Personal information

Previous positions: Leverhulme Research Fellow (Warwick); Departmental Guest (UCHV, Princeton); Ph.D (Bristol); Visiting Fellow (Wisconsin-Madison); MA (Birkbeck College London); BA (University College London).

Publications

'Political equality and the 'super-rich': their money or (some of) their political rights' Res Publica (forthcoming)

'Political Legitimacy, the Egalitarian Challenge, and Democracy', the Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol.29, no.2(May 2012): 101-117

'The Problem of Global Law' (with Patrick Capps) Modern Law Review 74(5) (Sept 2011): 794-810

'Compulsory Turnout: a compelling (but contingent) case' Politics Vol.31. no.2 (June 2011): 100-6

‘Democracy, Judicial Review and Disagreements about Justice’ Legisprudence, Vol. III, Issue 1: Special Issue on Judicial Review (July 2009): 43-67

‘The Irrelevance of Democracy to the Public Justification of Political Authority’ Res Publica Vol.15, no.2 (May 2009): 103-120

Research interests

International political legitimacy

I am writing a book on questions about the legitimacy of international institutions and international law. The two dominant solutions to the problem are (i) to argue in favour of a reformed states system, i.e., a system of democratic and effectively equal states, or (ii) to make the case for some form of supra-state or global democracy.

I reject both of these approaches and offer a different kind of answer. I develop a non-democratic conception of political legitimacy that seeks to legitimize international institutions on an institution-by-institution basis as part of a liberal, but not necessarily democratic, global constitutional order. I take this to be a distinctive solution that is a plausible rival to (i) and (ii).

Political equality

I am interested in the trade-offs between the civil, political and economic liberties. In a recent book Free Market Fairness (Princeton, 2012) John Tomasi has argued that the civil, political and economic liberties are equally morally basic. This is different from the standard Rawlsian view (that the civil and political liberties are more basic) and is compatible with both of the following claims:

1. like the political and civil liberties, the economic liberties CANNOT be limited for the sake of social justice;
2. like the economic liberties, the political and civil liberties CAN be limited for the sake of social justice;

I want to look at how far 2. can be pushed.

Public Engagement

I have had letters published in the Financial Times about the justification of punishment (2/3 July 2011) and the political influence of the 'super-rich' (27/8 August 2011).

I have also contributed to a website run by Professor Wyn Grant (Politics, Warwick) about football/soccer. The article outlines a novel way of empowering fans. See www.footballeconomy.com/content/fans-have-more-power-they-think.

In July 2012, I wrote a short report for a think tank called the Social Market Foundation. The report - ‘More research needed?’- looked at the research-teaching balance in the Humanities in UK Higher Education.