National Institute of Economic and Social Research
2 Dean Trench Street
Smith Square
London, SW1P 3HE
United Kingdom
Ordinary Academicians
Adrian Pabst is a political theorist and a political economist whose research covers critiques of liberalism and alternatives based on non-liberal traditions such as virtue ethics, pluralism, personalism and civil economy.
He is Honorary Professor of Politics in the School of Economics and Politics at the University of Kent and Deputy Director for Social and Political Economy at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, founded in 1938 by John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge.
Born in Munich (FRG) in 1976, he graduated in 1998 in economics from the University of Cambridge, in 1999 in European Studies from the London School of Economics, in 2000 in political thought from Sciences Po Paris and in 2002 in philosophy and theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris. In 2006, he obtained a PhD in political philosophy and philosophy of religion from the University of Cambridge. From 2009 until 2024 he taught political theory and political economy at the University of Kent where he is Honorary Professor of Politics.
Currently he is Deputy Director for Social and Political Economy at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, founded in 1938 by John Maynard Keynes and William Beveridge. He has held visiting appointments at Sciences Po Lille and the Australian Catholic University in Sydney.
He is a member of the editorial board of various French and US academic journals in the fields of political thought and political economy. Since 2014 he has served on the academic board of Fondazione Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice and since 2016 as the board’s secretary.
He is the author of numerous books and academic articles, as well as the editor of several collections. Based on numerous essays, he has contributed to public debate and policy discussions. He is a Fellow of the UK Academy of Social Science and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
Main publications
Penser l’ère post-libérale, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 2025; The Constitution of Political Economy: Polity, Society and the Commonweal (co-authored with Roberto Scazzieri), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2023; Postliberal Politics: the Coming Era of Renewal, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2021; Story of Our Country: Labor’s vision for Australia, Sydney, Kapunda Press, 2019; The Demons of Liberal Democracy, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2019; Liberal World Order and Its Critics: Civilizational States and Cultural Commonwealths, London, Routledge, 2018; The Politics of Virtue: post-liberalism and the human future (co-authored with John Milbank), London, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016); Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy, Grand Rapids, Wm.B. Eerdmans, 2012; Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics (co-edited with Ian Geary), London; I.B. Tauris, 2015; The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Pope Benedict XVI’s social encyclical and the future of political economy (edited), Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 2011.