Dr Ben Fermor
Associate Lecturer

Profile

Biography

Ben Fermor completed his PhD at the University of Leeds in 2020 and before that undertook a BA in International Politics and MSc in International Relations at the University of Surrey.

Research

Overview

Ben researches US security and foreign policy in the 21^st century. He is interested in the war of position between narratives of national identity, threat and Otherness in US politics, and the role of security discourses in the formation of policy. He has written on topics such as populism, nationalism and racism in the context of Donald Trump’s leadership, and is currently investigating the discursive formation of the ‘Biden doctrine’, particularly around climate security and environmental diplomacy. Ben’s work is informed by Critical Security Studies, and uses frameworks such as securitisation, emancipation and decolonisation.

His PhD took a post-colonial approach to investigate changing constructions of security and threat in Barack Obama’s language on the Middle East Peace Process, the Arab Spring and (counter-)terrrorism.

Publications

Selected publications

Ben's publications include:

Holland, J. & Fermor, B. (2021) ‘The discursive hegemony of Trump’s Jacksonian populism: Race, class, and gender in constructions and contestations of US national identity, 2016-2018’, Politics, 41:1:64-79. DOI: 10.1177/0263395720936867

Fermor, B & Holland J, (2020) ‘Security and polarization in Trump’s America: securitization and the domestic politics of threatening others’ Global Affairs, 6:1, 55-70. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23340460.2020.1734958

Holland, J & Fermor, B (2017) ‘Trump’s rhetoric at 100 days: contradictions within effective emotional narratives’, Critical Studies on Security, 5:2, 182-186, DOI: 10.1080/21624887.2017.1355157

Fermor, B (2016) ‘Shifting Binaries: The Colonial Legacy of Obama’s War on Terror’, in M Bentley & J Holland eds. The Obama Doctrine: A Legacy of Continuity in US Foreign Policy? 84-98, Abingdon: Routledge