My recent research has focussed on the cultural factors (e.g., narrative, coding, symbolisation, myth, ritual, performance, etc.) that shape political life. I have investigated this through analysis of historical and contemporary case studies including university campus feuds, the Black Consciousness Movement in apartheid South Africa, the apparent recent global upsurge of political ‘populism’, the 2017 UK General Election, and recent governmental responses to the Covid-19 crisis.

I am also interested in social theory, the sociology of intellectuals, the role of humanism in the social sciences, and the sociology of social movements.