Ian Bruff

See my Google Scholar page for publications.

I have worked in the Politics department since 2013. I was the Managing Editor, for the whole of its existence from 2014-23, of the cross-disciplinary Transforming Capitalism book series published by Rowman & Littlefield International, and I am on the Editorial Board for the journal Art & the Public Sphere. Also, I was the Chair of the Critical Political Economy Research Network of the European Sociological Association from 2009-13, and am now on CPERN's International Advisory Board.

From 2010-15 I was on the Governing Board of the European International Studies Association, in the process acting as one of the two programme chairs for both the 2013 and 2015 EISA conferences. From 2012-14 I was the Chair of the Book Prize panel of judges for the International Political Economy Group of the British International Studies Association, and from 2011-15 I was part of the editorial team for the Routledge/RIPE Series in Global Political Economy.

My 2014 article 'The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism' was the subject of a day-long workshop in June 2024. Entitled 'The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism: Ten Years On', see here for the workshop Call and here for the programme.

My research is founded upon a core interest in the materialities and experiences of living in capitalism. From this I focus on a number of theoretical and empirical issues, such as:

- Neoliberal thought, especially the absence of free markets from it

- The rise of authoritarian neoliberalism, its variegated manifestations, and its contestation by various resistance movements

- Critical methodologies regarding comparison and phenomenologies of knowledge production

- Critical social theory, especially Antonio Gramsci/Stuart Hall and feminism

- European political economy, at a range of scales (EU, national, regional, etc.) 

- Literary theories regarding authoring, normative grammars, and techniques of production

- Politicising practices and art/culture/the body/pedagogy 

Doctoral supervision

Please note that I will not reply to emails containing PhD/Visiting Researcher applications which have little to do with my research interests or show little knowledge of/engagement with my work. 

I currently co-supervise 3 PhD students. Their projects cover shadow care infrastructures in migrant communities in Greater Manchester; depletion and social reproduction crises in UK healthcare; and solidarity economies in Greater Manchester. I have co-supervised to completion 10 PhD projects, on: the politics of labour reforms in neoliberalising Italy; utilities-based indebtedness in Greece; Corbynism, democracy and neoliberalism; the role of economic forums in promoting neoliberal development in India and Turkey; everyday life and questions of recognition and distinction in Turkey; the politics of labour in the Euro Area's strategies of competitiveness; the revival of financialised securitisation in the EU; the relationship between art and politics in the work of Alfredo Jaar; political education and civil society in Egypt; and power hierarchies and struggles within the WTO. Several of these have been co-supervised with a colleague from outside Politics; I welcome opportunities to be part of a cross-disciplinary supervisory team.

I would be delighted to supervise PhD students in the areas listed under the 'Research' heading of my profile and/or as indicated by my publications record. Moreover, I am happy to welcome doctoral researchers to Manchester as a Visiting Student. I have mentored 7 students up to now, whose projects concerned: authoritarian neoliberalism in Chile and Colombia; struggles over water in Ireland and Australia; the politics of organising labour at chokepoints in Brazil and Portugal; women's experiences of household indebtedness in Greece and Turkey; debates about neo-Gramscian theory; struggles over social reproduction and crisis in Spain; and neoliberalisation processes in Italy since the 1970s.