Alan Johnson (political theorist)

Alan Johnson is a British political theorist and activist. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Previously he was Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice at Edge Hill University.

Early life

Johnson was born in North Shields and developed as a socialist in 1979 as a volunteer at the Marxist bookshop 'Days of Hope' in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1984 Johnson helped found the Merseyside Museum of Labour History (later the Museum of Liverpool Life).^[1][2]

Career

From 1991 to 2011 Johnson was an academic at Edge Hill University in the Social Sciences. He became a Reader in 2001 and Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice in 2007.^[3]

In 2011 Johnson left Edge Hill University and became a Senior Research Fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM).^[4] Johnson is editor of BICOM's fathom magazine.^[5]

Political positions

The panel at the public launch of the Euston Manifesto. From left to right: Alan Johnson, Eve Garrard, Nick Cohen, Shalom Lappin and Norman Geras.

Johnson was an editor of the journals Democratiya (2005-2009) and Engage Journal, the former of which he also helped found.^[6] He is a scholar of the labour movement in Iraq,^[7] and is a founding member of Labour Friends of Iraq.^[1]

A former Trotskyist and long-term member of the Socialist Organiser Alliance,^[8] researching Hal Draper,^[9] Johnson is a co-author of the Euston Manifesto.^[10] He was opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.^[1] Since 2003 he has worked with Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Workers Federation.^[11] Critical of the blanket labelling of advocates of military intervention against dictatorial regimes as neoconservatives in foreign policy, he calls for a "proper consideration of the social democratic antitotalitarianism of Paul Berman, Václav Havel, Adam Michnik, Ladan Boroumand, Kanan Makiya, Azar Nafisi, Bernard Kouchner, Tony Blair, or Gordon Brown" and points out that "neo-conservatives" in the Democratic Party deserve "their share of the credit" for "undermining cynical and self-defeating 'realism' and embracing democracy-promotion."^[12]

Lecture disrupted

In March 2014 Johnson was interrupted by a group of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions protesters whilst arguing against a boycott of Israel by the Student Union at University of Ireland Galway.^[13]

Books

• Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews, Foreign Policy Centre, 2007, editor, ISBN 1-905833-11-3
• Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, TUC Publications, 2006, co-authored with Abdullah Muhsin, ISBN 1-85006-761-9
• Leadership and social movements, Manchester University Press, 2001, co-authored with Colin Barker and Michael Lavalette, ISBN 978-0-7190-5902-5

References