Dr Ben Whitham

Ben Whitham is a Lecturer in International Relations, in the Department of Politics and International Studies at SOAS. His research explores the global politics of inequality and insecurity. Specifically, Ben's recent research has focused on the centrality of Islamophobic political discourse to the production of early twenty-first century social and economic order in the UK and the wider 'West', the rise of a new far right, and the 'cultural politics of crisis'. Ben's peer-reviewed research has been published in journals including Security Dialogue and International Political Sociology, has been cited by parliamentarians, and formed the basis for a REF Impact Case Study. He is currently researching the libidinal economies of gendered Islamophobia, and the cultural politics of crisis in Western liberal democracies.

Ben is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), and holds a Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. In 2019, he won the Political Studies Association’s national teaching award, the Bernard Crick Prize for Outstanding Teaching, in recognition of his efforts at decolonising the curriculum in international theory and developing more inclusive learning and teaching practices, including a popular staff-student anti-racist reading group. Ben is also the author (with Andrew Heywood) of a new Third Edition of the popular textbook Global Politics (Bloomsbury, 2023).

At SOAS Ben convenes the postgraduate modules in International Theory and Foreign Policy Analysis, is a co-convenor of the undergraduate Final Year Project, and convenes the MSc International Politics.

Beyond academia, Ben has worked as a policy researcher (at Citizens Advice), an NGO director (at the Nuclear Information Service), and a community organiser (at the Leicester People’s University). He currently contributes research-informed policy advice to the Community Policy Forum.