People

Dr Joshua Hobbs, University of Leeds

I primarily work on the topic of cosmopolitan motivation. I am fascinated by questions of global ethics, especially the role of emotions in understanding our obligations to distant others. I recently completed a PhD in Political Philosophy at the University of Leeds in the Department of Politics and International Studies on the topic of ‘Cosmopolitan Sentiment: Motivating Global Justice’. Prior to this I completed a Master’s Degree in Political Theory at the University of Sheffield and a BA(Hons) in Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. I have a diverse professional background and have held a variety of jobs in a variety of countries; including two years’ as an English Teacher in South Korea, time in the retail and events sectors in Melbourne and Edinburgh, and more colourful employment at a pawnbrokers, a game estate, and an avocado farm.

I am interested in the role of emotions in understanding our obligations to distant others, the apparent motivation gap facing cosmopolitan duties, and the legitimacy of nudge and strategies of ‘sentimental education’ as means to encourage moral action.

I am also interested in issues related to community and belonging, moral demandingness, and legitimate partiality.

Dr Chandrachur Singh, Hindu College, University of Delhi

My research interests focus on the idea of ambassadorial cosmopolitanism.  Many cosmopolitan prescriptions require some significant changes in attitude and actions from the status quo. Because of this, one of the persistent challenges to the practical application of cosmopolitan principles has been in identifying ways to motivate support for them. I argue that a compelling answer to the problem of cosmopolitan motivation is a form of a rooted cosmopolitanism which gives emphasis to the roles that ‘cosmopolitan ambassadors’ could play. The Ambassadorial Cosmopolitan approach emphasizes ways in which support for domestic policy consistent with cosmopolitanism could be generated through (a) highlighting and reinforcing the cosmopolitan strains within existing national traditions and (b) by demonstrating how the ideas of revered national figures connect in significant ways with cosmopolitan principles.

I am particularly interested in the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi as an exemplar cosmopolitan ambassador.

Dr Luke Ulas, University of Sheffield 

I have research interests in the political theory of cosmopolitanism and global political theory more widely, as well as in methodological questions in political theory.

My research to date has focused primarily on global political theory, and in particular the normative theory of cosmopolitanism. Alongside this, I have also developed an interest in the relevance of human nature and political psychology to the practice of normative political theory. I am now beginning work on a book manuscript that combines these two interests, provisionally entitled Human Nature and Cosmopolitics.

I did my undergraduate degree in Philosophy at the University of Sheffield, before completing an MA in Global Ethics at King’s College London and a PhD in Political Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to returning to Sheffield, I held postdoctoral positions at Goethe University Frankfurt (with the ‘Justitia Amplificata’ programme) and Durham University.

Dr Kerri Woods, University of Leeds

Areas of expertise: contemporary political philosophy, especially human rights theory, solidarity, environmental thought, feminist thought.

I work on contemporary political philosophy. I have written on human rights theory, environmental human rights, solidarity, feminist thought and refugees. I am currently leading an interdisciplinary White Rose Consortium funded research network on ‘Understanding Solidarity amid Refugee Crises’.

I am a member of the Global Network for the Study of Human Rights and the Environment, and Treasurer of the Association for Social and Political Philosophy.
Prior to coming to Leeds I held a Teaching Fellowship and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of York. Prior to that, I did my PhD at the University of Glasgow.

Professor Garrett Wallace Brown, University of Leeds

I joined the Department of Politics and International Studies in 2017 from the Department of Politics at the University of Sheffield. Prior to that I worked on the project for Global Institutional Design (GID) in the Centre for Global Governance at the London School of Economics. I have a BA in Political Science from the University of California Berkeley as well as a degree in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California Berkeley, Boalt School of Law. I obtained an MSc in Political Theory as well as my PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. My PhD dissertation examined the cosmopolitan political and legal theory of Immanuel Kant, which was awarded the McKenzie Prize for best dissertation in Political Science and the British Political Science Association Sir Ernest Barker Prize for best Dissertation in Political Theory.

My research cuts across a number of interdisciplinary boundaries.

In political theory my interests include Immanuel Kant’s political and legal theory, cosmopolitanism, deliberative theory and practice, the laws of hospitality and debates about global justice.

In global health policy my interests include global health governance, global health financing, African development and health, SDG 3.8 for universal health coverage, the partnership agenda, health system strengthening, health security, and normative commitments to the health of others.

In international relations, my interests include ethical debates about humanitarian intervention, the R2P, the saliency of global constitutionalism, debates in international legal theory, global food justice and security, and global governance, particularly issues of global health leadership.

Despite this multifaceted agenda, there is a clear research unifier, which focuses on issues concerning global collective action problems, particularly issues concerning normative and practical considerations of global justice.

I am currently collaborating and delivering policy relevant research with the Ministry of Health Zimbabwe, the National Institute of Health Research Zimbabwe, EQUINET Africa, the Training and Research Support Centre, and the Ministry of Health Mozambique. In the past my research has informed health policy for the Department of Health Western Cape, the South African Ministry of Health, the Eastern, Central and Southern African Health Community (ECSA-HC), and the Government of Lesotho.

Dr Lior Erez, Hebrew University of Oxford

I am the Alfred Landecker Postdoctoral Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford.

My research expertise lies in normative political theory; in particular, the intersection between international relations and the ethics and politics of citizenship. The guiding light of my work is that the philosophical inquiries into global, international and national politics are best understood as interconnected. I am interested in the ways in which political institutions, socio-economic conditions, and public culture constrain the justification and implementation of normative political theories in practice, particularly in the politics of citizenship allocation and immigration.

Professor John Cameron, Dalhousie University

Dr John Cameron is Associate Professor in the Department of International Development Studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

My current research focuses on three areas:

Public policy advocacy by international development NGOs in Canada: This project uses quantitative and qualitative data to analyse the ways in which Canadian NGOs engage (or not) with public policy making in Canada and internationally. Research methods involve analysis of Canada Revenue Agency data on Canadian charities, data from the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada, NGO Annual Reports, interviews with NGO leaders and participant observation in a range of NGO advocacy campaigns. Recent publications from this project include: “Advocacy, Charity and Struggles for Global Justice in Canada” Canadian Journal of Development Studies.

The ethics of representing global poverty and development: This project analyses contemporary representations of global poverty and development by NGOs, government aid agencies and the media. The framework for this research is grounded in cosmopolitan theory, in particular the question of how to motivate ordinary individuals to act on the basis of cosmopolitan principles. Publications from this research include: “Development Made Sexy: How it happened and what it means” (Third World Quarterly), “Can Poverty be Funny? The Serious Use of Humor as a Strategy of Public Engagement for Global Justice” (Third World Quarterly) and “Communicating Cosmopolitanism and Motivating Global Citizenship” (Political Studies).

Struggles over Indigenous rights to self-governance in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru: This research began with my PhD thesis (2003) and includes my book Struggles for Local Democracy in the Andes (2009). It examines Indigenous and peasant struggles over local governance from a comparative historical political economy perspective. The research involves both ethnographic research of particular grassroots struggles over local power as well as political economic analysis of national legal and regulatory frameworks for Indigenous rights in the Andean region. Other publications include: “Bolivia’s Contentious Politics of ‘Normas y Procedimientos Propios’” (Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies) and “New Institutions of Indigenous Self-Governance in Bolivia: Between Autonomy and Self-Discipline” (Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies).

Professor Judith Lichtenberg, Georgetown University

Judith Lichtenberg is Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University. Previously she taught at the University of Maryland, where she held a joint appointment in the Department of Philosophy and the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy. Her primary fields of interest are international and domestic justice, moral psychology, nationalism, war, and higher education. Her book Distant Strangers: Ethics, Psychology, and Global Poverty was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. With Robert Fullinwider, she coauthored Leveling the Playing Field: Justice, Politics, and College Admissions (2004); she is the editor of Democracy and the Mass Media (1990). For the last two years she has been teaching philosophy at Jessup prison in Maryland, and, more recently, at the DC Jail in Washington. Her article “Against Life Without Parole” recently appeared in the Washington University Jurisprudence Review.

Dr Tadhg Ó Laoghaire, University of Gothenburg

My research is mostly on questions of international justice, with a particular focus on economic justice. My PhD was on justice in international trade, where I defended a sufficientarian- and republican-inspired account of what states owe one another, grounded in the normative significance of inter-state interdependence. My more recent published research has been in business ethics, where I am particularly interested in what we might call the political responsibilities of corporations – responsibilities to contribute to public debate and to take public stands on important issues. As part of this stream of work, I have made the case that the market is a promising site in which cosmopolitan sentiment can be cultivated among consumers in the developed world, and that multinational corporations have a responsibility to cultivate such sentiment. They have this responsibility on the basis that they are amongst the primary beneficiaries, organisers, and instantiations of global economic interdependence. I’m also interested in the sorts of domestic reforms that states and political institutions more broadly can adopt in order to generate greater cosmopolitan concern amongst their citizenries and encourage a less insular domestic political outlook.

I did my undergraduate in Philosophy at my local university, University College Cork, before doing a MA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Leiden University, and a PhD in Applied Ethics at the University of Leeds. I’m currently a postdoctoral researcher in Economic Ethics at the University of Gothenburg.

Dr Lee Michael Shults, University of Agder

In April I defended my dissertation, titled “Citizen Initiatives for Global Solidarity and the Ethics of Participatory Ownership”, which combines philosophical theories and ethical reflections on global solidarity with empirical data on the work being done by small-scale development organizations in different contexts. This is a field that I intend to continue researching and I am also exploring the possibilities for new projects connected to cosmopolitanism, Ethiopian journalists in exile, and emotional labor.

Advisory Member

Professor Luis Cabrera, Griffith University

Luis Cabrera is Associate Professor in the School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. His research focuses on institutional changes above the nation-state to promote the protection of human rights. He is convenor of the World Government Research Network. His latest book Institutional Cosmopolitanism is available through Oxford University press.