Rate My Professor John Keane

Keane's research specializations, as listed in university records, include political science, political theory and political philosophy, comparative government and politics, journalism studies, and government. His scholarly interests cover civil society, the history of democracy, media and politics, violence, power dynamics in the digital age, China's political trajectory, emerging despotisms, global governance, and the philosophies of religion, language, and Islam. Among his prolific publications are the prize-winning Tom Paine: A Political Life (1995); Václav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts (1999); the widely acclaimed and Prime Minister’s Literary Award-shortlisted The Life and Death of Democracy (2009); Democracy and Media Decadence (2013); Power and Humility (2018); The New Despotism (2020); The Shortest History of Democracy (2022); and China’s Galaxy Empire: Wealth, Power, War, and Peace in the New Chinese Century (2024). He has also authored Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions (1998), Global Civil Society? (2003), and Violence and Democracy (2004). Keane has received nominations for the Balzan Prize and Holberg Prize for his contributions to the human sciences and has delivered public lectures on topics such as the rise of authoritarianism.