Human, Social, and Political Sciences

Professor Jude Browne is the Head of the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and The Jessica and Peter Frankopan Director of the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies (on leave whilst HoD). She is a winner of the University of Cambridge Pilkington Prize and the inaugural winner of the Aaron Rapport Prize for excellence in teaching at Cambridge and she is Director of Studies for Human, Social and Political Sciences (Part II).

Jude Browne's research interests are focused on the concept of political responsibility, political theories of equality, feminist theory, lay governance, public interest, structural injustice, rights, and the impact of technology on society. Her most recent book is ‘Political Responsibility and Tech Governance’ published by Cambridge University Press (2025).

Professor Matei Candea's research interests include freedom of speech, animals and science, Corsica, methor and theory (comparison, fieldsites, tarde)

My research is on the historical development of political ideas and the political significance of their application in practice. It has covered the political thought of Locke, the aetiology and political consequences of revolutions, the politics of postcolonial Africa, political thinking across the world and over time, and most recently the dynamics of regime persistence and change across the globe over the last century and their prospective implications for the human future now that that is so obtrusively in jeopardy. For the last three decades it has focused particularly on the diffusion of democracy as a term, a range of hazily associated ideas, and the very diverse regime that have claimed and continue to claim to realise some version of those ideas, especially in China, Japan, Korea, South Asia, and, alas most recently, the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States too.  

My main works are The Political Thought of John Locke, Modern Revolutions, Western Political Theory in the Face of the Future, The Cunning of Unreason: Making Sense of Politics, and Setting the People Free: The Story of Democracy.

Double hermeneutic, duality of structure, structuration theory, third way

Research: Oral narratives, ritual, shamanism and religion; human - animal relations and ecological anthropology; kinship and the anthropology of architecture; cultural politics and indigenous movements; linguistic anthropology and Amerindian languages; Latin/South America; fieldwork in Colombian Amazonia.

Research: The interface between anthropological and ethical theory; religion and ritual, with special interest in Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, theoretical approaches to religion including cognitive psychology, and contemporary transformations in religions in Asia, including new forms of Buddhist self-formation.

Research: As an anthropologist and historian he has worked on England, Nepal, Japan and China. He has focused on a comparative study of the origins and nature of the modern world.

Research: Anthropology of India and South Asia

Jason Sharman is the Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge. He received his PhD in political science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1999, and his undergraduate degree in history and politics from the University of Western Australia. 

Previously, Sharman worked at American University in Bulgaria, the University of Sydney and Griffith University, and he has spent shorter periods as a visitor at St Petersburg State University, Columbia University and the London School of Economics.

Sharman’s research is divided into two main streams. The first is focused on the global regulation of money laundering, corruption and tax havens. The second deals with the international relations of the early modern world and the historical evolution of the international system. Aside from his academic research, Sharman has worked as a consultant with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Financial Action Task Force, Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering and with a variety of groups in the private sector.

Research 

Darin’s research focuses primarily on the practical purposes to which concepts of addiction, mental illness, and learning disability are applied in various historical and contemporary contexts. He is particularly interested in how these concepts figure in state sponsored campaigns of social welfare and social control, and in what their uses reveal about how and why people distinguish the social and natural forces held to govern human behaviour. Beyond these specific research interests, Darin is also more broadly interested in social theory, the sociology of science, sociology of health and illness, and qualitative research methodologies.

Recent publications

Weinberg, Darin. 2024. On Addiction: Insights from History, Ethnography and Critical Theory. Durham, NC: Duke University Press

Bell, Ann V., Annemarie Jutel, Darin Weinberg and Jessica Young, eds. 2024. The Sociology of Diagnosis. Chichester, UK: Wiley