Monika Krause

Monika Krause is Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), specializing in human rights, humanitarianism, knowledge, expertise, social theory, and culture. She serves as Chair of the Culture Section of the American Sociology Association and on the Council of the Section on the Sociology of Human Rights of the ASA. Her research addresses comparative questions about forms of expertise, professions, organizations and fields of practice, with particular focus on humanitarian NGOs, human rights organizations, and knowledge production in the social sciences.

Her scholarly work demonstrates a consistent engagement with theoretical innovation in sociology. Her recent publications reveal a trajectory moving from empirical studies of humanitarian organizations toward more foundational questions about sociological methodology, epistemology, and theory-building. She has developed concepts for sociological analysis and seeks to apply insights from a sociology of the social sciences to sociological practice itself. Her work bridges substantive empirical research with theoretical reflection, particularly examining how fields of practice vary across contexts and how sociologists can theorize from neglected cases.

Professor Krause's research has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the 2019 Lewis A. Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda Setting in Sociology. Her book Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites (2021) examines concrete material research objects behind shared conversations in social sciences and humanities, while her earlier work The Good Project: Humanitarian NGOs and the Fragmentation of Reason (2014) won multiple book prizes for its analysis of humanitarian relief organizations. She has served as an elected member on the Executive Council of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) and continues to shape theoretical debates in sociology through editorial work and professional leadership.

• 2019 Lewis A. Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda Setting in Sociology
• 2015 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize
• 2015 Hodgkinson Book Award from Association for Research on Non-profits and the Voluntary Sector
• 2016 Best Book Award by an International Scholar, American Sociological Association

At LSE, Professor Krause convenes courses on Key Concepts: Advanced Social Theory, Seeing like an NGO: Human Rights in Practice, Classical Social Thought, and Modern Social Thought. She is part of the Politics and Human Rights research cluster and has supervised numerous doctoral students. Her research has been supported by fellowships from the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld and the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of her work that bridges sociology, political science, and cultural studies.