Thomas is a Fellow in International Political Economy (IPE) in the International Relations Department at LSE.

Thomas’ current research focuses on the capitalist state, and why and how it entrenches the status quo. Operating from Marxist and Foucauldian approaches, he is interested in both the material and ideational motivations driving, and constraints faced by, the capitalist state in trying to simultaneously maintain accumulation and legitimation.

Against this background, his political economy research mainly operates in the UK context, analysing the British state’s decisions on a range of issues:
a) its attitude towards contested alternatives to capitalism,
b) its apparent inability to adequately face the climate crisis, as well as
c) its refusal to envisage alternative choices in economic policy more broadly, and
d) how it seeks to justify, legitimise and instrumentalise all of the above for political and economic purposes.

Thomas previously obtained his PhD in Political Science from the University of Birmingham. His doctoral research explored the politics and economics of the British state’s relationship with the British Co-operative Movement (as a political group and alternative model to capitalist enterprise) in the second half of the 20th century.

Not available to supervise MPhil/PhD students.