Laurence Davis

Dr. Laurence Davis is a critical political theorist lecturing in the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork. His primary research and teaching interests are in radical political thought and imagination, with an emphasis on bringing the perspectives of the Humanities to bear on the multiple and interlocking global crises of our time.

A common thread linking much of his research is a focus on the political uses of utopian thinking and imagination. He is recognized internationally as one of the leading scholars in this field. He has published in leading specialist outlets in his areas of expertise, including the peer-reviewed international academic journals Political Studies, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, European Journal of Social Theory, Utopian Studies, Anarchist Studies, Theory in Action, and the Journal of Contemporary Thought. He has also presented over 100 papers at major international academic conferences, and numerous keynote addresses and invited lectures. Dr. Davis has been appointed to Visiting Fellowships at Mansfield and St. Antony’s Colleges, University of Oxford, and the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) and Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. He is a Series Editor of the Manchester University Press Contemporary Anarchist Studies book series, member of the Editorial Board of the journal Utopian Studies, and a founding member and current Co-Convenor of the U.K. Anarchist Studies Network, a specialist group of the UK Political Studies Association. He is currently a PI of the UCC Sustainability Institute,  Deputy Director and Member of the Executive of the University’s Future Humanities Institute, Research Associate of ISS21, and Co-Convenor of the UCC Eco-Humanities Research Group.

Dr. Davis is an innovative and award-winning educator, and all his teaching is research-led. In 2025, he was awarded the Teaching and Learning Prize of the Political Studies Association of Ireland. He is currently Director of the Department's MSc in International Public Policy and Diplomacy. Dr. Davis welcomes PhD students in any area of radical political thought, including radical democratic theory, utopian and anarchist studies, and contemporary ecological and anti-capitalist politics. 

Throughout his career Dr. Davis has taken a strong interest in equality and social justice. At University College Cork he has been a leader and role model in the areas of EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion), in recognition of which he was awarded the university's Frank McGrath Perpetual Award for Equality and Welfare in its 2021 Staff Recognition Awards.

Dr. Davis earned his B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University in New York, and his D.Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford. 

Dr. Davis's key research outputs have advanced the frontiers of the multidisciplinary field of utopian studies both by elucidating its political dimensions and by calling into question some of its fundamental philosophical presuppositions. Whereas many defenders and critics of utopianism alike have tended to conceive of utopia primarily as a transcendent and fixed 'ought' opposed to the 'is' of political reality and the 'was' of social history, he has argued in a wide range of journal articles and books that it may also be understood as an empirically grounded, dynamic and open-ended feature of the 'real world' of history and politics representing the hopes and dreams of those consigned to its margins.

In 2005, for example, he and Prof. Peter Stillman (Vassar College, USA) published the first collection of original essays devoted to the new utopian politics of Ursula K. Le Guin's multiple award-winning anarchist utopian novel The Dispossessed (1974). His own contribution argued that the novel is an achieved example of something that many defenders and critics of utopia alike have difficulty even imagining: namely, a genuinely dynamic and revolutionary utopia premised on an acceptance of the enduring reality of social conflict and historical change. More recently, he collaborated with Prof. Ruth Kinna (Loughborough University, UK) to assemble the first collection of original essays to explore the relationship between the anarchist and utopian traditions, focusing especially on the ways in which their long historical interaction from the Warring States epoch of ancient China to the present time has proven fruitful for emancipatory politics. Among the most notable findings of this wide-ranging analysis of ideas, literary texts, social movements, and communal experiments is that in stark contrast to the rationally fixed and transcendent utopias associated with escapism and/or domination, nearly all of the anarchist or anarchistic utopias examined are focused first and foremost on transforming the present as part of an organic process in which already existing historical tendencies are nurtured and built upon. Most of them call into question modern conceptions of progress, and recall the organic communities of the premodern past and the dissident present in order to inspire and inform contemporary libertarian struggles for a more humane future. They affirm the reality and worth of those natural and cultural forces that are the devalued and rejected 'other' of civilized domination, and in their nonliterary forms frequently exemplify a 'prefigurative' form of direct action politics demonstrating that libertarian utopias are not only eminently desirable but also immediately realizable.

Drawing on this and related research, including contemporary ecological, anti-capitalist, indigenous, degrowth, feminist, queer, and post-colonial perspectives, Dr. Davis is currently completing a research project (including a scholarly book manuscript, journal articles, and a series of book chapters) on the theme of 'Grounded Utopianism', emphasizing especially the differences between utopias associated with the imagination of and/or quest for perfection in some impossible future (transcendent utopia), and those associated with the encouragement of greater imaginative awareness of neglected or suppressed possibilities for qualitatively better forms of living latent in the present (grounded utopia). 

Dr. Davis teaches across the full spectrum of the Department's undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, leading modules at first, second, third, fourth year and MA/MSc levels, supervising postgraduate and undergraduate dissertations and work placement students, and formerly (2020-22) directing the Department's flagship BSc Government and Political Science programme. He is currently Director of the Department's MSc in International Public Policy and Diplomacy. His chief teaching interests are in political theory and ideologies, democratic politics, contemporary ecological and anti-capitalist politics, and the politics of systemic social change. He also convenes and delivers the Department's  modules on government and politics in the USA, and the politics  of science and technology. Having previously taught politics at Oxford University, Ruskin College, the Stanford University Centre in Oxford, University College Dublin, the National University of Ireland Galway, and the National University of Ireland Maynooth, Dr. Davis has extensive experience over many years of teaching, assessment, counselling, research supervision, administration, module/course leadership, and course and curriculum development. He has a strong and longstanding interest in adult education, and in employing the tools of education to overcome social marginality.

Dr. Davis formerly served as Director of the Department's PhD programme (2015-18). He welcomes applications from prospective PhD students in any area of radical political thought. Proposals focusing on utopian studies, anarchist studies, indigenous politics, contemporary ecological and anti-capitalist politics, democratic and revolutionary theory, feminist and queer theory, or the politics of love and radical/revolutionary transformation are especially welcome. So, too, are proposals that combine theory and practice, academic rigour and the insights of contemporary activism. More information about the PhD in Government and Politics programme, including application procedures and sources of financial support, may be found on the PhD page of the Government and Politics Department website. Informal queries are also welcome, and may be sent to Dr. Davis at [email protected].


Current teaching

2026-GV1204: Democracy, Ideology and Utopia
2026-GV3215: Politics of the United States of America
2026-GV3216: Contemporary Ecological and Anti-Capitalist Politics
2026-GV4409: Political Ideologies and Social Change
2026-GV6127: Re-Imagining Democratic Politics in a Changing World

Hutchinson, Ian, Doctoral Degree – Lead Supervisor

Biedowicz Michal Piotr, Doctoral Degree - Lead Supervisor

Mostafavi Fatemeh, Doctoral Degree - Lead Supervisor

Rose Michael Edward, Doctoral Degree - Co-Supervised