The Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD), established in 1989, is based in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Westminster. At the Centre, academics working in politics and international relations undertake socially engaged, methodologically diverse and often interdisciplinary research that aims to address a range of critical political challenges in relation to democracy worldwide.
CSD has a longstanding international reputation for research excellence through a programme of publications, events and collaborations with academics, practitioners, policymakers, and activists. Research in Politics and International Studies at CSD was ranked fourth highest in the UK for impact in the Research Excellence Framework 2021.
The Centre has established numerous collaborations with scholars and universities around the world and has hosted encounters with public intellectuals including Luc Boltanski, Judith Butler, Stuart Hall, Bruno Latour, Richard Rorty, Quentin Skinner, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Charles Taylor, James Tully, and Michael Walzer. The CR Parekh lecture, instituted by Lord Bhikhu Parekh, has included lectures by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arundhati Roy, and Ashis Nandy.
CSD recognises that responding to contemporary social and political challenges requires engagement beyond the academy, so actively welcomes dialogue and collaboration with researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and activists around the world.
Contact us:
- Professor Nitasha Kaul (CSD Director) at [email protected]
- Dr Dan Greenwood (CSD Deputy Director and website editor) at [email protected]
Our research themes
- contemporary democratic theory and practice
- critical International relations theory and practice
- energy security, energy transitions, political economy of resources
- governance, public policy, neoliberalism, complexity, anthropocene
- politics of identity, gender, misogyny, race, sexuality, technology
- postcolonial politics, nationalism, small states, Asian geopolitics
- states, security, development, rights, diplomacy, violence
Impact
CSD is highly motivated to ensure that its research has social and political impact beyond academia. Resources, support and training is provided to colleagues to ensure that such impact is maximised. CSD has a long tradition of engaging directly with practitioners and policy makers in government and civil society settings, working with the media (both novel and traditional) and exploiting other opportunities to make research relevant to policy and practice.
Our success in realising impact is acknowledged in the 2021 Research Evaluation Framework, where the majority of impact activities across criminology, international relations, politics and sociology are recognised as “world leading”.
Find out more about our impact work.