Academic Staff: John Hobson

Professor John M. Hobson, B.A. (Herts), MSc. & Ph.D. (L.S.E)

Professor of Politics and International Relations

Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 1669
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 1717
Room: 1.32 Elmfield

Email: J.M.Hobson@sheffield.ac.uk

Profile

Professor Hobson gained his PhD from the LSE (1991), joined the Department in 2004 as Reader and is currently Professor of Politics and International Relations. Previously he taught at La Trobe University, Melbourne (1991–97) and the University of Sydney (1997–2004). His main research interest concerns the area of inter-civilisational relations and everyday political economy in the context of globalisation, past and present. His work is principally involved in carrying forward the critique of Eurocentrism in World History/Historical Sociology, and International Relations.

Teaching

His teaching speaks directly to his own research, especially his inter-disciplinary focus on IR/IPE and historical sociology, featuring both the theory and empirical practice of the world economy and global system; something that is traced in long-run historical perspective through to the present. All three of his modules are based on a ‘pedagogical’ practice of ‘cumulative knowledge’, in which he begins with a range of key ideas that are then applied in different contexts as the module proceeds. This means that while students often find the first month challenging, by the second half they have understood the central theme that runs throughout. He enjoys teaching and seeks to make his seminars open and informal principally to encourage lively debate among students; something which should be fun for all concerned. He was pleased to have been awarded the faculty teaching prize for teaching excellence at the University of Sydney in 1999.

Research Interests

The critique of Eurocentrism: This forms the central theme of Professor Hobson’s work and forms the basis of 17 book chapters, 15 journal articles and 2 book monographs (2004, 2012).

Historiography of IR/IPE: Professor Hobson has just finished a 2012 volume on the historiography, and Eurocentric foundations of, IR and IPE. He is also finishing two articles on this theme in relation to IPE.

Historical Sociology of IR (HSIR): Professor Hobson continues his interest in HSIR though since about 2000 he has combined this with his critique of Eurocentrism, both in empirical accounts of the rise of the West and of the development of world politics/economics, as well as in IR/IPE theory.

Current Research

Professor Hobson is currently turning back to the critique of the empirical analysis of Eurocentric world history/IR in several inter-connected book-related projects.

Key Publications

• The Eurocentric Conception of World Politics: Western International Theory, 1760–2010 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
• The Eastern Origins of Western Civilisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); 392pp. 8th reprint in English (2009). Out in Arabic, Greek, Korean, Turkish, Chinese, Croatian, Spanish and Swedish.
• Historical Sociology of International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); 315pp. Co-edited with Stephen Hobden
• The State and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000): 258pp. Taiwanese edition, 2003
• The Wealth of States: a comparative sociology of international economic and political change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997 [Cambridge Studies in International Relations, No. 52]): 338pp
• States and Economic Development: A comparative historical analysis (Cambridge: Polity, 1995); 295pp. Co-authored with Linda Weiss. Turkish edition 1999, Korean edition 2001, Chinese edition 2009.

Click here for Professor Hobson's full list of publications.

PhD Supervision

He is keen to supervise promising research students in a range of areas including: Historical sociology of international relations, global political economy and especially civilisational analysis (East/West relations) in the context of the critique of Eurocentrism.

Areas of past supervision include:

• A social theory of the WTO (Jane Ford) Completed 2000
• The Social Sources of Financial Power (Prof. Len Seabrooke) Completed 2003
• State and Market in Korea (Shin Seung-hoon) Completed 2007
• Reconstructing NATO after the Cold War (Yuke Abe) Completed 2009
• Imperialism and the Globalisation of Production (John Smith) Completed 2010