Dr Benjamin Tan

Benjamin Tan is the A. H. Lloyd Junior Research Fellow in the History of Political Thought at Christ’s College, Cambridge. His teaching and research lie at the intersection of political theory and modern intellectual history, with a particular focus on the overlapping histories of democratic theory, political economy, and empire.

Benjamin's first book project, based on his PhD dissertation at Cambridge, is tentatively titled 'Forging Imperial Democracy: British Progressives in an Unequal World, c. 1885-1914'. This study sheds light on western democratic thought's imperial entanglements, by recovering a pivotal but neglected moment in the history of political thought: when Britain in the late-nineteenth century was declared by observers as the world's first imperial democracy. It traces how British progressives and socialists in particular theorised imperial democracy as an ideal, and shows how prominent left wing intellectuals, despite offering sharp critiques of imperial capitalism, argued that social democracy in Britain necessarily required an unequal economic world order. In doing so, the book explores enduring but understudied links between British democratic thought and imperial political economy.

Benjamin has further research interests in the history of imperial migration, the concept of 'racism', and liberal critiques of racial capitalism. He is formerly a co-convenor of the Political Thought and Intellectual History seminar at Cambridge.