One of Cambridge’s leading political theorists, Professor Michael Kenny, will deliver our evening lecture titled Are we living through the "break-up of Britain"?

Michael Kenny (Christ’s ’83) is one of the UK’s foremost political thinkers. His research interests are primarily in the fields of modern political thought, political ideologies and the role of ideas in public policy. He has also published work on the position of intellectuals in Britain; the history of political science in Anglo-America; the politics of nationhood in the UK; political reform; and the use of the ideas of civil society in international politics. In 2021 he was elected a Fellow of the UK’s Academy of the Social Sciences.

His most recent publication (published this year) is

•    Fractured Union - Politics, Sovereignty and the Fight to Save the UK

He has authored several other books on political and social themes, including

• Governing England (Proceedings of the British Academy, 2018) (with I.McLean and A.Paun (eds)) 
•  Shadows of Empire: the Anglosphere in British Politics(2018)(with N.Pearce) 
• The Politics of English Nationhood (2014); (winner of the UK Political Studies Association’s ‘Mackenzie’ prize for best book in political studies)  
•  The Oxford Handbook of British Politics (2009) (with M.Flinders, A.Gamble, & C.Hay eds)                                                                                                                                                                   
•  The Politics of Identity: Liberal Political Theory and the Dilemmas of ‘Difference’ (2004)
•  Rethinking British Decline (1999)(with R.English)      
• The First New Left in Britain, 1956-64: British Intellectuals after Stalin (1995)                          

 Michael Kenny’s earlier appointments have included

• Professor of Politics in the School of Politics & International Relations,  Queen Mary University of London and Inaugural Director of the Mile End Institute
• Head of the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield
• Lecturer in Politics, Queen’s University, Belfast
• 2015-2018, Co-Director of the British Academy’s “Governing England” programme
• 2010-2018 Member of the Advisory Committee of the Leverhulme Trust

Currently, he is also a visiting Fellow at the UCL Constitution Unit ; a member of the advisory board of the Constitution Society; a member of scientific advisory panel for the ‘Behaviour Change by Design’ project funded by the Wellcome Trust; a member of the Management Board of the Centre for Sustainable Leadership; and a senior advisor to ‘The Science of Global Risk’ project funded by the Templeton Foundation.