Regan Burles

Regan joined the Department as Lecturer in International Relations in September 2023. Prior to that he was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. He completed his PhD in 2021 at the University of Victoria, where he was a Graduate Fellow at the Centre for Global Studies.

Regan's research is in the fields of international relations theory and critical geopolitics. The focus of his research is on how scientific and philosophical concepts of order shape world politics. He is interested in the way these concepts establish boundaries that orient the relationship between human beings, the earth, and political authority on a world scale. His research identifies the qualities, histories, and political consequences of these boundaries in relation to global patterns of inequality and the changing climate. 

Currently, he is pursuing these questions through a book project that examines ‘systemic’ conceptions of order found in the political philosophy of Immanuel Kant, classical geopolitics, and twentieth century systems theories, including international relations. The project connect debates on world order in international relations to emerging questions about the relationship between international order and planetary boundaries in geopolitics and international relations.