Professor James Mayall (in memoriam)

Memorial Event for Prof. James Mayall

29 May 2026, Sidney Sussex College

A memorial event will be held for Prof. James Mayall on the afternoon of 29 May in Sidney Sussex College. From 2pm a panel of speakers will pay tribute to James's various academic contributions. At 5pm there will be a service in the Sidney Sussex Chapel.

Further details will be circulated closer to the date.

We pass on the sad news of the death of Emeritus Prof. James Mayall (14 April 1937 - 5 November 2025). James was the first Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations at Cambridge, 1997-2004, after having been Lecturer and then later Professor of International Relations at the LSE from 1966. He was instrumental in laying the foundations of what became the Department of Politics and International Relations through his leadership of the Centre for International Studies, especially in moving the Centre out of the History Faculty, and beginning the discussions that later bore fruit in the creation of POLIS. Despite formally retiring in 2004, James remained very active in teaching both at Sidney Sussex as a supervisor and Director of Studies, and in the Department, especially in supervising MPhil and MSt students.

After having worked in India prior to his academic career, James had a strong affection for the country, and made regular trips there as a staunch supporter of the Pavate Fellowship at Cambridge. Perhaps his most famous work is Nationalism in International Society (Cambridge 1990), his last book was a co-edited volume Power, Legitimacy, and World Order (2023).                                

This tribute was written by Professor Jason Sharman, Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations.

Write a tribute: 

James's students and colleagues are welcome to submit tributes to him.  If you have something you would like to share, please email communications@polis.cam.ac.uk and we will be happy to post it on this page.

Message from Babatunde IDOWU:

I was deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Professor James Mayall. As my PhD supervisor at LSE in the 1990s, he was more than an academic guide—he was a mentor in the truest sense. His wisdom, generosity, and unwavering kindness left an indelible mark on my life and scholarship. 

Professor Mayall had a rare gift for nurturing intellectual curiosity while offering gentle encouragement. His door was always open, his counsel always thoughtful, and his belief in his students quietly profound. I owe much of my academic journey to his steady guidance and humane spirit. I learnt that he supervised many Nigerians that studied in LSE in the 1970s and 1980s - one of them was Amb. Prof Alaba Ogunsanwo   

His legacy will live on in the countless lives he shaped, the ideas he championed, and the warmth he brought to every conversation. I join many others in mourning his loss and celebrating the extraordinary life he led.

My thoughts are with his family, friends, and all who had the privilege of knowing him.

With deepest sympathy, Babatunde IDOWU

Message from Sanjay Pulipaka:

RIP - Professor James Mayall  

Professor James Mayall, a mentor, a friend and an eminent scholar of international politics, has passed away recently.

He was a remarkably kind and generous mentor. Despite his very busy academic schedule, he would always have time for young and established researchers alike. He would gently encourage researchers to look at their methods more critically. I would always share my publications with him, and he would invariably provide invaluable feedback.   

I had the distinct privilege of co-editing two volumes with Prof. Mayall and Krishnan Srinivasan: “Values in Foreign Policy” and “Power, Legitimacy, and World Order.” This experience had fine-tuned my skills in the art of academic editing. Furthermore, I am grateful to Professor Mayall for writing the Foreword for my book, Tiger with Wings: China’s BRI and Economic Engagement in South Asia. I had always eagerly looked forward to his annual visits to India.

One of many significant contributions by Prof. Mayall was his collaborative effort in establishing and successfully sustaining the Pavate Fellowship. Prof. James Mayall was one of the founding pillars of the Pavate Fellowship, which required the coming together of Sydney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, The Pavate Foundation, Karnataka University, and a host of other institutions in India. 

He made every effort to ensure the fellows had a comfortable stay, such as personally accompanying us to the library and other departments to help us secure access cards.  Prof. Mayall and his wife, Avril, would frequently invite us to a multi-course dinner. He would invite other colleagues to these dinners, and the resulting conversations were some of the most intelligent, witty and humorous I have experienced.

I will miss his sage advice on my academic/professional engagements and our long conversations punctuated with silences. 

Sanjay Pulipaka 

Chairperson, Politeia Research Foundation 

Message from Dr. Mehtab Ali Shah:

Professor James Mayall  

Professor James Mayall passed away a few days ago. I have deep regard for his scholarship and human values. Despite being a luminary of the top British institutions: the London School of Economics (LSE) and the University of Cambridge, Professor Mayall had no dint of arrogance. I knew him since my LSE days: 1977-79. He was my referee for several positions, especially as a professor in Sindh University. He was also my referee to three publishers: I.B. Tauris, Macmillan  and Routlege.  He was a good friend of my late Ph.D. Supervisor, Dr. Peter Lyon of the Institute of commonwealth (ICS), the University of London, who himself was a down to the earth person and an accomplished scholar.

Since my main field of research has been ethnicity, in order to have a better understanding of this subject, I used to attend the weekly seminars on Nationality and Nationalism conducted by Professor Anthony Smith of the Department of  Sociology of the LSE and Professor James Mayall at the LSE during 1990-93.

In 2010-11, I was a Smuts Visiting Research Fellow at Cambridge, where I was working on the book, ‘Pakistan’s Ethnic Tensions National and regional Security Implications’. Despite advanced age and heavy academic responsibilities, Professor Mayall very kindly frequently saw me and discussed various aspects of this research at Sydney Sussex College. In fact, he read the Introduction of my manuscript and suggested highly valuable and critical changes in it. After this discussion, he graciously took me for lunch.

After the death of Dr. Peter Lyon in October 2010, Professor Mayall was the person whose feet I touch as a mark of respect, which we Sindhis and our Indian cousins do. He was a very witty and warm person. The winter of 2010-11 was very cold. Commenting on this chilly weather, he said “ the more cold we face in the winter, the more bright spring we will enjoy.” Professor Nicholas Simms, my mentor, at Peter House, was impressed with this wisdom and farsightedness of Professor Mayall. 

Commenting on the style and theme of my research, Professor Mayall humorously said, ”you were born on the wrong side of the border”.  He was a supporter of the process of decolonization in the world, especially, the independence of India. But probably, not its partition. 

Professor Mayall not only liked persons but the things, which he used. In his student life in Cambridge he bought a bicycle, on which he rode where he went, let to be Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, etc. Once his bicycle was stolen in the market and the news was published in a council newspaper. His wife was happy that he got rid of the decades old bicycle. The next day the bicycle was hanged in the same pole from where it was stolen. After recovering its recovery delighted Professor Mayall.

He was happy not only what he had authored and supervised but what he had shared.  I always found the rays of light coming from his curly hairs. And that light will guide his students.   

Professor Mehtab Ali Shah, the University of Sindh, Jamshoro, Sindh

Message from Alexandra Magnolia Dias and family:

Postcard 14: ‘’ Stay close to me, stay close to us’’

James Mayall had this unique habit of writing postcards of past adventures with a title preceded by a number. It took me fourteen days since I found out about the sad news hence the choice of title and number to pay my dear Supervisor a deep felt and painful farewell.

James Mayall’s books will stay on the shelves of libraries, keeping wisdom to be passed from one generation of international relations students to the next. James Mayall is irreplaceable in the hearts of his students and will be deeply missed. I have prepared this moment for a long time — perhaps since the day I lost Dominique Jacquin-Berdal (24 January 2006), my late Supervisor who had James Mayall as her own Supervisor. James generously took on the duty to accompany me until I completed my thesis. I remain convinced that I would have quit the PhD journey without James Mayall's generous offer to supervise me. I first met James Mayall when I arrived at the LSE in 2002 to begin the PhD, at the North–South Seminar. It required a lot of discipline to follow his rule of dropping the title “Professor” and of simply calling him James. He was always ready to listen, to offer an insightful interpretation of a clumsy presentation of original collected data, and to correct any flawed concepts with tact. His value-driven approach and generous presence with students inspired at every level and helped us through the writing up stage.

The last time I saw James, I invited him to give a keynote on Globalisation, Nationalism and Security at the PhD Conference in Global Studies at NOVA University of Lisbon. After the Conference, we visited Quinta da Regaleira, and he joked that, since he had recently turned 80, my children and himself shared the same privilege of free admission.

I also recall the moment he spoke about his latest adventure with his daughter on the edge of the borderlands of India — he was a fearless traveller, an explorer of both margins and centres of power, with genuine empathy for those living at the intersections of sovereign jurisdictions. He cared deeply about a more just international society and about distributive justice.

This closeness to his students kept his spirit youthful and this openness to the world kept his intellectual curiosity and human empathy.

My condolences to Avril, his daughter, and all his family and friends. Dear James, you will stay close to us, in our hearts.

“The pain of losing those who die sometimes opens strange paths within us. Happy is the one who quietly discovers the branch that continues them. We always speak of love and life when we speak of death. Death is always a question about the love we were capable of generating. (…) For "Love is the bridge that unites the unnoticeable to the infinite. There are bonds that bind us for all eternity, and it takes far more than death to break them.’’ (Henrique Manuel Pereira, 2024)

My prayers are with James' family and dear ones.

Alexandra Magnolia Dias and family , Lisbon, 19 November 2025.