TERRY HATHAWAY

Profile

Biography

BA Politics, MA International Studies (Sheffield); PhD Political Economy (Leeds); FHEA

Terry is a Senior Lecturer in Culture, with a disciplinary background in political economy. Terry’s primary research area is the power of corporations within society, primarily in the areas of food, the environment, and technology. As corporations are immensely powerful and order much of our day-to-day lives, inquiry into this topic has led him down many paths and across many disciplines. One area Terry has focused on in these transdisciplinary wanderings is the narrative construction of society - on the stories that are woven into the power structures of the world and that form the common sense of the present age. 

This research focus also underlies his teaching, as a focus on dominant stories and on ideas is the unifying theme of all of Terry’s teaching. In each of his modules, important social concepts – technology, environmentalism, power, politics – are discussed with an aim of developing participants’ critical awareness of how the concepts are used by others, and the inherent multiplicity of meaning within concepts. His didactic approach to developing such awareness is to encourage participants to play with ideas and to play with power – to bend ideas and language, to craft manipulative stories, and to either wield power or be subject to it. 

Terry welcomes supervision or co-supervision of postgraduates broadly in the areas of politics and culture, and specifically with regards to food, environmental, technology politics.

Departmental Roles

Director of Studies

External Activity

Terry is a member of the Political Studies Association, and works within the Political Economy Perspectives, Teaching and Learning Network, and Interpretative Political Science groups. He is also a member of the British International Studies Association International Political Economy Group.

Research

Overview

Terry is a political economist who focuses on the power of corporations, particularly in the areas of food, technology, and the environment. His main recent focus has been on writing a book concerning the corporation and its political, social, and economic power. You can see a recent talk Terry gave at the Paris School of Economics here.

Current projects

Visible Hands: Corporate Power in the 21st Century

A book length development of a theory of corporate power within contemporary society.

The Power of Big Tech

A paper about how recent developments in digital technology can be understood within existing frameworks of power.

The Politics of Plastic Pollution (with Dr Rob Ralston, University of Edinburgh)

A paper concerning the development and normalisation of plastic pollution over time, specifically the PET bottle. Based upon examining the actions and language of Coca Cola and Pepsi since the 1960s.

Publications

• Hathaway, T. (2021) Fuck the Market. Real World Economics Review 97 (available here)
• Hathaway T. (2020) Neoliberalism as Corporate Power. Competition & Change. 24(3-4):315-337. doi:10.1177/1024529420910382
• Hathaway, T. (2018) ‘Corporate Power Beyond the Political Arena: The case of the “Big Three” and CAFE Standards’, Business and Politics, 20(1), pp. 1–37. doi:10.1017/bap.2016.12.
• Hathaway, T. (2016). Lukes Reloaded: An Actor-Centred Three-Dimensional Power Framework. Politics, 36(2), 118-130 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.12099

His GoogleScholar profile is here

Teaching

Short Course

Terry’s short courses focus on different elements of politics and culture. In 2026-27, his offerings include:

• Consumption: A Story of Prestige and Prejudice
• Defence Against the Dark Arts
• Democracy and Education
• Politics, Parties, and Power
• Sustainable Development
• Techno Politics

YorkCourse

Terry’s module "Stories of Power" challenges dominant conceptions of the social world and seeks to see the underlying mechanisms and structures that shape how the world works. Focusing on political-economic issues, and working with a power framework, it explores:

• Neoliberalism and Money
• Inequality, Corporate Power, and the Environment
• Data Capitalism, and the rise of Global Fascism 

Terry also teaches on the interdisciplinary module "Food, Glorious Food", where he gets students to consider the cultural politics of food and to explore the foodscape of Yorkshire.