Post: Departmental Lecturer in International Relations

Appointed: 2008

College: Wadham College

Office Details: Room 168, Manor Road Building

Phone No: 01865 285 974 -  Contact electronically

Website: http://www.chrisjbickerton.net

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Introduction:

I am departmental lecturer in International Relations at the department of politics and international relations (DPIR), University of Oxford. I am also lecturer in international relations at Wadham College, Oxford. I teach international relations to undergraduates and graduates, and cover both the theoretical and historical aspects of the PPE IR and MPhil IR courses. I am also on the academic steering committee of the European Studies Centre. I was an undergraduate at Somerville College, Oxford, where I read PPE. I did the Diplome d'Etudes Approfondies (2 year Masters) in International Relations at the Graduate Institute for International Studies in Geneva, and completed in 2008 my doctoral thesis as a student at St Johns College, Oxford.

Research Activities and Interests:

I am currently working on two research projects. The first is a book project on EU foreign policy. In this book, I study EU foreign policy as a function of the changing nature of the state in Europe. The book combines empirical work on contemporary EU actions, in Georgia and in Kosovo, with more theoretical work on the relationship between bureaucracy and politics within the framework of the nation-state and the relationship between state transformation and transnational governance.

The second research project looks at our understandings of legitimacy and sovereignty in the context of the EU, focusing in particular on multi-level governance approaches. These approaches rework Madisonian conceptions of democracy and present legitimacy as flowing from the ability of institutions like the EU to constrain the actions of sovereign states. This research project analyses the theoretical and normative foundations of multi-level governance approaches, arguing that in fact many of these approaches presuppose the very concepts – such as sovereignty – which they distance themselves from.

My other interests include work on EU enlargement, the Europeanization of national foreign policies, the relationship between national and pan-European forms of political contestation, and the emergence of populism as a dominant political form in contemporary Europe.

My interests span the disciplines of International Relations, European Studies, Comparative Politics and Political Theory.

Research News

• Mar 2009, Dr Chris Bickerton awarded Visiting Professorship at Sciences Po, Read more

Teaching Responsibilities:

At the undergraduate level, I teach the core International Relations paper, the International Relations in the Era of the Cold War paper, and the International Relations Between the Two World Wars paper. At the graduate level, I supervise M.Phil students, contribute to the research methods teaching, co-lead one of the M.Phil thesis seminars, and will be teaching the core post-1950 International History course in Trinity term, 2009.

Previous Posts Held:

I was stipendiary lecturer in international relations at Pembroke College, Oxford, from 2007-2008. Previously, I taught at St Johns College, and in 2004-2005 I was stipendiary lecturer in international relations at Wadham College, Oxford.

Media Expertise:

I have experience in dealing with a variety of different media. I have published articles in the Guardian, the Monde Diplomatique, and The Nation. I have spoken on national radio and have appeared on TV. I have taken part in a large number of public debates, on topics ranging from animal rights to European democracy.

Publications:

2009. 'From Brezhnev to Brussels? Transformations in sovereignty in Eastern Europe', International Politics, 2009, special issue on sovereignty.

2009. 'Legitimacy through norms: the political limits to the European Union's normative power' in Richard Whitman (Ed.) Normative Power Europe: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives, Basingstoke: Palgrave.

2007. Co-edited with Philip Cunliffe & Alex Gourevitch, Politics without Sovereignty: A Critique of Contemporary International Relations, London: UCL Press pp208.

2007. 'The Perils of Performance: Legitimization in EU Foreign Policy' Perspectives: The Central European Review of International Affairs, 28, Summer '07 pp24-42.

2007. 'A Union of Disenchantment: The New Politics of post-Enlargement Europe' in Yannis A. Stivachtis (Ed.) The State of European Integration, Aldershot: Ashgate. pp89-109.