Dr Blake Lawrinson

Profile

I am a lecturer in British Foreign Policy and International Relations. I first joined POLIS as a BA International Relations student in 2013 and decided to continue my studies at Masters and PhD level in the School before becoming a lecturer in 2023.

I teach on a range of POLIS modules in foreign policy and International Relations at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. My teaching reflects my research interests in British foreign policy, global nuclear politics, and International Relations theory.

Responsibilities

• Director of Undergraduate Admissions, POLIS

Research interests

My primary research interests are on Britain’s ‘role’ and ‘status’ in the world, transitional international order, humanitarian protection, International Relations theory and pedagogy.

Some of my further research interests are:

• The pedagogy of Global IR
• Norms (international norms, the life cycle of norms, clusters, entrepreneurship)
• British foreign policy (humanitarian protection, defence and security, soft power, world role, national interest, values)
• Humanitarian protection (R2P, civilian protection, peacekeeping)
• International order and its transition

Qualifications

• PhD Politics and International Studies
• MA International Relations
• BA International Relations

Professional memberships

• Fellow (Advance HE)
• British International Studies Association (BISA)

Student education

I thoroughly enjoy teaching, student education and pedagogy and have a number of University Partnership nominations for my teaching, assessment and feedback practices (2022, 2023, 2024, 2025). This includes winning the 2023 Faculty Partnership Award for Assessment and Feedback.

Being the first in my family to attend university, I am passionate about educational engagement and outreach opportunities which open access to university study. I have been involved in a range of educational outreach programmes at School and University level.

I have experience of leading and teaching a range of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This includes International Politics, approaches to analysis, United States politics, security studies, the responsibility to protect, British foreign policy, US foreign policy, and global nuclear weapons politics. At postgraduate level, I have been module leader for theoretical approaches to IR, Diplomacy and International Relations history.

My approach to pedagogy is to encourage students as critical and reflective thinkers in order to understand and shape the analysis of the politics of global challenges, while learning, building, and applying core skills.