Global Ethics and Political Theory

The Global Ethics and Political Theory (GEPT) cluster is centred around challenges to traditional liberal thought, which has prioritised themes such as rationality, the sovereign state, the sovereign individual, and contractarianism.

Research in this cluster explores the conceptual and territorial borders of liberalism, and looks at what it means to 'belong'. It includes researchers working on issues of slavery, gender, statelessness, and debates about how theories of justice can be applied in the case of marginal groups, such as children and animals.

This connects to our individual research themes on self-ownership, self-sovereignty and self-censorship as well as wider concerns with justice, citizenship, the state, deportation and migration.

The Global Ethics and Political Theory cluster is closely linked with the MA in Human Rights and Global Ethics, and with the Department’s Doctoral programme.

The group holds regular events including seminars and workshops, and aims to provide a supportive research environment for academics and research students to share their work and ideas.

Research Projects

A particular focus of our research has been the ‘Politics of Victimhood’, explored through an ESRC-funded seminar series and an ECPR Conference Section, encompassing the politics of protection, the legacies of conflict and the politics of memory, and the politics of trafficking and slavery.

The Oxford Group and the Emergence of Animal Right: An intellectual History is a two-year (2017-2019) Leverhulme Trust funded project, ran by Professor Robert Garner, with Ms Yewande Okuleye as research associate. This research seeks to generate new insights into how intellectual and social movements emerge by providing a comprehensive account of the Oxford Group, which consisted mainly of postgraduate philosophy students, who converged on Oxford University from the late 1960s and played a prominent role in the emergence of animal rights as a prominent discourse

Cluster Members

Academic Staff

Laura Brace

Helen Dexter

Robert Garner

Kelly Staples

Current Research Students

Ashley Dodsworth ‘Environmental Human Rights’

Stephanie Gordon

Anne Marie Mattarese

Charlotte Hay

Melvin Josse

David Moss

We warmly welcome PhD applications in the areas of:

• The borders of liberalism
• Citizenship, the state, recognition and statelessness
• Rights: children’s rights, animal rights and human rights
• Slavery, self-ownership and social justice

See individual staff pages for more details about research areas.