top of page

I'm a political theorist and historian of political thought. I work on 18th-21st century debates about democracy, public opinion, propaganda, and liberalism. 

My research interests include elite accountability, the impact of technological changes on ideas of political participation, the relationship between means of communication and political emotions, and the invention of traditions.

My first monograph, The People's Two Powers: Public Opinion and Popular Sovereignty from Rousseau to Liberal Democracy (Cambridge, 2026) revisits the emergence of democracy during the French Revolution, examines how French liberalism took shape in reaction to that emergence, and sheds light on the invention and posterity of the idea of "liberal democracy." 

I'm currently working on two book projects. The first, Democracy and Propaganda: A Historyexamines, from a transnational perspective, (Russia, Europe, and the US, including Black political thought), how propaganda was re-conceptualized over the 20th century—from a legitimate tool of mobilization to a threat to the public sphere.

 

The second book project, Politics Without Presence, explores how new technologies shaped European political theorists' arguments against participation through assemblies from the 18th to the 20th century and the alternatives they envisioned. 

 

In 2024, I joined the Centre de Théorie Politique at the Université Libre de Bruxelles as an FNRS chargé de recherches. Previously, I held a British Academy fellowship at King's College London, taught at Brown and Yale, and earned my PhD from the University of Cambridge. 

201014_PTP_Portraits_Arthur_Ghins_26_edi
bottom of page