Centre for Political Thought

Research centresCentre for Political ThoughtResearch & ideasPolitical Inclusion and Citizens’ Empowerment

Political Inclusion and Citizens’ Empowerment

Across the world, citizens feel disempowered and often disenchanted with politics. Politics seems out of reach (taking place at a distance from ordinary people) and alien (due to the erosion of intermediary forms of political association and of the institutions supporting critical public discussion). In the Centre for Political Thought, we take the capacity for inclusion and the opportunities for citizens’ empowerment to be the true tests of political systems. We investigate ways to empower citizens through politics, including workers councils and workplace democracy, social platform organizing, anarchist cooperatives, citizens assemblies, social movements, representative systems, engagement in the public sphere, and participatory instruments in both democratic and authoritarian societies.

People

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Dr Dario Castiglione

Dario Castiglione’s main areas of research comprise democratic theory and the history of early modern political philosophy. He has written on representation, citizenship and constitutionalism; theories of civil society and social capital; the constitutional nature of the European Union; the Scottish Enlightenment, Hume and Mandeville; and 18th-century theories of the social contract and of their crittiques, and early modern scepticism. His main current research interests are on representation and political legitimacy; and the way in which political and conceptual discourses translates across linguistic and cultural divides

 

Dr Lise Herman

Lise Herman’s research bridges the fields of comparative politics, party studies and normative democratic theory, with a primary focus on the theory and practice of democratic partisanship. She has written extensively on the role of partisan agency in the contemporary crisis facing representative democracy. This includes the rise of the populist radical right in established democracies and processes of democratic backsliding in newly established democracies - with a particular focus on Hungarian politics.

 

Dr Xianan Jin

Xianan is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus. She joined the department in September 2022. Xianan has studied politics and practised feminism in Beijing, Taipei, Bologna, London and Kigali. She is interested in the representation and resistance of gendered subjects in global politics, and how gendered subjects from rich and poor backgrounds participate in politics differently. For her first book project, she did her fieldwork in Rwanda for a year to investigate women’s engagement with politics after the genocide in 1994. This book is based on her PhD thesis, The Political Economy of Women's Political Participation in Rwanda: Gender, Class and Statebuilding, at SOAS, University of London.

 

Professor Sandra Kröger

Most of my research addresses questions related to democracy and social justice in the EU. After studying the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) in the field of social inclusion, and other forms of soft law, I became interested in electoral and non-electoral forms of political representation, on the one hand, and the norms that should be underlying the institutional design of representative institutions in the EU, on the other. More recently, I have become interested in differentiated integration in the EU, and how it could be institutionalised in a democratic and fair way. My most recent research develops some of the earlier questions further by investigating the ethics of democratic representation as well as questions linked to digital democracy and dataethics.

 

Dr Bice Maiguashca

Bice Maiguashca’s research has focused on a set of questions around the origins, strategic trajectory and political significance of contemporary forms of left-wing politics and feminist activism in particular. Her current research projects revolve around three different strands of inquiry. The first involves the critical interrogation of “populism” as an analytical concept and as a political signifier. The second involves research into “Corbynism” as a new left landscape. Finally, the third concerns the challenges faced by feminist activists in the face of gendered power relations and globalised neoliberalism.

 

Dr Alex McLaughlin

Alex McLaughlin’s research focuses on questions of global and intergenerational justice, particularly as they arise in relation to climate change. His main current project explores the role for political protest and resistance in pressing for a sustainable future. Alex's previous work has mostly addressed issues of fairness in climate policy, for example by considering the relationship between climate mitigation and adaption and other global priorities. He has recently become interested in the relevance of the concept of ‘existential risk’ for debates about global and intergenerational justice.
 

Dr James Muldoon

James Muldoon’s current research interest is on the digital co-operative economy and fairer alternatives to platforms such as Uber, Airbnb and Deliveroo. He is currently working on two grants: “Platforming Equality: Policy Challenges for the Digital Economy” funded by the ESRC and “Co-Designing a Food Delivery Platform Co-operative” with assistance from Not-Equal, a UKRI funding network. His previous research has examined political campaigning, social movements and political parti; in particular the democratic socialist tradition in the European labour movement, including study of workers’ councils and the political thought of figures such as Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Kautsky, Anton Pannekoek, Karl Korsch and Richard Müller. His other research interests comprise the rise of populism and the electoral success of the far right; the traditions of community organising; and in political philosophy, German Idealism, French post-structuralists, and Italian post-Marxists.

 

Dr Catherine Owen

Catherine Owen’s main research interests concern participatory governance under authoritarianism, with a focus on Russia and China. Dr Owen’s work explores the ways in which citizens are encouraged to participate in local policy-making and delivery in Russia and China. This research has been published in a variety of articles, and is the subject of an ongoing book manuscript. In addition to this focus, she has also pursued research on decolonial and non-Western approaches to knowledge production in International Relations.

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Dr Andrew Schaap

Andrew Schaap’s main area of research is contemporary political theory. His book Political Reconciliation drew on the thought of Hannah Arendt to conceptualize reconciliation as a political undertaking in societies divided by a history of state violence. His is broadly interested in theories of radical democracy, and particularly in the politics of migration, racism and anti-racist politics, political struggles of indigenous peoples, transitional justice, politics and literature, and political thought of the twentieth century.

Publications

Dario Castiglione

  • 'The Performativity of Political Representation: Constructing the Public, Constructing the Democratic Subject', in Paula Diehl, and Michael Saward (eds), Bodies, Spaces, Claims: The Theory and Practice of Performing Political Representation (Oxford, 2024)
  • 'Reversing authoritarianism in the EU: Transformative politics and the role of opposition', in Transition 2.0: Re-establishing Constitutional Democracy in EU Member States, Nomos, Baden-Baden, 2023
  • 2022. 'Representing the public', Jurisprudence, 13(3), 436–442.
  • ‘The system of democratic representation and its normative principles’, in eds. Maurizio Cotta and Federico Russo, Research Handbook on Political Representation, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020, pp. 16-35.
  • From Maastricht to Brexit: Democracy in Europe’s Mixed-Polity, Rowan and Littlefield International (co-authored with Richard Bellamy), 2019
  • ‘Rethinking Representation: Eight Theoretical Issues and a Postscript’ (with Mark Warren), in eds. Lisa Disch, Nadia Urbinati, and Mathijs van de Sande, The Constructivist Turn in Representation, Edinburgh University Press, 2019, pp. 21-47
  • Creating Political Presence: The New Politics of Representation (co-edited with Johannes Pollack), Chicago University Press, 2018.
  • Institutional Diversity in Self-governing Societies (co-edited with Filippo Sabetti), Rowan and Littelfield, Lexington Books, 2017
  • Constitutional Politics in the EU: The Convention Moment and its Aftermath (et. al), Palgrave, 2007.

Xianan Jin

  • 2024. Land dispossession as continuum of violence: women’s political agency in post-genocide Rwanda. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 52(4), 787–809.
  • 2024. Jenna Sapiano, Xianan Jin, Gina Heathcote, Intersectionality and women's participation in peace negotiations, International Affairs, Volume 100, Issue 6, Pages 2543–2561.
  • 2024. Sapiano, Jenna and Heathcote, Gina and Jin, Xianan, Intersectionality and Women's Participation in Peace Negotiations, SSRN Electronic Journal, June 25, 2024
  • 2021. 'Outsider Within: Young Chinese Feminist Activism in the Age of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom', Made in China Journal 6(1):30-35
  • 2019. Female Street Vendors' (dis)engagement with Politics in Rwanda, Excursions Journal 

Sandra Kroger 

  • Bellamy, R., & Kröger, S. (2024). Truthfulness, pluralism and the ethics of democratic representation. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 27(3), 1023-1043.
  • Kröger, Sandra, and Richard Bellamy. (2024), 'Data Ethics: Normative Principles and Their Regulatory Challenges', in Giovanni De Gregorio, Oreste Pollicino, and Peggy Valcke (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Digital Constitutionalism (Oxford, 2024)
  • Bellamy, R., Kröger, S. and Lorimer, M. (2023) Party views on Democratic Backsliding and Differentiated Integration. East European Politics and Societies, 37(2), 563–583.
  • Bellamy, R., Kröger, S., and Lorimer, M. (2022) Flexible Europe. Differentiated integration, fairness and democracy. Bristol Policy Press.
  • Kröger, S. and Patberg, M. (eds.) (2021) Democratic Challenges of Differentiated (Dis)Integration. Normative Foundations and Implementation. Special issue with the Swiss Political Science Review, 27(3).
  • Bellamy, R., Kröger, S. and Lorimer, M. (2021) Party Views on Differentiated Integration. Comparative European Politics, 19(5), 622-641.
  • Kröger, S. Lorimer, M. and Bellamy, R. (2021) The Democratic Dilemmas of Differentiated Integration: The Views of Political Party Actors. Swiss Political Science Review 27(3), 563-581.
  • Kröger, S. (2019) How limited representativeness weakens throughput legitimacy in the EU: The example of interest groups, Public Administration, 97(4), 770-783.
  • Kröger, S. (2019) The democratic legitimacy of the British EU membership referendum, Journal of Contemporary European Research, 15(3), 284-298.
  • Kröger, S. (2018) Strategic or principled? The engagement of civil society organisations with the EU, Journal of Civil Society, 14(1), 41-57.
  • Kröger, S. and Bellamy, R. (eds.) (2016) National Parliaments and the Politicization of European Integration. Special issue with Comparative European Politics 14(2).
  • Kröger, S. and Bellamy, R. (2016) Beyond a Constraining Dissensus: The Role of National Parliaments in domesticating and normalising the politicization of European integration, Comparative European Politics, 14(2), 131-153.
  • Kröger, S. (2016) Europeanised or European? Representation by Civil Society Organizations in EU policy-making. Colchester: ECPR Press.
  • Kröger, S. (ed.) (2014) Political Representation in the European Union: Still Democratic in Times of Crisis? London: Routledge.
  • Bellamy, R. and Kröger, S. (2014) Domesticating the Democratic Deficit? The Role of National Parliaments and Parties in the EU’s System of Governance, Parliamentary Affairs, 67(2), 437-457.

Bice Maiguashca

  • Fraser, N., Maiguashca, B., & Masquelier, C. (2024). Theorising power and resistance under contemporary capitalism: An interview with Nancy Fraser. European Journal of Social Theory, 27(4), 645-655.‘Making Feminist Sense of Precarity Politics,’ Contemporary Political Theory, issue 2, 2020.
  • ‘Did Somebody Say Populism? Towards a Renewal and Reorientation of Populism Studies’ (with J. Dean), Journal of Political Ideologies, Vol. 25, Issue 1, 2020, 11-27.
  • ‘Resisting the ‘Populist Hype’: A Feminist Critique of a Globalizing Concept,’ Review of International Studies, Vol. 45, issue 5, 2019, 768-785.
  • ‘Lovely People but Utterly Deluded’? British Political Science’s Trouble with Corbynism’ (with J. Dean), British Politics, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2019, 48-68.
  • ‘Corbynism, Populism and the Re-shaping of Left Politics in Contemporary Britain’ (with J. Dean), in Katsambekis G, Kioupkiolis A (Eds.) The Populist Radical Left in Crisis-Hit Europe, Routledge, 2018.
    ‘Gender, Power and Left Politics: from Feminisation to “Feministisation”’ (with J. Dean), Politics and Gender, 14, 2018, 376-406.
  • ‘Theorising Feminist Organising in and against Neoliberalism: Beyond Co-optation and Resistance? (with C. Eschle), European Journal of Politics and Gender, 2018.
  • ‘Resisting the ‘Populist Hype’: A Feminist Critique of a Globalizing Concept,’ Review of International Studies, Vol. 45, issue 5, 2019, 768-785.

Alex McLaughlin

  • 2024. Climate Resistance and the Far Future. Social Theory and Practice, 50(2), 229-255. DOI. 
  • 2023. Mobilizing Hope. ETHICS POLICY & ENVIRONMENT, 26(3), 492-496. DOI. 

James Muldoon

  • 2020. After council communism: the post-war rediscovery of the council tradition. Intellectual History Review, 31(2), 341–362.
  • Building Power to Change the World: The Political Thought of the German Council Movements. Abstract, Oxford University Press, 2020.
  • Council Democracy: Towards a Democratic Socialist Politics (ed.), London, Routledge, 2018.
     ‘Arendtian Principles. Political Studies,’ 64(1_suppl), 2016, 121-135.
  • ‘The Origins of Hannah Arendt’s Council System,’ History of Political Thought, 3(4), 2016, 761-789.
  • ‘Arendt’s Revolutionary Constitutionalism: Between Constituent Power and Constitutional Form,’ Constellations, vol. 22, no. 4 (2016) pp. 596-607.

Catherine Owen

  • Hierarchies and Contexts in International Relations Knowledge Production, in Handbook of Knowledge and Expertise in International Politics, Oxford University Press, 2025.
  • Cianetti, L., Del Panta, G., & Owen, C. (2025). What is a “regime”? Three definitions and their implications for the future of regime studies. Democratization, 1–23.
  • Loke, Beverley, and Catherine Owen. “A Contextual Approach to Decolonising IR: Interrogating Knowledge Production Hierarchies.” Review of International Studies, 2024, 1–21.
  • Qin, X., Owen, C. The CCP, Campaign Governance and COVID-19: Evidence from Shanghai. Journal of Chinese Political Science 28, 619–644 (2023). 
  • Li, Zhu and Owen (2022) 'Participatory budgeting and the party: Generating ‘citizens orderly participation’ through party-building in Shanghai', Journal of Chinese Governance, 8(1):56-82..
  • ‘Social Forces and Street-Level Governance in Shanghai: from Compliance to Participation in Recycling Regulations.’ The China Quarterly (2021) Pages 1-22. (with Qin X)
  • ‘Active Citizens in a Weak State: “Self-Help” Groups and the Post-Soviet Neoliberal Subject in Contemporary Kyrgyzstan.’ Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 14 (2020) Pages 464-464.
  • ‘Governance and order-making in Central Asia: from illiberalism to post-liberalism?’ Central Asian Survey 39 (2020) Pages 420-437. (with Lottholz P, Heathershaw J, Ismailbekova A, Moldalieva J, McGlinchey E.)
  • ‘Participatory Authoritarianism: from Bureaucratic Transformation to Civic Participation in Russia and China.’ Review of International Studies 43 (2020) Pages 1-20.
  • ‘Book Review Daniel C. Mattingly The Art of Political Control in China.’ Perspectives on Politics, 18 (2020) Pages 1264-1266.
  • ‘The Belt and Road Initiative’s Central Asian Contradictions.’ Current History 119 (2020) Pages 264-269.
  • ‘The “Internationalisation Agenda” and the Rise of the Chinese University: Towards the Inevitable Erosion of Academic Freedom?’ The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 22 (2020) Pages 238-255.
  • ‘Authoritarian conflict management in post-colonial Eurasia.’ Conflict, Security and Development 19 (2019) Pages 269-273. (with Heathershaw JD)
  • ‘Centred Discourse, Decentred Practice: the Relational Production of Russian and Chinese 'Rising' Power in Central Asia.’ Third World Quarterly 40 (2019) Pages 1440-1458. (with Heathershaw JD, Cooley A.)
  • ‘Civic Participation in a Hybrid Regime: Limited Pluralism in Policymaking and Delivery in Contemporary Russia.’ Government and Opposition 54 (2019) Pages 98-120. (with Bindman E.)

Alex Prichard

  • "Anarchy". In Elgar Encyclopedia of International Relations. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2025
  • “Kenneth Waltz’s Kantian Moral Philosophy: ‘The Virtues of Anarchy’ Reconsidered.” International Theory 16, no. 3 (2024): 410–37.
  • "Anarquismo [Anarchism]." In Teorías Críticas de Relaciones Internacionales, edited by Marta Íñiguez de Heredia Itziar Ruiz-Giménez, Ángela Iranzo. Valencia: Tirant Lo Blanch. 2024.
  • 'Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865)', in Just War Thinkers Revisited, edited by Daniel R. Brunstetter, Cian O'Driscoll, Routledge 2024
  • Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, War and Peace: On the Principle and Constitution of the Rights of Peoples, edited by Alex Prichard, AK Press 2022
  • Anarchism: Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2022
  • Anarchic Agreements: A Field Guide to Collective Organizing (with Ruth Kinna, Thomas Swann, and Seeds for Change), PM Press, 2022.
  • ‘Proudhon's Mutualist Social Science’ in The Cambridge History of Socialism ed. Van der Linden M. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
  • ‘Taking the state back out and bringing anarchism back in. A review of George Lawson's Anatomies of Revolutions.’ International Politics Reviews (In Press) (2021) Pages 1-7.
  • ‘Anarchism and Global Ethics.’ in Routledge Handbook to Rethinking Ethics in International Relations ed. Schippers B. London: Routledge, 2020. Pages 25-39.
  • ‘Introduction: Pluriversalisty, Convergence and Hybridity in the Global Left.’ Globalizations 17 (2020) Pages 759-765. (with Prichard A, Worth O)
  • ‘Anarchism and Non-Domination. Journal of Political.’ Ideologies 24 (2019) Pages 221-240. (with Kinna R)
  • ‘Liberal Pacification and the Phenomenology of Violence.’ International Studies Quarterly 63 (2019) Pages 199-212. (with Baron I, Havercroft J, Kamola I, Koomen J, Murphy J)
  • ‘Occupy and the Constitution of Anarchy.’ Global Constitutionalism 8 (2019) Pages 357-390. (with Kinna R, Swann T.)
  • ‘Anarchy, anarchism and multiplicity: Preface to a fuller dialogue with Rosenberg.’ International Relations 32 (2018) Pages 246-248.

Andrew Schaap

  • Schaap, A., Kinna, R., Delanty, G., Hammond, M., & Thaler, M. (2025). Social dreaming and world building in the Anthropocene. Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 1–26.
  • ‘The after rights of the Citizen of the UK and its Colonies: who is the subject of the rights of the citizen in Britain’s hostile environment?,’ The International Journal of Human Rights (2024).
  • Schaap, A., Weeks, K., Maiguascha, B. et al. The politics of precarity. Contemporary Political Theory 21, 142–173 (2022).
  • ‘Inequality, Loneliness and Political Appearance: Picturing Radical Democracy with Hannah Arendt and Jacques Rancière’, Political Theory 49(1) 2021: 28-53.
  • ‘“Do you not see the Reason for Yourself?” Political Withdrawal and the Experience of Epistemic Friction’, Political Studies, 68(3) 2020: 565-581

Joanie Willett

  • ‘Towards a Participatory Representative Democracy? UK Parish Councils and Community Engagement.’ British Politics 14 (2019) Pages 311-327. (with Cruxon J.)

Research

Dario Castiglione

  • 2023-2027 HORIZON-CL2-DEMOCRACY-01-Democracy: REDIRECT project; Principal Investigator for Exeter
  • 2011-2013: Grant in support of FP7 Intra-European Marie Curie fellowship (Dr Sandra Kroeger)
  • 2004-2007: IP on ‘New Methods of Governance’ (NEWGOV)
  • 2002-2005: RTD consortium on ‘Citizenship and democratic legitimacy in the European Union’ (CIDEL)
  • 1999-2002: ESRC Research Grant on ‘Strategies of Civic Inclusion in Pan-European Civil Society’ (main co-ordinator) as part of the Programme on ‘One Europe or Several’
  • 1998-2000: TSER Network on European Citizenship (EURCIT), Scientist in Charge for Exeter

Lise Herman

  • I'm involved with the HORIZON-funded project REDIRECT, and in this context focus on the politicisation of democratic innovations, Citizen Assemblies specifically, and their role in representative systems of government. 

Sandra Kröger

  • 2021: European Network Fund, University of Exeter, for the project ‘Regulating Digital Democracy’ (£8500)
  • 2020-2022: H2020 project ‘Differentiation: Clustering Excellence’ (90.000 Euro)
  • 2019-2021: H2020 project ‘Integrating Diversity in the European Union’, consortium led by the EUI, Florence, WP1 leader (on ‘Philosophical foundations of legitimate differentiated integration’) (106.000 Euro)
  • 2018-2019: Robert Schuman fellowship at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute, Florence, 12 months (35.193 Euro)
  • 2013/14: Fellowship at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, Delmenhorst, 7 months (£19,771).
  • 2011: Conference ‘New trends in political representation in the EU – still democratic?’, Jean Monnet Action, Life Long Learning Programme, 24-26 May 2012, University of Exeter (39.538 Euro)
  • 2011: Marie Curie Fellowship, Department of politics, University of Exeter, England (192.850 Euro), September 2011-August 2013
  • 2010: Workshop ‘Representation in the European Union: Coping with present challenges to democracy’, Fritz-Thyssen Stiftung (8.000 Euro), jointly with Dawid Friedrich
  • 2008: Workshop ‘The OMC within the Lisbon Strategy: Empirical assessments and theoretical implications’, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 28-30 November 2008, Vienna (10.000 Euro)

Bice Maiguashca

  • 2015-17: Leverhulme Grant on ‘Exploring Left-Wing Populism in an Age of Anti-Politics’
  • 2013-2014: British Academy Grant on ‘Gendering Protest - A Gender Analysis of Contemporary Radical Activism in the UK’

Catherine Owen

  • 2017-2020: British Academy Fellowship: ‘Civic participation from discourse to action in non-democracies’.

Alex Prichard

Andrew Schaap

  • I am currently participating an Horizon-funded Redirect Project (called The REpresentative DIsconnect: diagnosis and strategies for RECTification). For this project, I have been recording a series of interviews with scholars of democratic theory about the shifting dynamics in practices of representation within contemporary political life called Visions of Representation.
  • 2011: AHRC Fellowship on ‘Human rights and the political: Insurgent citizenship at the Aboriginal Tend Embassy
Student Engagement, Public Deliberation, and Democratic Innovations

In May 2025, we organised a series of events as part of the Horizon-funded REDIRECT project:

  • Student Engagement & Deliberation on the University’s Climate and Sustainability Agenda 

  • Study Workshop: Can public deliberation help address the environmental crisis?

  • Public Lecture: When, Where, and Why Might Elected Political Elites Reach for Democratic Innovations?

Read more here

The Long Year of Elections

An Interdisciplinary Workshop on the elections of the last 15 months, taking place across the world.

On 6 March 2025, organised by the Centre for Political Thought together with Human Rights and Democracy Forum, Centre for European Studies and Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, with the support of the Observatory of Representation.

Find the Programme

Workshop on ‘Non-State civic membership from Antiquity to Modernity’

Ancient Roman Expulsions and Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) Citizenship Resurgence

Workshop on 5 March 20205, organised by Exeter Classics and Ancient History, ROUTES, and the Centre for Political Thought.

  • Guest speaker: Dr Damien Lee (Toronto Metropolitan University).
  • Exeter speakers: Elena Isayev (Ancient History) and Andrew Schaap (Politics).

Access, Rights, Privileges and Protection: What gives value to civic membership? And how does it transform depending on the practice and agents of sovereignty in any given period? 

Read more here

Interviews for our network "Citizens Empowerment"

 

 

The Representative Disconnect (REDIRECT)

REDIRECT is a four-year research project funded (€3 millions) by the Horizon Programme (and UKRI for the Exeter participation). It aims is to enhance our understanding of the current transformations of representative democracy in Europe at national and supranational level, assessing whether the centre of gravity of democratic representation is shifting away from the traditional forms of political intermediation, such as parties, parliaments, and party-based government, towards other forms of political representation. Its focus is on the representative disconnect, a multidimensional phenomenon of regression of the demos-kratos linkage involving institutional, behavioural and affective components, which risks undermining the trust in and legitimacy of the overall system of democratic representation. The two main questions REDIRECT addresses are: a) what are the nature, scope, aspects and causes of the representative disconnect; and b) how can the current representative disconnect be addressed, ameliorated, and/or rectified? 

Political Inclusion and Citizens’ Empowerment