We are pleased to award the BIAPT Mid-Career Prize to Dr Jemima Repo, who is a Reader in Political and Feminist Theory at Newcastle University and an outstanding citizen of the international community of researchers in political theory. Driven by a commitment to making political theory speak critically yet productively to some of the most pressing debates and issues of contemporary politics, Repo has made numerous original theoretical contributions to gender theory, biopolitics and feminism.

Her book The Biopolitics of Gender (OUP, 2015) disrupted conventional perceptions of ‘gender’ as inherently liberatory, offering an insightful retelling of its history, challenging widespread assumptions about its transformative potential. Theorising gender as an historically specific biopolitical apparatus, she drew on extensive archival research to trace the emergence of ‘gender’ in 1950s psychiatry, its feminist appropriations in the 1970s, all the way to its institutionalisation in 1990s social policy. The book was awarded the prestigious 2017 International Studies Association’s Feminist Theory and Gender Studies Book Award and has become a key theoretical text in multiple disciplines.

Her current research focuses on two projects. On the one hand, Repo works at the intersection of social reproduction theory, biopolitics and settler colonial studies, offering a new framework for understanding how struggles over labour and land are fundamentally entwined through life-making processes under settler colonial rule – with a focus on Palestine. On the other, she is interrogating the gendered logics of ‘Chicago School’ economics and economic arguments for gender equality. The findings of this latter project were published in the journal International Political Sociology, and awarded the 2021 American Political Science Association Okin-Young Award in Feminist Political Theory, in recognition of Repo’s conceptual innovation:  Repo proposed ‘feminist commodity activism’ to theorise the entanglement of feminist protest and consumer capitalism.

Pedagogically, Repo has demonstrated a commitment to enhancing students’ interest in political theory and nurturing their intellectual capacities. Her courses have attracted massive student interest, and have been consistently oversubscribed. She also has vast experience in supervising graduate students, whose projects tackle important political challenges with the tools of feminist, gender and decolonial theory.

As a member of the profession, Repo’s contributions have been exemplary. Her editorial work for one of the key international journals in political theory (Contemporary Political Theory), as well as her involvement with international professional organisations (both as a conference convener and section chair for large entities) and prominent prize juries, are truly exceptional for a mid-career scholar. In all these capacities, she has shown excellent leadership and dedication, epitomising the virtues of a good academic citizen. Her academic outreach activities – dealing with issues such as women’s rights, reproduction, political violence, the rise of the Far Right – complete the profile or a highly original and publicly engaged thinker.

Upon receipt of this award, Dr Repo said: “It means a great deal to receive this award from BIAPT. I am grateful to the judges, and to the many colleagues whose generosity, encouragement, and collaboration have made my career not only possible, but also worthwhile.”

We are very happy to announce that Dr Joe Davidson has been awarded the BIAPT Early-Career Prize for 2025. Following completion of his PhD at King’s College (2022), Cambridge, Davidson won a highly competitive Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship at the University of Warwick (2022-2025) and has recently begun a prestigious Vice-Chancellor’s Independent Research Fellowship at Loughborough University.

Davidson’s research and teaching focuses principally on the social theory of the future, analysing both utopian accounts of better worlds and apocalyptic visions of the end of everything. His diverse body of written work has both contemporary and historical focal points, ranging from political responses to the contemporary climate crisis to mid-twentieth century anticolonial analyses of economic relations.

In his forthcoming monograph, Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times (MIT Press, 2026), Davidson addresses the remarkable absence of utopia from the contemporary cultural landscape. Through analysis of the nature of and challenges faced by the literary tradition itself, he makes the case for the importance of utopian narratives, especially in times of profound political pessimism. He unpacks the political power of the valuable but rare contemporary utopian stories in Black, feminist, and green thought amid contexts of violence, oppression, and democratic imperilment. Saving Utopia will make an original and urgent contribution to contemporary political theory.

In addition to his path-breaking monograph, Davidson has also published numerous significant articles in world-leading journals, including American Political Science Review, Political Studies, Environmental Politics, and Feminist Theory. The subjects and texts that he covers in these articles are many and various, making unique and powerful contributions to different scholarly conversations across politics, sociology and related disciplines.

As well as developing such a large and impressively dextrous research portfolio of publications that are already shaping scholarly discussions, Dr Davidson has demonstrated a commitment to innovative teaching, leading modules that immerse both undergraduate and postgraduate students in myriad literatures that expand the canon of political thought. His ‘Decolonising Ecology’ module – taught at Warwick – provides an exemplary exposure of students to anti-colonial and indigenous texts through a specific focus on contemporary environmentalism.

Upon receipt of the award, Dr Davidson said ‘I am delighted to be awarded the BIAPT Early-Career Prize. It is an honour to have been recognised by the judges, and I am grateful to them for considering my work. A huge thank you to my mentors, colleagues and coauthors who have supported my research over the years’.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought Conference

7–9 January 2026 – University of Edinburgh

Academic Convenors: Alfred Moore (York), Tom O’Shea (Edinburgh) and Signy Gutnick Allen (Zurich)

Local Organisers: Mihaela Mihai, Jared Holley, Mathias Thaler (Edinburgh)

A key theme for our 2026 conference in Edinburgh will be the politics of climate and the environment, and we particularly encourage proposals in this area, as well as those from all sub-fields within political thought. This year’s plenary speakers are Alyssa Battistoni (Barnard), Ross Carroll (Dublin City), Angie Pepper (Roehampton), Rahul Rao (St. Andrews) and Johanna Thoma (Bayreuth).

You can submit a proposal that has any of the following formats:

(1) Panel proposals of three papers per panel (please include panel title, authors, plus paper abstracts);

(2) Individual paper proposals (please include paper title, author, and abstract; accepted proposals will be organised into panel sessions by the academic convenors);

(3) ‘Author meets critics’ roundtables (please include book title, publisher and year, and description, including provisional list of critics and their affiliations). Please note that it is expected that only up to 2 proposals will be accepted in this format.

(4) First book manuscript workshop, where monograph manuscripts of an author’s first book will be presented and discussed with selected respondents (please submit a description of your manuscript and a list of up to 4 provisional respondents, with at least one already confirmed). Please note that it is expected that only up to 2 proposals will be accepted in this format.

Please submit your proposals HERE.

We look forward to a conference that represents a diverse set of intellectual traditions, including analytic and normative political philosophy, the history of ideas, all traditions of critical theory, as well as comparative and global political theory. Panels that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries and submissions from graduate students are most welcome.

BIAPT has some limited funds available to defray conference fees for scholars from the Global South and for graduate students: to be considered for such support, please signal your relevant eligibility on the proposal submission form.

The final deadline for submission is Tuesday 22nd July, 2025 (6pm BST).  The academic convenors will communicate decisions by early September 2025. For any questions, you can write to us at conference@associationforpoliticalthought.ac.uk

Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought Prizes 2025

Nominations are invited for our two annual prizes:

1. The BIAPT Early-Career Prize 2025
   Open to political theorists within eight years of award of their PhD or equivalent on 1^st January 2025.
2. The BIAPT Mid-Career Prize 2025
   Open to political theorists who are more than eight years from award of their PhD or equivalent on 1^st January 2025 but who are not full Professors.

• Each prize will be awarded to the nominated candidate who, in the judgment of the Executive Committee, has made the greatest overall contribution to research and teaching in political thought, as well as to the life of our intellectual community and service to the profession, understood broadly and in line with BIAPT’s mission at https://www.associationforpoliticalthought.ac.uk/about-us/
• Candidates must be academic political theorists or political philosophers employed at universities or HE institutions in Britain or Ireland; casual, fixed-term, and zero-hours employment included.
• Time limits for eligibility will be adjusted where necessary to make allowances for time out of academia (non-academic careers, caring leave, illness, etc.). Nominations should make clear if this adjustment is being sought and time away should be indicated on the CV.

Procedures for nominations

• Entry for each of the prizes will be via nomination. Entrants may nominate themselves.
• The nominator must supply 1) a supporting statement of no more than one page, setting out the entrant’s contribution to political thought research, teaching, and service; as well as 2) the entrant’s CV.
• The BIAPT Executive Committee will be responsible for choosing the prize winners.
• Current Executive Committee members, and persons who have served on the Executive Committee in the last three years, are not eligible to make nominations, to be nominated for, or to win either prize.
• Each prize, which will consist of a certificate and a £100 book token, will be awarded at the Political Thought Conference to be held in Edinburgh in January 2026. Prize winners will also be announced on the Association’s website, Facebook page, and other media. Acceptance of either prize will be taken as consent to publicity of this sort.
• Nominations should be sent to Maxime Lepoutre, Secretary of BIAPT, at m.c.lepoutre@reading.ac.uk with “BIAPT prizes” as the subject header.
• The deadline for nominations is 6th June 2025.

2024 BIAPT Mid-Career Prize Winner: Dr Onur Ulas Ince

The BIAPT Executive Committee is pleased to award its 2024 Mid-Career Prize to Dr Onur Ulas Ince of SOAS, University of London, in recognition of his ground-breaking contributions to the field. Dr Ince’s research has taken political theory’s imperial turn in new and refreshing directions by incorporating insights from the history of capitalism, imperial intellectual history, and global political economy. His award-winning monograph Colonial Capitalism and the Dilemmas of Liberalism (Oxford UP, 2018) grapples with the conflicted origins of liberalism, emphasising how its commitments to the freedoms of property, labour, and trade were inextricably bound up with colonial processes of territorial conquest, resource extraction, racialised domination, and systematic enslavement. By bringing the political economy of colonialism to the fore, Ince has successfully challenged the emphasis on universalism and cultural difference that has hitherto framed treatments of liberalism’s imperial origins. The book also offers novel interpretations of key figures in the history of political thought, including John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Edward Gibbon.

More recently, Ince has embarked on two new ambitious projects that further reveal the rich potential of his approach to the history of imperial thought. The first, Beyond the Colour Line: Empire, Capitalism, and Race in Asia, 1800-1850, builds on his earlier research by looking at how racial categories and hierarchies were forged in the process of British imperialism in Asia, and in the encounter of British imperialists with their Chinese counterparts. Beyond the Colour Line not only obliges us to rethink how racialised capitalism emerged; it also exposes the ‘Atlanticist’ methodological biases of the scholarship on empire by foregrounding Asia as an undertheorized arena of British imperial expansion and contestation. The project has already produced two articles in the American Political Science Review, with a monograph with Oxford University Press to follow. In the second new project, Ince explores of what he calls the “limits of liberal anti-imperialism” in the work of Scottish Enlightenment figures such as Adam Smith and David Hume.

Dr Ince’s career trajectory has mirrored the global reach of his scholarship. Since graduating with a PhD from Cornell University in 2013, he has taught in Turkey (at Koç University), Singapore (at Singapore Management University), and now in the imperial metropole itself, London (at SOAS). In each of these locales Ince has made his mark beyond research through inspiring teaching (in Singapore he was nominated for the Most Promising Teacher Award) and through service to the profession. Examples of the latter include his co-chairing of the Association for Political Theory’s 2018 conference in America, and copious reviewing for a host of journals. Dr Ince is therefore a thoroughly deserving winner of this year’s Mid-career prize.

In response to his award, Dr Ince said “Academics have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways. And some of them have also been lucky enough to get a prize for it, a position I am now delighted to find myself in. The judges have my thanks for their consideration.”

2024 BIAPT Early-Career Prize Winner: Dr Josh Milburn

We are very happy to announce that Dr Josh Milburn has been awarded the 2024 BIAPT Early-Career Prize. Dr Milburn is currently a Lecturer in Political Philosophy at Loughborough University, having previously held posts at the University of Sheffield, University of York, and Queen’s University (Canada) following the completion of his PhD at Queen’s University Belfast.

The majority of Dr Milburn’s work has been within the field of animal rights and animal politics. Through a remarkable publication record for someone at such an early stage of their career, including two monographs, nearly twenty journal articles, and some dozen or so book chapters, Dr Milburn has already made a significant impact not only in these fields but played a leading role in connecting them to broader debates within political theory such as hate speech, the ethics of war and peace, the history of political thought, and more. His forthcoming (and third) book is telling in this regard, connecting as it does an intellectual biography of Nozick with a new and innovative theory of animal rights. And Dr Milburn’s work on hate speech (co-authored with Professor Alasdair Cochrane) – which argues that certain species ought to be safeguarded from harmful speech – has had the (dubious) honour, which few political theorists can boast of, of being cited in parliamentary debates and in The Sun newspaper.

Dr Milburn’s contribution to the teaching of every institution that he has been part of has been exemplary, and his dedication to and impact on students clear. He brings an energy and enthusiasm to the classroom which has regularly been cited by staff and students as enabling a unique and positive learning environment, whether he be covering (as he has) the history of political thought, introduction to philosophy, the ethics of public policy, contemporary issues in political theory, or more besides. The seriousness with which Dr Milburn approaches his teaching commitments is reflected in the fact that he has won accolades from students at each and every one of the institutions he has taught at. He is, in short, a superb teacher of political theory.

The BIAPT judges were also much impressed by Dr Milburn’s commitment both to contributing to the wider discipline of political theory and promoting that discipline more broadly through his public engagement efforts. He co-chairs the MANCEPT panel on animals and political theory, one of the longest standing and popular panels run at the conference and hosts the extremely popular ‘Knowing Animals’ podcast which engages with animal scholars from a number of disciplines, disseminating their work to a broad audience. His enthusiasm for taking part in public lectures, workshops, and media discussions on issues as diverse as cellular agriculture, war and animals, companion animals, legal personhood, the ethics of diet and more, was also judged to be remarkable.

In response to this award, Dr Milburn said: “I am very happy to accept this award, and very flattered that the judging panel selected me. I thank my many mentors and collaborators, including Alasdair Cochrane, for their support. This award is a testament to how political theorists increasingly recognize the importance of questions about animals. I believe that paying attention to these questions is one way that we, as a discipline, can do our part to make the world a better place.”

Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought Prizes 2024

Nominations are invited for two prizes:

1. The BIAPT Early-Career Prize 2024
   Open to political theorists within eight years of award of their PhD or equivalent on 1^st January 2024.
2. The BIAPT Mid-Career Prize 2024
   Open to political theorists who are more than eight years from award of their PhD or equivalent on 1^st January 2024 but who are not full Professors.

• Each prize will be awarded to the nominated candidate who, in the judgment of the Executive Committee, has made the greatest overall contribution to research and teaching in political thought, as well as to the life of our intellectual community and service to the profession, understood broadly and in line with BIAPT’s mission at https://www.associationforpoliticalthought.ac.uk/about-us/
• Candidates must be academic political theorists or political philosophers employed at universities or HE institutions in Britain or Ireland; casual, fixed-term, and zero-hours employment included.
• Time limits for eligibility will be adjusted where necessary to make allowances for time out of academia (non-academic careers, caring leave, illness, etc.). Nominations should make clear if this adjustment is being sought and time away should be indicated on the CV.

Procedures for nominations

• Entry for each of the prizes will be via nomination. Entrants may not nominate themselves.
• The nominator must supply 1) a supporting statement of no more than one page, setting out the entrant’s contribution to political thought research, teaching, and service; as well as 2) the entrant’s CV.
• The BIAPT Executive Committee will be responsible for choosing the prize winners.
• Current Executive Committee members, and persons who have served on the Executive Committee in the last three years, are not eligible to make nominations, to be nominated for, or to win either prize.
• Each prize, which will consist of a certificate and a £50 book token, will be awarded at the Political Thought Conference to be held in York in January 2025. Prize winners will also be announced on the Association’s website, Facebook page, and other social and mainstream media. Acceptance of either prize will be taken as consent to publicity of this sort.
• Nominations should be sent to Maxime Lepoutre, Secretary of BIAPT, at m.c.lepoutre@reading.ac.uk with “BIAPT prizes” as the subject header.
• The deadline for nominations is 24^th May 2024.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Spring Conference of the Section for Political Theory and the History of Ideas (GPSA) University of Rostock, Germany; 13–15 March 2024

We are delighted to announce that BIAPT 2024 will be hosting a panel convened by our German sister organisation Sektion für Politische Theorie und Ideengeschichte at our January conference. This is a call for papers for the reciprocal panel at their next conference in Rostock next March.

Spring Conference of the Section for Political Theory and the History of Ideas (GPSA)

University of Rostock, Germany; 13–15 March 2024

Convenors: Dennis Bastian Rudolf (University of Rostock), Valerian Thielicke (University of Rostock), Rieke Trimcev (University of Greifswald), Alexander Weiß (University of Rostock)

Political Theory after Eurocentrism: Resources of Non-Western Thinking for Contemporary Political Challenges

Given the ongoing processes of globalization and the emergence of a multipolar world, our sub-discipline plays a crucial role in accompanying these transformations with critical, analytical, interpretive, normative, hermeneutic as well as deconstructive analyses. For this task, it is increasingly implausible to rely unquestioningly on European or Western theories, their problem agendas, arguments, and norms. It is essential for political theory to overcome Eurocentrism. Comparative Political Theory (CPT) has been addressing this concern for more than 30 years by examining non-Western ideas and expanding the canon of political theory and thought globally (Dallmayr 1997, 2004; Jenco et al 2020). The Spring Conference of the GPSA Section for Political Theory and the History of Ideas proposes to further advance this still relatively young program by revisiting the contents, methodologies, and concepts of CPT. The convenors welcome paper proposals that address one of the following four topics:

I. CPT as a research field

Since its inception, CPT has developed in three major strands:

1. Research on non-Western political thought has produced studies and readers on Islamic, African, Indian, Japanese, and Chinese political thought (e.g., Singh/Mohapatra 2010; Dallmayr/Zhao 2012; Martin 2012; Watanabe 2012; March 2015; Dübgen/Skupien 2015; Jenco 2016).

2. A methodological strand explores conceptual and methodological questions regarding units of comparison (e.g., ‘cultural spaces’, ‘cultural areas’, cultures, regions) and, within this strand, the problematic of universalism and relativism remains central, since all contributions are obliged to address this issue (e.g., Dallmayr 2004; March 2009; Godrej 2009; Euben 2010; Freeden/Vincent 2012; von Vacano 2015; Tully 2016; Ackerly/Bajpai 2017; Little 2018; Rollo 2018).

3. Systematic studies exploring global variations in the formation and theorization of concepts such as sovereignty, legitimacy, cosmopolitanism, or democracy (March 2012; Chan/Shin/Williams 2016; Shapcott 2016; Schubert/Weiß 2016; Weiß 2020).

II. CPT as an approach to the history of ideas

Regarding the study of non-Western ideas and their relation to familiar Western sources, studies in CPT advance our understanding of three crucial processes:

1. Mirroring: Throughout history, practices of mutual observation and commentary have helped to construct images of the ‘Other’. These mirrorings, from ancient Greece’s ‘barbarians’ to the reception of Confucianism in the European Enlightenment, provide insights into the content and function of theoretical treatments of the ‘Other’ across a

divided globe. This may include views of Europe and the West in Arab, Persian, African, Indian, Chinese, and Latin American thought, as well as European projections onto Asia (Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism) – and vice versa.

2. Transfers/Travelling ideas: Ideas, positions, and ideologies have migrated across contexts, creating hybrids, and influencing existing ideas. The history of the travelling of concepts such as freedom, legitimacy, harmony, shura, tian xia, swaraj still remains largely unexplored.

3. Translations: Both linguistic and conceptual translations have shaped intellectual history. Examples include At-Tahtāwī’s translation of the French Constitution of 1814 or the transmission of concepts by Japanese delegates during the Meiji Restoration.

III. CPT and its contents

Three thematic areas of CPT will receive special attention, as they allow for fruitful dialogue with other strands within political theory and political science in general:

1. Overcoming Eurocentrism: The goal of ‘historical justice’ challenges the claim of exclusive European authorship for concepts such as democracy, human rights, and other terms central to the contemporary political lexicon. Understanding theoretical positions outside the West allows for contributions to the analysis and interpretation of non-Western regions in conjunction with empirical and area studies. Addressing problems of Eurocentrism in theory raises questions about its historical and contemporary plausibility.

2. The colonial constellation: Postcolonial and decolonial critiques highlight the embeddedness of European conceptualization and ideology within the context of imperialism and colonialism. Examining entanglements of European liberalism with imperialism and its skewed level of justification for colonialism sheds light on the connection between European concepts and non-Western discourses.

3. ‘Democracy’ beyond the West: Non-Western theoretical debates critically engage with Western concepts of democracy by highlighting autochthonous variants and critical reflections on meritocracy, the relationship between constitution and religion, or democratic innovations. Comparative democratic theory and its response to the diversity of meanings and conceptions of democracy are of particular interest.

IV. 30 Years of CPT: Does Political Theory Need to be Transformed?

CPT’s aim is not to delineate its own new field from political theory, but to transform existing research and teaching practices. Accordingly, the conference will inquire into CPTs potential to redefine and to augment political theory. Where can we already identify such redefinitions as a result of CPT? What further steps are necessary and which effects on the sub-discipline can be expected? How can CPT productively transform teaching practices in terms of canon formation, text, and source selection as well as didactic methods?

The conference welcomes contributions from all addressed strands and topics. Researchers of non-Western thought and colleagues exploring general questions within these thematic areas are encouraged to submit proposals. To ensure an international perspective, one of the three conference days (presumably Thursday) will be held in English, allowing for the inclusion of participants with non-German and non-European backgrounds. We particularly encourage emerging researchers to apply. We also aim to provide childcare during the conference.

Please submit proposals (approximately 300 words) for the BIAPT panel to David Owen, dowen@soton.ac.uk, by 30th October 2023. Please note that only on 3 papers can be accepted.

We are very happy to award the 2023 Early-Career Prize to Dr Camila Vergara, who at the time of selection was Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the University of Cambridge and is currently Senior Lecturer at University of Essex Business School. Dr Vergara is originally from Chile, where she established a successful career in journalism before pursuing academic political theory further, undertaking postgraduate degrees at New York University (MA), New School for Social Research (MA), and Columbia University (PhD).

In 2020, shortly after completing her PhD, Dr Vergara’s first book, Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic was published by Princeton University Press. In this book, Dr Vergara offers a genealogy of political corruption and theorizes the contemporary crisis in democracy in structural terms. She argues that representative governments suffer decay because of constitutional deficits, analyses the absence of properly popular institutions to ensure democratic accountability, and reveals the unfettered oligarchies of power that emerge as a result. Dr Vergara draws on insights from Niccolò Machiavelli, Nicolas de Condorcet, Rosa Luxemburg, and Hannah Arendt to advance her critique and put forward her own understanding of plebian republicanism. Systemic Corruption has been subject to much scholarly discussion – such that it can be said already to have made a genuine imprint on political theory – while her other research has appeared in international journals that reflect the breadth of its reach, including History of Political Thought and Journal of Political Philosophy.

Dr Vergara has demonstrated as impressive a global commitment to teaching, having delivered lectures on four different continents on a variety of topics that show the breadth of her expertise. Her international outreach is evident not only her teaching and research, but also in her prominent work in political advocacy and activism, which exemplifies a unity of theory and practice often discussed and aspired to but rarely achieved by academic political theorists.

In addition to her many professional achievements, the BIAPT judges were especially struck by the significant energy and time Dr Vergara has invested in contributing to, and organising, events that include and engage junior and emerging scholars. That she has been able to make such an impact on the community of political theorists in Britain, Ireland, and beyond, while engaging in path-breaking policy work prior to the securement of a permanent university appointment, is particularly remarkable and commendable.

Dr Vergara said: “In a world in which recognition is denied to so many, it is a privilege to be seen and valued by those you admire. I am grateful to the members of the Executive Committee for taking the time to read my work and for their appreciation of my efforts to develop political theory ‘from below’ in times of crisis. I am truly honoured by this award.”