Former Fellow

Lucian Ashworth

Full Professor and Head of Department, Department of Political Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN)

Research project title:
Missing voices in the history of international thought. A critical re-evaluation of global thinking since 1880

Abstract
International thought of the last century and a half is not exhausted by what is remembered by the academic field of International Relations (IR). Indeed, IR itself even tends to forget large parts of its own past theorizing.
This project looks at how several of these lost narratives have been recovered in IR, with particular emphasis on lost approaches dealing with political economy, political geography, feminism, race and imperialism. This includes approaches outside of the English speaking world. I am particularly interested in how the recovery of past approaches affects our interpretations of both the origins and the nature of IR and international thought.

Events:
6July 2018
Workshop “The Hundred Years’ Crisis: Global Order in Historical Perspective”

  • Biografische Angaben

    Lucian M. Ashworth is a professor in political science at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's Canada. He is an International Relations (IR) scholar, and his main area of interest is the history of international thought. He has published widely on the topics of international thought and the disciplinary history of IR. His latest book is A History of International Thought (Routledge, 2014), and he is currently working on a new book for Routledge provisionally titled International Relations in the Stream of Time, which will be published in 2019.
  • Publikationen

    Lucian M. Ashworth, A History of International Thought. From the Origins of the Modern State to Academic International Relations (London: Routledge, 2014). International Relations Theory and the Labour Party: Intellectuals and Policy Making 1918-1945 (London: IBTauris, 2007). Creating International Studies. Angell, Mitrany and the Liberal Tradition (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999). (Edited with David Long) New Perspectives on International Functionalism (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999). Lucian M. Ashworth, Mapping a New World: Geography and the Interwar Study of International Relations. International Studies Quarterly, March 2013, 57(1), 138–149. Lucian M. Ashworth, “The Poverty of Paradigms: Subcultures, Trading Zones and the Case of Liberal Socialism in Interwar International Relations”, International Relations, March 2012, vol. 26 no. 1, 35-59. “Realism and the Spirit of 1919: Halford Mackinder, Geopolitics, and the Reality of the League of Nations”, European Journal of International Relations, June 2011, 17(2), 279-301.

News from the research center

Publication
12.05.2026 | Online article

Disinhibited Informalization: Talk Radio, Bro Podcasts and the Aesthetics of Populism

This essay by Johannes Völz is a revised and updated translation of “Enthemmte Informalisierung: Talk Radio, Bro-Podcasts und die Ästhetik des Populismus,” WestEnd: Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 22.2 (2025): 3–24. It is published here as part of the b2o Review’s “Stop the Right” dossier.

more information ›
Event
20.05.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Von der Selbstermächtigung zum sozialen Widerstand

Lecture

Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Axel Honneth (Frankfurt am Main / New York Columbia University) mit anschließender Diskussion im Rahmen des Rechtstheoretischen Mittwochsseminars von Klaus Günther, Dan Wielsch und Benno Zabel.

more information ›
Event
19.05.2026 | Frankfurt

Speculative Truth Regimes

Panel Discussion

Event with Adam Kahlil (New Red Order) and Toby Lee (NYU) as part of the Series Visual Truth Regimes, organized by Laliv Melamed (Goethe University Frankfurt, Normative Orders), Felix Trautmann (Institut für Sozialforschung; HBK Braunschweig) and Franziska Wildt (Institut für Sozialforschung).

more information ›
Event
25./26.06.2026 | Frankfurt

Shifting Regimes, Changing Orders

Conference

Conference as part of WDC2026 in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Designtheorie und -forschung (DGTF), Kunstgewerbemuseum/Design Campus SKD and Design and Democracy

more information ›
Event
28./29.05.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Global Health Justice: Principles and Practice

Conference

Following the research focus of the Global Health Justice Postdoctoral Programme, funded by Höppsche Stiftung, the "Global Health Justice: Principles and Practice" conference places a particular emphasis on themes such as the human right to health, political activism and health justice issues, and problems of structural injustice and vulnerable populations in health care. Keynote lectures by Jonathan Wolff and Kanchana Mahadevan. The Global Health Justice Programme and this conference are supported by the Höppsche Stiftung in Villmar.

more information ›
Event
14.07.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Democracy Over Time and the Climate Crisis

Lecture Series

Vortrag von Anja Karnein (Binghamton). Die Vortragsreihe untersucht Fragen der Klimakrise als Herausforderungen für demokratische Gesellschaften und konzentriert sich auf Themen wie politische Legitimität, Widerstand gegen fossile Brennstoffe und die Interessen künftiger Generationen. Sie wird organisiert von Prof. Dr. Darrel Moellendorf und Dr. Lukas Sparenborg.

more information ›
Event
10.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Capital Investment, Inequality, and State Power in a Time of Climate Emergency

Lecture, Lecture Series

The lecture series examines questions of the climate crisis as challenges for democratic
societies and focuses on issues of political legitimacy, fossil fuel resistance, and the interests
of future generations.

more information ›
Event
13.05.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Failed States and Cloudy skies: Tipping Points, Overshoot and Permanent Emergency, after America

Lecture Series

The lecture series examines questions of the climate crisis as challenges for democratic
societies and focuses on issues of political legitimacy, fossil fuel resistance, and the interests
of future generations.

more information ›