Dr Thomas Moore

Dr Thomas Moore

Dr Thomas Moore is Associate Head of College (Education and Students) in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. 

Previously he has been Director of Cross-Disciplinary Learning and Teaching (2016-2018) and Director of Learning and Teaching in Humanities and Social Sciences (2012-2016).

Dr Moore was awarded a University of Westminster Teaching Fellowship in 2017 for International Engagement and Student Experience.

He was educated in Scotland and Australia, with a PhD in Politics from the University of Edinburgh and a BA Honours (University Medal) in Government and Public Administration from the University of Sydney. 

Dr Moore's research explores the geopolitical and ethical dimensions of contemporary just war theory. With an increasing focus on theories of international security, recent publications have been concerned with the philosophical foundations of contemporary security debates and humanitarian claims within international discourse. 

Dr Moore is keen to supervise PhD students in the field of international political theory, including questions about the ethical dimensions of International Relations. Dr Moore is available to comment on ethical questions within international politics, including just war, the ethics of Brexit, and the politics of state violence.

My research is in the area of international political theory, examining the critical limits of International Relations theory through the work of Thomas Hobbes, Carl Schmitt and the realist tradition.

Past research has examined the contractual foundations of international security and discourses of exceptionalism within the work of Carl Schmitt. Current research is concerned with the geopolitical dimensions of just war theory and communicative justifications of violence in contemporary international politics.

I am available to supervise dissertations in the area of contemporary IR theory, critical political theory, and Carl Schmitt's legal and political theory.

I am currently supervisor on the following PhD projects within the Department of Politics and International Relations:

  • Christian Pfenninger, 'A complex web of capillary relations: modelling an ideal-type of the global demos along the lines of theoretical anarchism' (Director of Studies, Completed)
  • Marta Wielander, 'European border violence in the context of the contemporary 'refugee crisis' (Director of Studies) 
  • Richard Neve, 'States of Emergency: Between Legal Order and the Political' (Completed - with Professor Chantal Mouffe)
  • Paula Sandrin, 'European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy and the impact of Turkey: a Tale of divergent Security Cultures?' (Completed - with Professor Chantal Mouffe)
  • Daniel Matteo, 'International Legitimacy and Private Security Companies' (Completed - with Professor Roland Dannreuther)

  • Centre for the Study of Democracy