This seminar is part of a burgeoning debate on a longstanding question – do traditions develop a life of their own?

Working with an interpretive theoretical framework, and accepting the contribution of social constructivism and challenges from critical realism, this presentation seeks to offer a clearer understanding of what tradition is, and how some traditions are more powerful than others.

Speaker profile

Dr Karl Pike is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London.

He has previously worked for the Labour party in Westminster and Parliament, and after the 2010 general election became the political advisor to the Shadow Foreign Secretary and then the Shadow Home Secretary. Following completion of his PhD, he was awarded an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship through the London Interdisciplinary Social Science (LISS) Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP).