Alex Prichard is Professor of International Political Theory, and Director of Research for the Department of Social and Political Sciences, Philosophy and Anthropology.

 

Prichard is a leading authority in International Relations theory, with a particular interest in the history and development of IR theory, and anarchist approaches to it. In particular, Prichard has developed new ways of theorising the concept of anarchy in IR theory, and has done so through uncovering the history of anarchist approaches to global order. Through this work, Professor Prichard has also become a leading expert in the history of anarchist international and political thought. 

 

Since 2016, Prichard has been a co-investigator on a large project, led by Professor Ruth Kinna at Loughborough University, that sheds light on how anarchists constitutionalise. Far from an oxymoron, their research demonstrates that anarchists constitutionalise routinely, founding their constitutional experiments on a principle of anarchy. This research has been funded by the ESRC and the ISRF, and numerous other smaller grants. The reserach has appreared in a number of leading journals, edited collections, and books. Prichard and Kinna are currently finalising a manuscript that brings together all the findings of this project, which they hope to publish in 2025.

 

Professor Prichard also has a deep interest in the historical intersections between various anarchisms and marxisms, and has edited three collections on this topic. 

 

Prichard is Director of Research for SPSPA, and was the Director of Postgraduate Research for the College of Social Sciences and International Studies (2021-2022), and Director of Education for the Department of Politics between 2018-2020. He has been a UCU rep and caseworker since 2018, and was Predident of the University of Exeter UCU Branch between 2022-2023, and is branch co-chair 2024-2025.

 

In 2005 Prichard co-founded the PSA Anarchist Studies Network, and the Manchester University Press monograph series, Contemporary Anarchist Studies in 2012. Professor Prichard has been an Associate Editor of Anarchist Studies since 2010.

 

Prichard's publications are available here and at his Research Gate page. For an archive of Dr Prichard's research on anarchist constitutionalising, head to the Anarchy Rules website.

 

If you're after some audio, Michael Albert recently interviewd Alex Prichard on his work for his RevolutionZ podcasts, available here. And he and Professor Kinna explain anarchist constitutionalising here. An older interview on the theory and practice of anarchism, with Professor Saul Newman, on Australia's ABC Radio, can be found here. A podcast introduction to Professor Prichard's Very Short Introduction to anarchism can be found on SoundCloud. A longer interview on the topic with Morteza Hajizadeh and the New Books Network, can be found here.