Martin Shaw (professor)

Martin Shaw (born at Driffield, Yorkshire, on June 30, 1947) has been professor of international relations and politics at the University of Sussex since 1995. Best known for his sociological work on war, genocide and global politics, his work has also had a consistent political content.

In his Marxist period in the 1970s, Shaw published "Marxism versus Sociology: A Guide to Reading" (1974) and "Marxism and Social Science: The Roots of Social Science" (1975). However he developed a critique of Marxism, which he saw as incapable of fully analysing the problem of war, as he argued in "Socialism and Militarism "(1981). He pioneered a new sociology of war and militarism, in his edited volume, "War, State and Society" (1984), and in "Dialectics of War" (1988). In the 1990s he published two studies in this area: "Post-Military Society" (1991) and "Civil Society and Media in Global Crises" (1996), a study of British responses to the 1991 Gulf War.

Shaw also entered debates in International Relations, with his co-edited book "State and Society in International Relations" (1991) and his books "Global Society and International Relations" (1994) and "Theory of the Global State: Globality as Unfinished Revolution" (2000). He founded The Global Site (2000), a portal for critical writing on global politics, culture and society, which also became a significant forum for academic debate after 9/11.

Shaw's research has recently returned to questions of war, now extended into the field of genocide, with three books: "War and Genocide" (2003), "The New Western Way of War: Risk-Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq" (2005) and "What is Genocide?" (2007).

Shaw was appointed a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Durham (1970-72) and was Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader in Sociology at the University of Hull (1972-94) before becoming Professor of International and Political Sociology (1994). The following year moved to his present Chair at Sussex. He was a Leverhulme Fellow in 2000 and an ESRC Research Fellow in 2004 and 2005.

Educated at Catholic grammar schools in Northern England (his parents had converted to Catholicism), Shaw studied Sociology at the London School of Economics, graduating in 1968. He was a member of the editorial board of the Catholic left-wing journal, "Slant" (1965-67), for which his first articles were written, but left the Catholic Church in 1967.

A member of the British Labour Party from his schooldays (1963-66), as a student Shaw was heavily involved in politics. In 1966 he joined the LSE Socialist Society and was involved in the student and anti-Vietnam War movements, joining International Socialism (IS), a British revolutionary socialist group (1966). He was a vice-president of the LSE Students Union (1968-69) and a member of the national committee of IS (1968-73). At the beginning of 1977 he left the International Socialists, and wrote a critical history, 'The Making of a Party?', in "Socialist Register" 1978. He briefly instigated an attempt to regroup dissident former members of IS, the International Socialist Alliance (1977-78) and was one of the leaders of Socialist Unity, which stood candidates in the British General Election of 1979.

After this election brought Margaret Thatcher to power, Shaw rejoined the Labour Party (1979), of which he remains a member. He stood unsuccessfully as Labour candidate for Beverley at the 1987 General Election. He was active in European Nuclear Disarmament (1980-85) and a member of its national committee, as well as in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. He criticised what he saw as the passivity of the political left in the face of the genocidal wars in Bosnia (1992-95) and Kosovo (1998-99). He has recently continued his political commentary in writings for Open Democracy.

External links

* [http://www.martinshaw.org Shaw's personal website]
* [http://www.sussex.ac.uk/ir/profile24365.html Shaw's University of Sussex profile]
* [http://www.theglobalsite.ac.uk The Global Site]
* [http://martinspolitics.blogspot.com Shaw's blog]
* [http://www.theory-talks.org/2008/04/theory-talk-2.html Interview with Martin Shaw by Theory Talks (18-04-2008)]