Dr Mark Wenman

Associate Professor in Political Theory
Director of Education for the College of Social Sciences

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 414 6520
Email: m.wenman@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Government
Muirhead Tower
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Mark Wenman joined POLSIS in January 2016. His previous post was at the University of Nottingham, where he taught political theory for over ten years, and where he was also Warden of Derby, Lincoln, and Sherwood Halls. Mark was educated at Christ’s Hospital, the University of Westminster, Birkbeck Colleague, and he completed his PhD in the Ideology and Discourse Analysis programme at the University of Essex in 2005. During this period, he had the good fortune to have been taught by a number of leading political theorists, including John Keane, Paul Hirst, Ernesto Laclau, Aletta Norval and David Howarth.

Mark's area of expertise is contemporary political theory, and at Nottingham he was a founding member, and later Director, of CONCEPT. Mark's monograph - entitled Agonistic Democracy: constituent power in the era of globalisation - was published with Cambridge in 2013.

Qualifications

PhD Politics, 2005 (Essex)
MSc Politics and Sociology, 1996 (London)
BA Social Science, 1995 (Westminster)

Teaching

POLS G63H - Democracy, Power and Citizenship

Postgraduate supervision

Mark is an experienced PhD supervisor, and has seen numerous students through to completion.

Mark is keen to take on new students, with projects that correspond broadly with his research interests.

Research

Research interests

Continental philosophy; contemporary political theory; the philosophy of the social sciences; the history of political thought.

Specifically – twentieth and twenty first century theories of democracy; theories of political pluralism; post-structuralism; agonistic democracy; the work of Hannah Arendt; critical cosmopolitanism.

Recent Projects

Until recently, the focal point of Mark’s work has been the notion of ‘agonistic democracy’. This has been elaborated in a series of papers published in leading academic journals and culminating in the publication of Agonistic Democracy: constituent power in the era of globalisation, published with Cambridge University Press in 2013.

This book delivers the first systematic account of agonistic democracy, as well as an assessment of the leading contemporary theorists of agonism: William Connolly, James Tully, Chantal Mouffe and Bonnie Honig. The contemporary theorists are evaluated through a critical framework that is derived primarily from Hannah Arendt, and with particular reference to her conceptions of revolution and augmentation, as well as her unique understanding of political judgement.

Current projects

In his current research, Mark is developing the notion of ‘militant cosmopolitanism’. This is motivated in part by a critique of the prevailing liberal theories of cosmopolitanism (Kantian style theories of ‘justice beyond borders’ etc.), but this project is also constructive, and seeks to develop an alternative, more radical mode of cosmopolitanism; one that can respond in a more resolute fashion to the overlapping crises associated with neo-liberalism.

The project considers a wide range of issues associated with neo-liberal globalisation, especially – increasing global inequality, (post) political disenchantment, bio-politics, and the resurgence of religion.

The research invokes theoretical reference points from across contemporary political theory, and the history of political thought, and works through a cluster of conceptual issues including: how to rethink cosmopolitanism, world citizenship, and universalism in light of a theory of reflective judgement.

Other activities

From January 2019

Mark is Head of Education in the School of Government

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Wenman, M 2013, Agonistic Democracy. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511777158

Article

Wenman, M & Khan, G 2017, 'Introduction: The Politics of Poststructuralism Today', Political Studies Review, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 513.

Wenman, M 2017, 'Much ado about ‘nothing’: evaluating three immanent critiques of post-structuralism', Political Studies Review, vol. 15, no. 4, pp. 564-576. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929917712934

Wenman, M 2015, 'William E. Connolly: Resuming the pluralist tradition in American political science', Political Theory, vol. 43, no. 1, pp. 54-79. https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591713507932

Wenman, M 2014, 'On the risk and opportunity in the Mouffean encounter with Carl Schmitt', Parallax , vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 88-99. https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2014.896554

Wenman, M 2008, 'Agonism, Pluralism and Contemporary Capitalism: an Interview with William E. Connolly', Contemporary Political Theory, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 200.

Wenman, M 2008, 'Militant Universalism or Radical Liberal Democracy?', Journal of Political Power, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 801.

Wenman, M 2008, 'On the young Hirst: A rejoinder to Jason Edwards and Kelvin Knight', Political Studies, vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 964-969. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2008.00766.x

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Wenman, M 2024, Reconstructing Pluralism and Populism: not "opposites" but a more complex configuration. in G Ballacci & R Goodman (eds), Populism, Demagoguery, and Rhetoric in Historical Perspective. 1 edn, Oxford University Press, pp. 268-298. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197650974.003.0011

Wenman, M 2018, Post-structuralism. in D Marsh, G Stoker & V Lowndes (eds), Theory and Methods in Political Science. 4 edn, Palgrave Macmillan.

Wenman, M 2015, Cosmopolitanism Without Bannisters: agonism, humanism, and world disclosure. in T Caraus & E Paris (eds), Re-Grounding Cosmopolitanism: Towards a Post-Foundational Cosmopolitanism. 1 edn, Taylor & Francis, pp. 29-45. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315691534

Wenman, M 2014, Secularism, Agonism, and the Politics of Conviction. in B Black, G Hyman & G Smith (eds), Confronting Secularism in Europe and India: legitimacy and disenchantment in contemporary times. Bloomsbury.

Wenman, M 2012, Pluralism, Capitalism and the Fragility of Things. in G Browning, R Prokhovnik & M Dimova-Cookson (eds), Dialogues with Contemporary Political Theorists.. Palgrave Macmillan.

Wenman, M 2009, Hegemony and Globalist Strategy. in A Little & M Lloyd (eds), The Politics of Radical Democracy. Edinburgh University Press.

Chapter

Wenman, M 2014, Mouffe, Chantal. in The Encyclopaedia of Political Thought. Wiley-Blackwell.

View all publications in research portal