Democratic Sovereignty and Brexit: A Conversation with Richard Tuck on Political Theory and Practice

ABSTRACT

Richard Tuck is a prominent political theorist and historian of political thought who conducts wide-ranging studies on texts and authors ancient and modern, across disciplines and traditions. A thinker by training and teacher by profession, Tuck has not refrained from intervening in political discourses of our day, such as the question of Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. This conversation with Tuck on political theory and its implication for democratic practice and international politics is conducted by Hansong Li on April 9, 2018 at the University of Cambridge.

KEYWORDS:

• Political theory
• history of political thought
• Brexit
• European Union

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Richard Tuck is the Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government at Harvard University, an Honorary Fellow at Jesus College at the University of Cambridge, Fellow of the British Academy and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the author of such influential works as Natural Rights Theories (1979), Hobbes (1989), Philosophy and Government (1993), Rights of War and Peace: Political Thought and the International Order from Grotius to Kant (1999), Free Riding (2008) and most recently, The Sleeping Sovereign (2016).

Hansong Li received his B.A. in History, Fundamentals: Issues and Texts from the University of Chicago, and M.Phil. in Political Thought and Intellectual History from the University of Cambridge.