Erica Benner

Erica Benner is a political philosopher with special interests in challenges to democracy, nationalism, global ethics, and leadership. After earning her M.Phil and D.Phil from Oxford University, she taught for many years at Oxford and the London School of Economics, then was Fellow in Ethics and Political Philosophy at Yale. She currently teaches at LSE Ideas in London, the Hertie School for Governance in Berlin, and for programs in Sweden and China. She is President of the European Society for the History of Political Thought and is a founding editor of the Brill series History of European Political and Constitutional Thought.

Erica has written five monographs: Really Existing Nationalisms (Oxford 1995), Machiavelli’s Ethics (Princeton 2009), Machiavelli’s Prince: A New Reading (Oxford 2013), Be Like the Fox (Penguin 2017) shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Prize and a BBC Book of the Week, and Adventures in Democracy (Penguin 2024), a Financial Times pick for What to Read in 2024. She is currently writing a guide for citizens on political leadership.

Contact
Dr. Erica Benner
Politics and International Relations
[email protected]