Adrienne Roberts is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester and Director of the University of Manchester’s Political Economy Centre. She specializes in feminist global political economy, with a particular focus on the gendered relations of finance, debt, development, and trade. 

Adrienne Roberts is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester and Director of the University of Manchester’s Political Economy Centre. She specializes in feminist global political economy, with a particular focus on the gendered relations of finance, debt, development, and trade. Current research projects include a  SSHRC-funded project on gender and global trade governance (with Erin Hannah and Silke Trommer) and a project on gender and public banks led by the SSHRC-funded Municipal Services Project. She has a broader interest in social reproduction theories and methodologies, and uses this as lens to understand financialization, fiscal policies, and financial governance at different sites and scales. She is also interested in questions of corporate power, including its manifestation via ‘transnational business feminism’, She has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals in the fields of International Political Economy, International Relations, Gender Studies and Development. Her most recent books are the Handbook of the International Political Economy of Gender (with Juanita Elias, Edward Elgar, 2018), Feminist Global Political Economies of the Everyday (with Juanita Elias, Routledge, 2018) and Gendered States of Punishment and Welfare (Routledge, 2017). She is co-editor of the journal New Political Economy and the Routledge/RIPE book series.  

I am interested in supervising PhD students in a range of areas, particularly in the area of feminist political economy. 

Current PhD Students:

• Ujan Natik, “Financialisation of caste in India: the case of West Bengal”. Co-supervised with Silke Trommer. Expected completion August 2026.
• Ish Tominey-Navarro, “Burnt out: health depletion and social reproduction crises in the NHS Workforce”. Co-supervised with Ian Bruff. Expected completion August 2026.
• Stanley Wiltshire, “Legitimising and Reigniting Speculative Accumulation: A Critical Political Economy of Financial Reform in the UK in Response to the Climate Crisis”. Co-supervised with Mat Paterson. Expected Completion August 2025.
• Aino Ursula Maki, “On the Biopolitics of Primitive Accumulation: Housewifisation in the Global Political Economy”. Co-supervised with Sherilyn Macgregor. Expected Completion August 2024.

Past PhD Students:

• Aliki Koutlou, “Utility Arrears, Household Indebtedness and Social Reproduction in Greece Under Austerity”. Co-supervised with Ian Bruff. Awarded July 2022.
• Blanca Merino Casallo, “What Shapes Politicians’ Propensity to Advocate for Gender Equality? An Analysis of Contributions to Gender Equality Policy Debates in Democratic Spain”. Co-supervised with Franscesa Gains. Awarded October 2022.
• Christian Scholz, “The Intensification of Political-Economic Restructuring in the EMU in Times of Crisis”. Co-supervised with Ian Bruff. Awarded February 2019.
• Simon Chin-Yee, “Africa and the Global Climate Change Regime: Kenyan National Policy”. Co-supervised with Carl Death. Awarded June 2018.
• Ilias Alami, “Post-Crisis Capital Account Policies in Emerging Capitalisms: Regaining policy space? A Comparison Between Brazil and South Africa”. Co-supervised with Stuart Shields. Awarded May 2018.
• Caroline Metz, “Why is the European Union Relaunching Asset-Securitisation? The politics of capital markets union and financial disintermediation”. Co-supervised with Ian Bruff. Awarded September 2018.