Richard Ashcroft
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I am a Ph.D. Candidate in the Political Science department at the University of California, Berkeley. My dissertation Rethinking Liberal Multiculturalism: Culture, Meaning and Pluralism explores the consequences of cultural diversity for liberal democracy, ultimately arguing that modern multiculturalism requires more polycentric and pluralist forms of political theory and social practice. My other research continues to explore the philosophical and historical relationship between culture, liberalism and cosmopolitanism, covering a variety of different issues, including Brexit, postwar multiculturalism, globalization, and the ongoing effects of the rise of liberalism and imperialism in the early-modern period. I have edited two books, Multiculturalism in the British Commonwealth: Comparative Perspectives on Theory and Practice (forthcoming 2019) and Multiculturalism in Contemporary Britain: Policy, Law and Theory (forthcoming 2018). My article, “Pluralism, National Identity and Citizenship: Britain After Brexit,” published in The Political Quarterly was one of the top twenty most downloaded articles from that journal in 2016-17.
I have a B.A. in Theology from Trinity College Oxford, an M.A. in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights from the University of Essex, and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. I am a also former Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Before coming to Berkeley I spent four years working for a leading UK firm specializing in tax and trust law, two years working part-time as a legal aid lawyer in south London acting for the homeless and tenants of social housing, and five years volunteering as Vice-Chair of Governors at a school in inner-city London for children with behavioral and emotional difficulties.