About

Professor Yannis Stavrakakis studied political science at Panteion University (Athens) and received his MA degree from the Ideology and Discourse Analysis Programme at the University of Essex, where he also completed his PhD. He has worked at the Universities of Essex and Nottingham before taking up a position at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 2007, where he is currently directing the Postgraduate Programme in Political Theory and the Laboratory for the Study of Democracy (both at the School of Political Sciences). His research primarily focuses on contemporary political theory (with emphasis on psychoanalytic and poststructuralist approaches) and on the analysis of ideology and discourse in late modern societies (with emphasis on populism and anti-populism, environmentalism, post-democracy and the role of artistic practices). He is the author of Lacan and the Political (London: Routledge, 1999), The Lacanian Left (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/Albany: SUNY Press, 2007), and Populist Discourse: Recasting Populism Research (New York: Routledge 2024), editor of the Routledge Handbook of Psychoanalytic Political Theory (New York: Routledge, 2020) and co-editor of Discourse Theory and Political Analysis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), Lacan & Science (London: Karnac, 2002), Aspects of Censorship in Greece (Athens: Nefeli, 2008), The Political in Contemporary Art (Athens: Ekkremes, 2008) and the Research Handbook on Populism (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2024). He has served two consecutive terms as vice-president of the Hellenic Political Science Association and has been Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Queen Mary University of London (2014-5) and Visiting Professor at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence (2019). He was one of the founding co-conveners of the Populism Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association (UK) and since 2014 he is directing the POPULISMUS Observatory: www.populismus.gr

Research Interests

Democracy, Green Politics, Latin America, Political Theory, Populism, Identity, Methods, Post-Structuralism, Qualitative, Activism

Current/Upcoming Events

Standing Groups and Research Networks

• Public Opinion and Voting Behaviour in a Comparative Perspective
• Politics and the Arts
• Political Theory