Luke Cooper

Luke Cooper is an Associate Professorial Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he is affiliated with the Conflict and Civicness Research Group. He serves as Director of PeaceRep’s Ukraine programme, leading interdisciplinary research teams across six global institutions and a broader network of scholars in Ukraine and the region. His academic work sits at the intersection of historical sociology, political theory, and international relations.

His research interests include nationalism, authoritarianism, democracy, uneven and combined development, conflict, and systemic societal transformation. Dr Cooper’s work combines theoretical innovation with empirical analysis, drawing on both historical and contemporary case studies to examine processes of social and political change.

His recent publications explore themes such as the global threat of authoritarian contagion, the historical evolution of national identity in the British Atlantic, and the political imaginaries in science fiction literature. These works reflect a consistent engagement with macro-historical processes and structural transformations in global politics.

• Authoritarian Contagion; the Global Threat to Democracy (2021)
• Imagined communities: from subjecthood to nationality in the British Atlantic (2022)
• Worlds beyond capitalism: images of uneven and combined development in Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy (2021)

Dr Cooper has been involved in significant policy advocacy and public engagement, co-founding the campaign group Another Europe Is Possible and co-hosting the Another Europe podcast. He has led projects on Brexit impacts and international solidarity with Ukraine. He previously served as a visiting fellow at the Institute of Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna and has taught at Anglia Ruskin University, Richmond American University London, and the University of Sussex.

He leads multiple funded research initiatives, including PeaceRep’s Ukraine programme, which conducts evidence-based policy analysis on Ukraine’s war economy and investigates the broader phenomenon of global fragmentation beyond traditional geopolitics. His work emphasizes transnational interconnections in the defense of national sovereignty.

Dr Cooper completed his PhD in International Relations at the University of Sussex, holds an MSc in Comparative Politics from LSE, and a BA in Political Studies from the University of Leeds.