PhD in Political Philosophy

At Sheffield, political philosophy has long been a strength. Our academics working in this field have well established links with other centers of excellence, including the Stanford Center for Ethics and Society, the Ash Center and the Safra Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University, and the Philosophy Department at MIT. We also regularly welcome visiting political philosophers in the department (most recently, Robert Talisse, Vanderbilt University, and Mara-Daria Cojocaru, Munich Institute of Philosophy). We have been successful in attracting research grants in this area, for example: Jenny Saul, Jules Holroyd, Robin Scaife, and Tom Stafford (Psychology) received funding for a two-year project working with the Cabinet Office to investigate workplace climate and improve diversity and inclusion in the government security workforce; Joshua Forstenzer and Vachararutai Boontinand (University of Mahidol) won a two-year Newton Fund Fellowship to study how effective pedagogies associated with philosophical enquiry can be in teaching critical thinking and democratic citizenship in Thai Higher Education. Our expertise in implicit bias training has resulted in a consultancy with the UK Civil Service and our expertise in theories of political education and social change led to a consultancy with a Member of European Parliament.