Martin Shaw (born 30 June 1947 in

Driffield Driffield, also known as Great Driffield (neighbouring Little Driffield), is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The civil parish is formed by the town of Driffield and the village of Little Driffield. By ...

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

, England) is a British sociologist and academic. He is a

research professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

international relations International relations (IR, and also referred to as international studies, international politics, or international affairs) is an academic discipline. In a broader sense, the study of IR, in addition to multilateral relations, concerns al ...

at the

Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

, and

emeritus professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

of international relations and politics at Sussex University. He is best known for his sociological work on war,

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

and

global politics Global politics, also known as world politics, names both the discipline that studies the political and economic patterns of the world and the field that is being studied. At the centre of that field are the different processes of political global ...

Academic career

Sociology of war and militarism

In his

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

period in the 1970s, Shaw published ''

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

versus

Sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

: A Guide to Reading'' and ''Marxism and

Social Science Social science (often rendered in the plural as the social sciences) is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among members within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the ...

: The Roots of Social Science''. However, he developed a

critique Critique is a method of disciplined, systematic study of a written or oral discourse. Although critique is frequently understood as fault finding and negative judgment, Rodolphe Gasché (2007''The honor of thinking: critique, theory, philosophy ...

of Marxism, which he saw as incapable of fully analysing the problem of war, as he argued in ''

Socialism Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and

Militarism Militarism is the belief or the desire of a government or a people that a state should maintain a strong military capability and to use it aggressively to expand national interests and/or values. It may also imply the glorification of the mili ...

''. He pioneered a new sociology of war and militarism, in his edited volume, ''War, State and Society'' and in ''

Dialectics Dialectic (; ), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive at the truth through reasoned argument. Dialectic resembles debate, but the ...

of War: An Essay on the Theory of Total War and Peace''. In the 1990s, he published two further studies in this area: ''Post-Military Society'' and ''

Civil Society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.1991 Gulf War , combatant2 = , commander1 = , commander2 = , strength1 = Over 950,000 soldiers3,113 tanks1,800 aircraft2,200 artillery systems , page = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-PEMD-96- ...

Work in International Relations

Shaw also entered debates in

, with his co-edited book ''State and Society in International Relations'' (1991) and his books ''Global Society and International Relations'' and ''Theory of the Global State: Globality as Unfinished

Revolution In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...

''. He founde
The Global Site
(2000), a portal for critical writing on

, culture and society, which also became a significant forum for academic debate after

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

Genocide

In the 2000s, Shaw's research returned to questions of war, now extended into the field of genocide, with four books: ''War and Genocide'', ''The New Western Way of War: Risk-Transfer War and its Crisis in Iraq'' ''What is Genocide?'' and ''Genocide and International Relations''. As a result of this work, in 2022 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Network of Genocide Scholars. Shaw was one of the first genocide scholars to analyse the 1948 expulsions of Palestinians in 2010. He co-authored a discussion on the subject with

Omer Bartov Omer Bartov ( ; born 1954) is an Israeli-American historian. He is the Dean's Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University, where he has taught since 2000. Bartov is a historian of the Holocaust and is considered a leading au ...

in the same year. After the

October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel On October 7, 2023, Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, the first invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli ...

, he was one of the first genocide scholars to describe them as genocidal massacres and Israel's response as threatening a full-scale genocide. In 2024, he challenged Israeli historian

Benny Morris Benny Morris (; born 8 December 1948) is an Israeli historian. He was a professor of history in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Beersheba, Israel. Morris was initially associated with the ...

's view of the

Gaza war The Gaza war is an armed conflict in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel fought since 7 October 2023. A part of the unresolved Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Israeli–Palestinian and Gaza–Israel conflict, Gaza–Israel conflicts dating ...

. In October 2024, Shaw gave the NIOD

Holocaust and Genocide Studies The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe, ...

lecture in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

on "In Defence of the Concept of Genocide", criticising those like the historian Dirk Moses and international lawyer Philippe Sands who have argued for abandoning the idea of genocide. In 2025, Shaw announced that a new book, ''The New Age of Genocide:Intellectual and Political Challenges after Gaza'', would published later in the year.

Racism, Brexit and history of the antinuclear movement

In the late 2010s, Shaw's work turned to questions of

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

British politics The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy which, by legislation and Convention (norm), convention, operates as a Unitary state, unitary parliamentary democracy. A Hereditary monarchy, hereditary Monarchy of the United Kingdom, monarch, ...

, and

Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...

. He published ''Political Racism: Brexit and Its Aftermath'' in 2022 and ''The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament'' in 2024.

Academic posts

Shaw was appointed a lecturer in

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

at the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate public research university in Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charter in 1837. It was the first recognised university to ...

(1970–1972) and was lecturer, senior lecturer and reader in sociology at the

University of Hull The University of Hull is a public research university in Kingston upon Hull, a city in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It was founded in 1927 as University College Hull. The main university campus is located in Hull and is home to the Hu ...

(1972–1994) before becoming professor of international and political sociology (1994). The following year Shaw moved to a chair of

and

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

at the

University of Sussex The University of Sussex is a public university, public research university, research university located in Falmer, East Sussex, England. It lies mostly within the city boundaries of Brighton and Hove. Its large campus site is surrounded by the ...

, where he became a research professor in 2008 and Emeritus Professor in 2010. He was a Professorial Fellow at

Roehampton University The University of Roehampton, London, formerly Roehampton Institute of Higher Education, is a public university in the United Kingdom, situated on three major sites in Roehampton, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. The University traces its r ...

from 2010–20 and has been a Research Professor at the

since 2011. He was a Leverhulme Fellow in 2000 and an

ESRC The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), formerly the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), is part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). UKRI is a non-departmental public body (NDPB) funded by the UK government. ESRC provides fundin ...

research fellow A research fellow is an academic research position at a university or a similar research institution, usually for academic staff or faculty members. A research fellow may act either as an independent investigator or under the supervision of a p ...

in 2004 and 2005.

Activities, commentary and research

He was active in

European Nuclear Disarmament European Nuclear Disarmament (END) was a Europe-wide movement for a "nuclear-free Europe from Poland to Portugal” that put on annual European Nuclear Disarmament conventions from 1982 to 1991. Origins The founding statement of END was the Eu ...

(1980–1985) and a member of its national committee, as well as in the

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is an organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nucl ...

. He criticised what he saw as the passivity of the political left in the face of the genocidal wars in

Bosnia Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes known as Bosnia-Herzegovina and informally as Bosnia, is a country in Southeast Europe. Situated on the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, it borders Serbia to the east, Montenegro to the southeast, and Croatia to th ...

(1992–1995) and

Kosovo Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe with International recognition of Kosovo, partial diplomatic recognition. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the ...

(1998–1999). He continues his political commentary by writing for the websites

openDemocracy openDemocracy is an independent media platform and news website based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, openDemocracy states that through reporting and analysis of social and political issues, they seek to "challenge power and encourage d ...

and Byline Times.

References

External links

*
Martin Shaw on TwitterThe Global Site
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Shaw, Martin 1947 births Academics of Durham University Academics of the University of Hull Academics of the University of Sussex Alumni of the London School of Economics British sociologists Academics of the University of Roehampton English socialists Living people Socialist Workers Party (UK) members Members of Devon County Council People from Driffield Labour Party (UK) parliamentary candidates