Richard Shorten is a political theorist who specialises in the history of political ideas, with particular reference to twentieth-century Europe. His most substantive work to date has been on totalitarianism. On that topic he is author of a book and a range of journal articles, as well as a set of other pieces of various kinds. In the future he plans to research and write on the political thought of the Cold War.
Richard has been Lecturer in Political Theory in the department since January 2007. In this capacity his teaching at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels covers political thought since the time of the Enlightenment.
Before joining the department he worked as a researcher within the Centre for Political Ideologies at the University of Oxford. Since that time, an area of research beyond the field of the history of political ideas has been political language and rhetoric.
He is Reviews Editor of the European Journal of Political Theory and is an active member of the Political Theory Research Group at Birmingham.
Shorten, R. (2012) Modernism and Totalitarianism: Rethinking the Intellectual Sources of Nazism and Stalinism, 1945 to the Present, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Shorten, R. (2011) ‘The Rhetoric of Moral Equivalence’ in Bruce Haddock, Peri Roberts and Peter Sutch, eds. Evil in Contemporary Political Theory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 177-203.
Shorten, R. (2011) ‘Towards a political rhetoric of wrongdoing: the case of moral equivalence’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 16/2, pp. 195-219
Shorten, R. (2010) ‘Political Theology, Political Religion and Secularisation’, Political Studies Review, 8/2, pp. 180-191
Shorten, R. (2009) ‘The Failure of Political Argument: The Languages of Anti-Fascism and Anti-Totalitarianism in Post-September 11th Discourse’, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 11/3, pp. 479-503
Shorten, R. (2008) ‘Totalitarianism’ in Vincent N. Parrillo, ed. Encyclopedia of Social Problems. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, Vol. 2., pp. 946-7
Shorten, R. (2007) ‘Hannah Arendt on Totalitarianism: Moral Equivalence and Degrees of Evil in Modern Political Violence’ in Richard H. King and Dan Stone, eds. Hannah Arendt and the Uses of History: Imperialism, Nation, Race and Genocide. New York: Berghahn, pp. 173-190
Shorten, R. (2007) ‘The Status of Ideology in the Return of Political Religion Theory’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 12/2, pp. 163-187
Shorten, R. (2006) ‘The Ambiguities of Antecedents and Legacies: Political Ideas and Political Extremes in the Twentieth Century’, European History Quarterly, 36/4, pp. 574-585.
Shorten, R. (2004) ‘Europe’s Twentieth Century in Retrospect? A Cautious Note on the Furet/Nolte Debate’, The European Legacy, 9/3, pp. 285-304
Shorten, R. (2003) ‘The Enlightenment, Communism and Political Religion: Reflections on a Misleading Trajectory’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 8/1, pp. 13-37. Reprinted in Bryan Turner, ed. (2010) Secularization. London: Sage, Vol. 1., pp. 201-228.
Shorten, R. (2002) ‘François Furet and Totalitarianism: A Recent Intervention in the Misuse of a Notion’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 3/1, pp. 1-34.