Will Leggett

Will’s work analyses how governors and citizens adapt their political ideas and practices in the face of social change and shifting understandings of human behaviour. He is currently examining the political implications of increasingly individualised practices: these include attempts to shape citizens through ‘nudging’, or the adoption of mindfulness meditation or similar techniques. Will’s work is strongly theoretically driven, and he has developed a wide-ranging account of the society-politics relation in his most recent book, Politics and Social Theory: The Inescapably Social, The Irreducibly Political (Palgrave, 2017).

Will also has a longstanding research interest in progressive ideology and politics, social democracy and the British Labour Party. He has charted how centre-left modernisers developed and responded to narratives about social change (e.g. globalisation), and has offered critical alternatives across a range of publications including his After New Labour: Social Theory and Centre-Left Politics (2005, Palgrave Macmillan).