Research
My research areas fall broadly within the history of political thought, and specifically in 17th, 18th, and 19th century theories of popular sovereignty, as well as German Idealism. I am especially interested in the vexed struggle for recognition, both for equality and superiority, in modernity. I ask: how can we balance (and take advantage of), on the one hand, inequalities in esteem and power with, on the other, each citizen's equal right to co-create their community. I am motivated to articulate the kinds of political institutions necessary for achieving shared, satisfying, and secure forms of recognition.
Works in Progress
'Tame the Pride of the Nobility': Socio-economic Sources of Machiavelli's Desire to Dominate
Where I show that: elite ambition is the primary political problem, and that the distinction between elites and people is not a natural, given fact, but the outcome of one's socio-economic position.
'Children of Pride': Satisfying Glory through Equality in Leviathan
'Children of Adam': Amour-propre in Rousseau's Constitutions
Although glory--the joy of contemplating one's power--is the key cause of violence, its satisfaction, through relations of equality, is also central to how Hobbes establishes and maintains peace in Leviathan.
Here I argue that, although amour-propre is the source of inequality and domination, it is also crucial to the support of institutions for collective freedom. In his relatively neglected constitutional projects, Rousseau cultivates amour-propre in this productive way, without transforming it wholly into amour de la patrie.