Lawrence Hamilton

Lawrence Hamilton (born 1972) is a political theorist and the SA-UK Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory at the University of the Witwatersrand, and the University of Cambridge, which he has held since March 2016. He became a full professor at the age of 36 and he has been a full professor of political studies at the University of the Witwatersrand since 2014. Before that he was a full professor at the University of Johannesburg, and senior lecturer and associate professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He is the only political scientist to receive an A-rating from the South African National Research Foundation (NRF).

Hamilton contributes to rethinking political theory from the perspective of the global South. His research interests include topics in contemporary political theory such as states, power, representation, freedom, needs, rights, resistance, democracy, markets, development and political judgment. These are all informed by real world politics — particularly in the global South — as well as the history of political thought, South African politics, political economy and global intellectual history.