took an MA with Distinction in International Relations at the University of Nottingham, and was funded by the University of Nottingham to research my PhD into British European policy, subsequently published as Britain and Europe since 1945. I research and deliver research-led teaching in the School of Politics and International Relations, as well as being Director of Admissions for Postgraduate Research students.

I have published research monographs, many peer reviewed journal articles, edited books and guest edited several journal special issues across my research interests. I am the author of a top selling textbook on International Relations theory, which in 2017 goes into its third edition, and co-editor of the forthcoming ninth edition of the Pearson textbook PoliticsUK. I am currently writing a book, contracted to Manchester University Press, called Brexit: The Conservative Party and Britain's Withdrawal from Europe.

Research interests

I have three interconnected research interests: firstly, British foreign policy since 1945; secondly discourses of Euroscepticism in Britain; and thirdly critical historiography, which breaks down into two specialisms: historical theory and how politicians use and abuse history in making foreign policy. I co-convene the British International Studies Association’s Working Group on Interpretivism in International Relations with Mark Bevir (University of California) and Ian Hall (Australian National University).

Publications

Single author books

International Relations Theory: The Essentials, SAGE, 2013

New Labour and the European Union: Blair and Brown’s Logic of History, Manchester University Press, 2011

Britain and Europe since 1945: Historiographical Perspectives on Integration, Manchester University Press, 2004

Author edited books

Interpreting Global Security (co-edited with Mark Bevir and Ian Hall), Routledge, 2013

British Foreign Policy: The New Labour Years (co-edited with Jamie Gaskarth), Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Harold Wilson and European Integration: Britain’s Second Application to Join the EEC, Frank Cass, 2003

Peer reviewed journal articles (select)

'Darth Vader or Don Quixote?: Keith Jenkins in Review', Rethinking History, 17/2 (2013), 140-154. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13642529.2013.778120

'Liberal Intervention in the Foreign Policy Thinking of Tony Blair and David Cameron', Cambridge Review of International Affairs (co-author: Pauline Schnapper), 26/2 (2013), 330-349. http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YiSwz7E4fgEfECgiRhuS/full

'The Use of Force in British Foreign Policy: From New Labour to the Coalition', Political Quarterly, 84/1 (2013), 110-118. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-923X.2013.02428.x/pdf

'Introduction: Interpreting British Foreign Policy' (co-authors: Mark Bevir and Ian Hall), British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Special Issue: Interpreting British Foreign Policy, 15/2 (2013), 163-174. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-856X.2012.00537.x

'Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and the Eurosceptic Tradition in Britain', British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Special Issue: Interpreting British Foreign Policy, 15/2 (2013). DOI:10.1111/j.1467-856X.2012.00534.x

'The UK Media and "Europe": From Permissive Consensus to Destructive Dissent', International Affairs, 88/6 (2012), 1219-1236. DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2346.2012.01129.x

‘Half Remembered Quotations from Mostly Forgotten Speeches: The Limits of Labour’s European Policy Discourse’ (co-author: Matthew Broad), British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 12/2 (2010), 205-222. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-856X.2010.00404.x

‘“Tony’s War?” Blair, Kosovo and the Interventionist Impulse in British Foreign Policy’, International Affairs, 85/3 (2009), 547-60. DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2346.2009.00813.x

'Exploding History; Hayden White on Disciplinization', Rethinking History, 12/1 (2008), 41-58. DOI:10.1080/13642520701838785

‘Playing Games with History: Tony Blair’s European Policy in the Press’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 9/4 (2007), 582-98. DOI:10.1111/j.1467-856X.2006.00264.x

‘Euroscepticism and the Culture of the Discipline of History’, Review of International Studies, 32/2 (2006), 309-28. DOI:10.1017/S0260210506007042

'Euroscepticism and History Education in Britain', Government and Opposition, 41/1 (2006), 64-85. DOI:10.1111/j.1477-7053.2006.00171.x

‘The Ideology of Apathy: Historians and Postmodernism’, Rethinking History, 8/3 (2004), 437-57. DOI:10.1080/1364257042000247885

'Debating History Today', Rethinking History, 8/1 (2004),143-47. DOI:10.1080/13642520410001649778

'The Construction of British Military Doctrine in the 1980s and 1990s', Defence Studies, 3/3 (2003), pp.103-13. DOI:10.1080/14702430308405079

Experience

  • –present
    Reader in International Politics, University of Leicester