Steven Klein is a senior lecturer in political theory with the Department of Political Economy. He did his undergraduate at the University of British Columbia and his PhD at the University of Chicago. Prior to coming to King's, he was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. He has held fellowships from the European University Institute and the American Academy in Berlin.

Find out more at: https://stevenmklein.com.

Research

Steven's research focuses on democratic theory, critical social theory, theories of political economy and the welfare state, the theory and politics of European integration, and the history of European social and political thought (especially of 19th and 20th century Germany). His first book, The Work of Politics: Making a Democratic Welfare State (Cambridge University Press, 2020), examines the democratic potential of struggles over welfare institutions. He is currently researching the thought of Karl Polanyi as well as the contemporary politics of finance, debt, and money.

Research grants

Steven received an ERC Starting Grant (£1 million) for his project 'Systemic Risk and the Transformation of Democracy'. 

You can find out more about the project here: DeRisk.

Selected Publications

Monographs

The Work of Politics: Making a Democratic Welfare State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)

Journal Articles

• On the Egalitarian Value of Electoral Democracy, Political Theory, online first.
• Democracy Requires Organized Collective Power, The Journal of Political Philosophy, 30, no. 1, 26-47.
• European Law and the Dilemmas of Democratic Capitalism, Global Perspectives, 1, no. 1 (May 2020): 13378.
• The Power of Money: Critical Theory, Democracy, and Capitalism, Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, 27, no. 1 (March 2020):19-35.
• The Politics of Forward and Backward Infiltration: Toward a Dynamic Understanding of Civil Society and the State. (with Cheol-Sung Lee), Sociological Theory, 37, no. 1 (March 2019): 62-88.
• Fictitious Freedom: A Polanyian Critique of the Republican Revival, American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 4 (October 2017): 852-863
• Between Charisma and Domination: On Max Weber’s Critique of Democracy, Journal of Politics, 79, no. 1 (January 2017): 179-192.
• “Fit to Enter the World’: Hannah Arendt on Politics, Economics, and the Welfare State, American Political Science Review, 108, no. 4 (November 2014): 856-869.