Professor Marc Stears (MA DPhil)

Post: Professor of Political Theory, University Lecturer, and Fellow, University College

Research Areas and Interests

Marc Stears' primary research interest is in radical political thought.

His second book Demanding Democracy: American Radicals in Search of a New Politics was published by Princeton University Press in 2010. It examines radical American political movements across the twentieth century. Details of the book and direct access to the Introduction at: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9197.html

Marc is now analyzing the various ways in which British, West European, and American radicals sought to celebrate the victory of free societies over authoritarian ones in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, through such events as the Festival of Britain and the American Freedom Train.

Marc also works in contemporary normative political theory where he has particular interests in research methods. He has recently edited a volume for OUP, Political Theory: Methods and Approaches, with David Leopold, on this subject and one for CUP, Political Philosophy verus History? with Jonathan Floyd. He is also the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Ideologies, with Michael Freeden and Lyman Tower Sergeant, for OUP, and of Liberalism as Ideology: Essays in Honour of Michael Freeden with Ben Jackson also for OUP.

In addition to these projects in political theory, Marc also works in American politics, where he is especially concerned with the nature of the American state, and in British politics, where he largely concentrates on the evolution of the British Labour Party.

He is a Visiting Fellow of the Institute for Public Policy Research (www.ippr.org) where he researches the ideological and organizational development of left political parties in Britain.

Previous Posts Held

Directly before coming to Oxford, Marc was Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and University Assistant Lecturer in Politics in the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge. Previously, he was University Lecturer in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol, and Prize Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford.

Teaching Responsibilities

Marc Stears is course provider for the Political Thought from Bentham to Weber paper and convenor of the Prelims Politics panel.

Media Expertise

Marc has worked with many public and private sector organizations in Britain, China, Holland, the USA, and Mexico, helping them to think anew about globalization, democratization, leadership, ethics, and the role of political protest in shaping social and economic change. He also regularly speaks to the media about British Labour Party politics.

A recent media interview is at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12759902

A recent media appearance is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2009/dec/01/nyrb-marc-stears

A podcast interview is at: http://rss.oucs.ox.ac.uk/oxitems/generatersstwo2.php?channel_name=oucs/oxonian_interviews-audio

Publications

Authored Books

Demanding Democracy: American Radicals in Search of a New Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010). http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9197.html

Progressives, Pluralists, and the Problems of the State: Ideologies of Reform in the United States and Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Paperback 2006). http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199291632.do

Edited Books

Liberalism as Ideology: Essays in Honour of Michael Freeden, edited with Benjamin Jackson, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199600670.do

Political Philosophy versus History? Contextualism, Real Politics and Contemporary Political Thought , edited with Jonathan Floyd (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). http://www3.cambridge.org/aus/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521146883

Political Theory: Methods and Approaches, edited with David Leopold (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Japanese translation forthcoming. http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199230099.do

Edited Electronic Books

The Labour Tradition and the Politics of Paradox, edited with Maurice Glasman, Jonathan Rutherford, and Stuart White (Soundings, Compass, and others, 2011). http://www.soundings.org.uk

Selected Articles and Chapters

"Public Reason and Political Action: Justifying Citizen Behavior in Actually Existing Democracies" (with Mathew Humphrey), Review of Politics (forthcoming).

"How the US State Works" (with Desmond King), Perspectives on Politics 9 (2011): 505-517.

"Bridging Autism, Science and Society" (with Elizabeth Pellicano), Autism Research 4 (2011): 271-282.

"The New Realism" (with Bonnie Honig) in Floyd and Stears (ed.), Political Philosophy versus History? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).

"Guild Socialism" in Mark Bevir (ed.), Pluralism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

"Active Equality: A Democratic Agenda for the British Left" in James Purnell and Graeme Cooke (ed.), We Mean Power: Ideas For the Future of the Left (London: Demos, 2010).

"Change We Already Believe In? The American Left, the Liberal Tradition and the American Past" in Mark Hulliung (ed.), America's Liberal Tradition Reconsidered: The Contested Legacy of Louis Hartz (Lawrence KA: Kansas University Press, 2010).

"Capitalism, Democracy and the Missing State in Hartz's America" (with Desmond King), in Mark Hulliung (ed.), America's Liberal Tradition Reconsidered: The Contested Legacy of Louis Hartz (Lawrence KA: Kansas University Press, 2010).

"The Missing State in Postwar American Political Thought" (with Desmond King), in Lawrence Jacobs and Desmond King (eds.), The Unsustainable American State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

"Liberalism and the Politics of Compulsion", British Journal of Political Science 37 (2007): 505-31.

"The Liberal Tradition and the Politics of Exclusion", Annual Review of Political Science 10 (2007): 85-101.

"Animal Rights Protest and the Challenge of Deliberative Democracy" (with Mathew Humphrey), Economy and Society 35 (2006): 400-23. Translated as "La Protesta per I Dritti Degli Animali e la Sfida per una Democrazia Deliberativa", Lo Straniero 11 (2007): 42-67.

"The Vocation of Political Theory: Facts, Principles, and the Politics of Opportunity", European Journal of Political Theory 4 (2005): 325-50.

"Capabilities, Resources and Systematic Injustice: A Case of Gender Inequality" (with Jude Browne), Philosophy Politics and Economics 4 (2005): 355-73.

"The Political Conditions of Social Justice" in D. Bell and A. de Shalit (eds.), Forms of Justice (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003).

"Reaching Across the Atlantic" in R. Singh (ed.), American Politics and Society Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002)

"G. D. H. Cole", "M. Cole", and "S. G. Hobson" in The Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

"New Liberalism Revisited" (with Stuart White), Imprints 5 (2002): 221-36.

"Welfare With and Without the State", The European Legacy 6 (2001): 201-13.

"Beyond the Logic of Liberalism", Journal of Political Ideologies 6 (2001): 215-30.

"From Social Welfare to Cultural Values" (with Byron E. Shafer), Journal of Policy History 11 (1999): 331-66.

"Needs, Welfare and the Limits of Associationalism", Economy and Society 28 (1999): 570-89.

"Guild Socialism and Ideological Diversity on the British Left", Journal of Political Ideologies 3 (1998): 289-306.