Academic Staff: Jonathan Joseph

Professor Jonathan Joseph, BA (Swansea), PhD (Southampton)

Professor

Telephone: +44 (0)114 222 1667
Fax: +44 (0)114 222 1717
Email: j.joseph@sheffield.ac.uk
Room: 2.04

Profile

Jonathan Joseph joined the Department in 2012. He previously spent eight years at the University of Kent and before that taught at Aberystwyth University. After studying Politics and English at Swansea he took a PhD in Philosophy at Southampton University on the topic of hegemony and critical realist philosophy. Since then he has developed an interest in the intersection of philosophy, social theory and international relations. His current work tries to examine this through the concepts of hegemony and governmentality.

Teaching

My teaching reflects my interest in the intersection of IR theory, social theory and metatheory. I have taught across a wide range of areas spanning IR theory, philosophy of social science, and political sociology. Most of my courses try to do two things – introduce classical approaches to the subject and explore new and critical ways of thinking, perhaps even challenging the boundaries of the disciplines and the ways of acquiring knowledge.

I am currently teaching POL3018 Advanced Political Analysis which is one of the core courses for students at Sheffield. This module introduces key concepts in the study of politics while also teaching important disciplinary and transferable skills. The teaching style used on this course combines a more formal lecture approach with interactive seminars, culminating in team-based poster presentations.

I am also in charge of POL6880 which is the Politics Research Training Workshop for PhD students. This workshop series offers practical, theoretical and methodological training for research students and combines subject-specific training sessions with student presentations.

Recent Invited Papers and Keynote Lectures

• Hegemony, governmentality and critical realism, Spectrum: Journal of Global Studies conference, Middle Eastern Technical University (METU), Ankara, November 2 2012.
• Governance and the construction of the social, The Social and the Political in Discourses of Statebuilding, University of Westminster, April 27, 2012.
• Putting Global Governance in its Place, Central European University Budapest, April 4, 2012.
• Governmentality and democracy promotion, Aberystwyth University, research seminar, February 3, 2012.
• Are the French Resilient? Resilience as Anglo-Saxon Governmentality, Queen Mary University, research seminar, November 23, 2011.
• Governmentality and Historical Materialism, University of Sussex, research seminar November 8, 2010.

Current Research

Jonathan Joseph is developing his work on the concept of governmentality by applying it to a range of areas such as security strategy, state-building and EU politics. He is particularly interested in how governmentality works in different contexts and whether it can explain international or global forms of governance.

He is also interested in the theoretical issue of how governmentality intersects with hegemony. Hegemony is seen as a broader and deeper context within which techniques of governmentality might operate. Again, he is interested in how these questions relate to international relations.

Current work projects also involve a study of resilience in EU and international policy making, particular in relation to security strategy, disaster relief and humanitarian aid. He is currently involved in a network bid focused on EU disaster intervention.

Key Publications

Books

• Joseph, J. The Social in the Global: Social Theory, Governmentality and Global Politics, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
• Joseph, J. and Wight, C. Scientific Realism and International Relations, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)
• Joseph, J. Marxism and Social Theory, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006)
• Dean, K., Joseph, J., Roberts, J. and Wight, C. Realism, Philosophy and Social Science, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2006)
• Joseph, J. Hegemony: A Realist analysis, (London: Routledge, 2002)

Journal articles

• Joseph, J. ‘The Limits of Governmentality: Social Theory and the International’, European Journal of International Relations, 16 (2), 2010: 223-246.

View Professor Joseph's full list of publications.

PhD Supervision

I am currently supervising PhDs on neoliberalism and devolution and IMF and economic crisis. In the past I have successfully supervised PhDs on topics like hegemony and postwar reconstruction, international public health governance, the discourse of EU identity and causality in international relations.

I am particularly interested in supervising research students in the areas of hegemony, governmentality, IR theory, metatheory and realist philosophy, Marxism, neoliberalism and global governance.