Dr Alexandre Christoyannopoulos

PhD (University of Kent)

Pronouns: He/him
  • Head of International Relations, Politics and History
  • Reader in Politics and International Relations

Alex is officially French, Greek, and now also British. He grew up in Brussels and has lived in England almost continuously since 1997. He therefore feels like a European foreigner everywhere.

He completed his academic studies at the University of Kent, covering disciplines such as Economics (BA), International Relations and European Studies (MA), and Politics and Government with some Theology and Religious Studies (PhD). He worked for both the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University prior to joining 天堂视频 in 2010.

His research and teaching interests include:

  • Pacifism and nonviolence (especially anarcho-pacifism);
  • Political theory and history of political thought (especially Leo Tolstoy's);
  • Anarchism (especially Christian/religious);
  • Critical security studies and critical terrorism studies;
  • Religion and politics.

He has a keen interest in pedagogical innovations and publishes top essays from his students on .

He is fluent in French and English, reasonably fluent in Greek, understands (even if he pretends not to) Spanish and Portuguese, and has studied (and hopes to continue trying to learn) Arabic.

Alex’s research interests include:

  • Pacifism and nonviolence (especially anarcho-pacifism);
  • Political theory and history of political thought (especially Leo Tolstoy's);
  • Anarchism (especially Christian/religious);
  • Critical security studies and critical terrorism studies;
  • Religion and politics.

Feel free to contact him to discuss potential research projects and research supervision on any of these themes.

Many of his academic publications are openly/freely accessible online. He keeps a thematic list of his publications .

Alex has taught on numerous different modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. . At 天堂视频, he has taught and either developed or significantly redeveloped final year modules including on ‘’ and ‘’, postgraduate modules including ‘Protest and Resistance’, ‘International Politics: Issues and Policies’, ‘Security in Global Politics’, and first year modules including ‘Contemporary World Arena’ and ‘Introduction to Academic Studies’.

Recent Postgraduate Research Students

  • Imogen Lambert (2023): “Towards the Possibility of Post-Secular Revolution: A Case Study in Syria”
  • Oscar Addis (2021) “The Revolutionary Strategy of Anarchism in Europe and the United States 1868-1939”.
  • Elizabeth Vasileva (2018) “Anarchism, Deleuze and Immanent Ethics
  • Teresa Fernandes Xavier (2017) “The Postanarchist, an activist in a ‘heterotopia’: building an ideal type” 
  • Will Boisseau (2016)  “The Place of Animal Rights in the British Extra-Parliamentary Left”
  • John Nightingale (2015) “The Concept of Solidarity in Anarchist Thought”

Tolstoy鈥檚 Political Thought

Christian Anarcho-Pacifist Iconoclasm Then and Now

London: Routledge, 2020

Christian Anarchism book cover

Christian Anarchism

A Political Commentary on the Gospel

Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2010

Anarchism and Religion book cover

Anarchism and Religion

Anarchism and Religion (2017)

Stockholm University Press 

Edited by: Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Matthew Adams

Anarchism and Religion: Volume II book cover

Anarchism and Religion: Volume II

Anarchism and Religion (2018)

Stockholm University Press 

Edited by: Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Matthew Adams

Anarchism and Religion: Volume III

Anarchism and Religion (2020)

Stockholm University Press 

Edited by: Alexandre Christoyannopoulos, Matthew Adams

  • "Mapping the landscape between pacifism and anarchism: frictions, rejoinders, and mutual resonances", British Journal of Politics and International Relations (2024) 1-23. DOI:   
  • "Pacifism and Nonviolence: Discerning the contours of an emerging multidisciplinary research agenda", Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence 1/1 (2023): 1-27. DOI:
  • "A Pacifist Critique of the Red Poppy: reflections on the militaristic drift of British war commemorations", Critical Military Studies 9/3 (2023): 324-345. DOI: . [Freely available .]
  • "An Anarcho-Pacifist Reading of International Relations: A normative critique of international politics from the confluence of pacifism and anarchism", International Studies Quarterly 66/4 (December 2022). [Freely available .]
  • Tolstoy's Political Thought: Christian Anarcho-Pacifist Iconoclasm Then and Now (Routledge, 2020). [Click for more information.]
  • "The Subversive Potential of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘Defamiliarisation’: A Case Study in Drawing on the Imagination to Denounce Violence". Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 22/5 (2019): 562-580, Special Issue: Political Violence and the Imagination, eds. Mihaela Mihai and Mathias Thaler. DOI: . [Freely available .]
  • "Anarchism and Religion", co-authored with Lara Apps, in Brill's Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy, edited by Nathan Jun (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 120-151. [Freely available .]
  • "Leo Tolstoy’s Anticlericalism in Its Context and Beyond: A Case against Churches and Clerics, Religious and Secular", Religions 7/5 (May 2016): 59. DOI: . [Freely available .]
  • Christian Anarchism: A Political Commentary on the Gospel (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2010). [Click for more information.]