Thomas Da Costa Vieira

Profile

I am a Lecturer (Teaching and Scholarship) in Global Political Economy in POLIS. I previously worked at the London School of Economics, SOAS, and the University of Birmingham. In POLIS, I teach on a range of modules in international relations, development and global political economy at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. My pedagogy and teaching are closely tied to research interests in historical and contemporary political economy, British and French politics, and the environmental and climate crises..

Research interests

My initial research interests are on capitalist states’ attempts to govern their economies and their citizens in ways that entrench, legitimise and normalise capitalist and neoliberal forces, logics and modes of thinking and behaving. I look at this primarily in the British and French context, past and present — from the Thatcher era to today. I use a blend of critical GPE approaches, and my main qualitative methodology is archival research. Increasingly, I have been applying these research interests and methodology to the context of climate change and the green transition (or lack thereof).

I am also increasingly interested in pedagogy, and how to teach Global Political Economy in a way that is refreshing, modern, cutting-edge and research-led.

Some of my further research interests are:

• The capitalist state
• British and French politics/political economy
• Legitimation
• Depoliticisation
• Neoliberal subjectivity — who we are, and how we think we are, and how this is influenced by external forces and actors like governments in a world of late neoliberalism
• Authoritarian neoliberal governance in democratic and non-democratic countries
• Oligarchy, Oligarchs and Oligarchic Capitalism
• Climate change and the green transition
• The pedagogy of Global Political Economy

Qualifications

• • PhD Politics and International Studies
• • MSc International Development (Environment, Sustainability and Politics)
• • BA European and International Studies

Professional memberships

• • Associate Fellow (Advance HE)

Student education

I thoroughly enjoy teaching, student education and pedagogy and have a number of nominations for excellence in teaching in my previous roles. I have experience of teaching a range of modules at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, on political economy, climate change, and the environment.

My approach to pedagogy in Global Political Economy is to push students to scrutinise, criticise and challenge the political and economic relations that shape the world they inhabit. Perhaps my main priority in pedagogy is to forefront the environmental and climate crisis, and to equip students with the tools to understand, confront and solve this existential challenge.