Professor Jason Ralph

Jason Ralph – University of Leeds

February 25, 2026

Jason Ralph is Professor of International Relations at the University of Leeds. His research brings together American philosophical pragmatism, constructivist and critical International Relations theory, ontological security studies, and English School approaches to international society, with a particular interest in diplomacy and foreign policy. His current research explores how these intellectual traditions might contribute to the recovery of a progressive response to global challenges in the aftermath of the liberal international order’s erosion. 

Profile

Professor Jason Ralph has taught International Relations at the University of Leeds since 1998. His principal teaching interests lie in International Relations Theory, alongside modules on United States foreign policy, the Responsibility to Protect, and Ethics and Law in the War on Terror. 

Periods of research leave have complemented this teaching, most notably a two-year Marie Curie Fellowship funded by the European Union (2014 – 2016). During this time, he collaborated with colleagues at the University of Queensland and was appointed Honorary Professor. 

In addition to teaching and research, he has held several senior leadership roles. From 2016 to 2019 he served as Head of the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Leeds, and from 2020 to 2024 as Co-Editor of the European Journal of International Security.  

He is currently Director of the MA International Relations programme and was nominated for the Leeds University Union 'Teacher of the Year' award in 2026. 

Teaching Philosophy

How would you describe your overarching philosophy or approach to teaching?
I have three objectives. The first is to help students get a good mark in the module. This might be unfashionable. I have heard a lot of complaints from colleagues about students who take an instrumental approach to their studies and do only what is necessary to get a qualification. But I think we are kidding ourselves as educators if we think that all our students have the same vocational commitment to the subject matter as academics do. Students choose to do IR for various reasons, and even end up doing IR because they were uncertain about what to study. Not all students want to be academics. But one thing all students have in common is that they want to do well in the module by getting a good grade. That's the starting point then.  

We as teachers should not dismiss the instrumental task of achieving good grades as somehow secondary to an education. If we do, we risk losing the student's attention. We have to meet the students where they are, not where we think they should be. For sure, our task goes beyond being instrumental about an education, but we will not take the student with us if we do not respect their immediate concern, which is to get a good grade. The module content and assessment should then be designed in a way that makes the student's task clear while simultaneously being challenging. It should still be difficult for the student to achieve academic excellence, but the point is this: how one achieves excellence should not be a mystery. 

The idea that we should meet the students where they are is something I came to appreciate with experience. But its importance was reinforced when I read John Dewey, in particular his thoughts on education. I confess, I was reading Dewey as part of my research into philosophical pragmatism and its version of social constructivism, which values social learning, rather than any formal teacher training course. Dewey's work has been central to my elaboration of the idea of 'pragmatic constructivism' as an International Relations theory. But what Dewey was saying about the learning process, and in particular the value of 'sympathy', also resonated with my teaching.  

There was little point, Dewey told us, in delivering the subject material as the endpoint of a good education if the teacher did not know the student's starting point; and that required an approach that deconstructed the hierarchy of the classroom. Teachers had to learn what the student's requirements and intentions were before they could actually teach the subject matter. 

Dewey also informed the next point, which is to take the student beyond an instrumental approach to the subject matter and to nurture a commitment to learning as a never-ending process. There are a number of quotations at the beginning of my book On Global Learning that illustrate this. The point of studying, Dewey tells us, is 'to learn how to learn'. We can again appreciate this better when we realise that most of our students will not be as engaged with the subject matter as we as academics are but they will be using that subject matter to cultivate the skills they will use in life after graduation. Here the learning experience is as crucial as the assessment grade. We want students to feel the reward of intense engagement not just because that helps them get a good grade but because that feeling nurtures the confidence to use the same skills in different life situations.    

The final point emerges from these two initial points, and again it has been reinforced by a Deweyan argument. Our task as educators is to help the student get a good grade by understanding the subject matter, and it is to nurture a lifelong love of learning by providing a good experience, but there is also a social purpose to education. This is to raise awareness of the contested nature of knowledge and the social challenge that poses. This is particularly relevant to the social sciences and humanities. That in no way diminishes the value of the natural sciences, nor does it mean the same kind of education is unavailable to students working in that area.  

The experiences that provide an understanding of 'the political' happen across campus and often outside of the classroom. But studying the politicised nature of knowledge is more generic to social sciences and in that sense I think our task is to make students aware of historical, social and political contingencies. In that awareness students can grasp the practical meaning of agency and - hopefully - the responsibilities that go with that. For Dewey education played a role in nurturing the critical skills and empathetic sentiments that facilitate what he called 'associated living'. I try to keep that in mind when teaching IR, because despite the current direction of global politics I remain committed to the idea that humanity can learn from its mistakes and overcome the suffering caused by unwarranted antagonism.        

What motivates you most about teaching in today's global context?
There are many global challenges to the lived experience that impinge on, and are informed by, international relations. Climate change, pandemics, wealth inequality, conflict, human rights and the continuing threat of nuclear atrocity all involve relations between communities that organise themselves as sovereign states. I am presently motivated by the fate of the so-called 'liberal international order' in light of the ongoing developments in President Trump's America. US national identity, and the Jeffersonian ideals of republican security theory, have never been far from my mind. This is probably a factor of the personal  growth I experienced working in the US as a student, as well as the subsequent commitment to devote a part of my studies to understanding US political history. Dan Deudney's book on Republican security theory Bounding Power had a significant influence on my thinking in this respect. 

It is against that backdrop then, that I think it is important to convey how radical this current moment is for the US and international relations. I suppose it has always been thus, but recent developments once again illustrate how students must be equipped with the skills to understand how their world is changing from the one that gave them the subject matter of the discipline. We must talk about the subject matter as a living and evolving organism and help students understand the processes of change. In that context, an education that encourages critical thinking and a commitment to sympathetic dialogue is crucial to maintaining the social cohesion of associated living.  

How do you introduce students to the complexity of your field without overwhelming them?
I think a combination of approaches to conveying and exploring an issue is necessary. The lecture is still necessary I think, as is a good textbook chapter. But that should be complemented with reading that is more challenging. I try to guide the students through the complexity of a debate by selecting three journal articles that offer different perspectives on the same question. I don't know why I rely on three. Perhaps it is the English School (i.e. Realist, Rationalist, Revolutionist) tendency to divide things that way. Perhaps in my experience it structures the hour-long seminar appropriately. I do not expect all students to read all three for the classroom discussion, but I do encourage them to do that in their own time.  

Instead I divide the class into three reading groups as a way of making sure we get contributions from different parts of the group and a sense that collectively the group is contributing to each other's learning. I've found there's pedagogic value here in matching the readings so that they 'bounce off' each other and thus begin to give the student the material for 'critical analysis'. So, for example, when we discuss liberalism and the liberal international order I task one group with telling us about Ikenberry's arguments, another Mearsheimer's and another Adler-Nissen and Zarakol's. 

• Group A
  John J. Mearsheimer Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order 

• Group B
  G. John Ikenberry The end of liberal international order? 

• Group C
  Rebecca Adler-Nissen and Ayşe Zarakol Struggles for Recognition: The Liberal International Order and the Merger of Its Discontents 

I then use the student contributions to 'map' the debate on the whiteboard (which is then sometimes photographed by the students). I've found there is additional pedagogic value in matching this to the lecture (which is always recorded) so that repetition breeds familiarity, but the main value is collectively working through the complexity of each reading to help make the connections that might have otherwise been missed by simply (re)watching the lecture. Of course the task of summarising, communicating and working with journal articles every week should also nurture the kind of transferable skills I speak about above. 

How do you balance disciplinary structure with openness to new perspectives and contested ideas in IR?
I am open to criticism on this point, but I do think there is a framework based on philosophical realism, philosophical constructivism and critical theory that can provide a structure that is flexible enough to accommodate a plurality of perspectives and the normative contestation they give rise to.   

So by philosophical realism I tend to think of those positivist approaches that see our discipline as an exercise in discovering unchanging facts. I do not spend much time on this. Philosophical constructivism is more rewarding I think because it alerts us to the social nature of international relations and the practical process of world making. From there a lot of 'new' perspectives (norms, practice theory, relationalism, including Asian influences, ontological security, etc.) can be introduced, but also the more interesting versions of realism and liberalism and the ethics of practice in the context of power can be discussed. A module can then pivot toward critical theory by problematising what we mean by power, what the purpose of power should be and what the purpose of theory should be in that context. Again, that opens up the module to a range of perspectives (e.g. post-structuralism, Marxism, Frankfurt School, feminism, post-colonialism, race theory, approaches to 'Global IR', environmentalism). 

Now, these critical theories are often represented as challenging 'mainstream IR', but one thing I have become increasingly aware of is the emergence of a radical conservative form of critique which sees critical theory in all its forms (not realism) as 'the mainstream'. The work of Jean-Francois Drolet and Michael C. Williams explaining the intellectual trajectory of the 'New Right' is extremely important here. 

Jean-Francois Drolet and Michael C. Williams: 

• From critique to reaction: The new right, critical theory and international relations 

• Radical conservatism and global order: international theory and the new right 

To introduce IR students to 'radical conservatism' is not easy because, as they note, IR has not really engaged with these ideas. It is so important, however, because these ideas are revolutionising international relations and international order. I do ask students, therefore, to (re)consider what 'mainstream IR' is nowadays, and that hopefully encourages students to understand the theoretical reaction of conservatives and the practice it is informing.

Now, I realise these discussions are sometimes difficult to have in the classroom. These ideas are sometimes positioned as two sides of a 'culture war' and the discussion is sometimes emotionally charged. I think a focus on understanding the reading helps to keep the discussion informed, respectful and pedagogically rewarding. I do not want to silence opinions, nor do I want students to be offended, and sometimes my role is to help students navigate that territory. Keeping the discussion focused on the text and the way it interacts with other texts is helpful in that regard, and ultimately that is what the students need to do to translate the discussion into material that enables them to write a good essay. 

Thematic Teaching Reflections

Teaching theory can be a challenge because it necessarily involves bridging the theory-practice distinction and sometimes theorists revel in abstraction. Often the introductory lecture on the role of theory, in simplifying and managing a complex world, as a predictor of practice when certain causal factors align, as background knowledge that informs practitioners and represses (Deweyan) 'publics', as a mobiliser of opposition to injustice, as the basis for progressive practice that reconstructs a better world, is not enough. Examples of these explanatory, interpretive, critical and normative purposes have to be identified throughout the course and when we discuss subject specific debates.  

That helps the student understand what was introduced and better understand the practical value of theory. Again, a good selection of articles on a topical issue that the student is aware of and engaged in can help convey this. For example, I devote a week of an International Relations theory module to discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 

• John J. Mearsheimer The Causes and Consequences of the Ukraine War 

• Elias Götz and Jørgen Staun Why Russia attacked Ukraine: Strategic culture and radicalized narratives 

• Maria Mälksoo The Postcolonial Moment in Russia’s War Against Ukraine 

• Jan Dutkiewicz and Jan Smolenski Epistemic superimposition: the war in Ukraine and the poverty of expertise in international relations theory 

This is a good case to illustrate how the theoretical priors of commentators influence their explanation and interpretation of the war, as well as the implications that has for policy and practice. 

Pedagogical Practice Reflections

Decolonising the IR Curriculum
The MA International Relations at the University of Leeds was revised several years ago to include a dual-core module. In semester 1 we created a new module 'International Relations I: International Thought in Historical Perspective' to raise the student's awareness of the Eurocentricity of a discipline that was structured around the twin myths of 'Westphalia' and '1919'.  In this way students are equipped with resources to form a critical perspective on some of the themes explored in the semester 2 module 'International Relations II: Contemporary International Relations Theory'. For example, the 'anarchy' problem that was so central to the post-1945 rationalist turn in IR is more easily questioned when students understand that for much of the non-European world their experience of 'the international' was not sovereign equality but racial hierarchy.  

Similarly, students are better equipped to understand how the fixed ontologies of the rationalist approach are culturally associated with a Western way of thinking, and that much of IR thinking about the balance of power imitates the dominance of a Western scientific cosmology. That historical perspective is problematised not just with reference to Western critical theory, but with Asian cosmologies where relational ontologies contribute a very different way of understanding the subject's relationship to its environment. The internationalised classroom demands this kind of approach, and I am delighted to respond positively to that because I am learning a lot about the evolving situation of my discipline in the universe of knowledge. 

*** Authors may update their Teach IR interviews to reflect new insights gained from experience, with this interview last updated on February 25, 2026.