Alan Johnson (political theorist)

For other people named Alan Johnson, see Alan Johnson (disambiguation).

Alan Johnson is Professor in Sociology at Edge Hill University and a political activist.

Political positions

The panel at the public launch of the Euston Manifesto. From left to right: Alan Johnson, Eve Garrard, Nick Cohen, Shalom Lappin and Norman Geras

Johnson was an editor of the journals Democratiya and Engage Journal, the former of which he also helped found. He is a scholar of the labour movement in Iraq, and is a founding member of Labour Friends of Iraq.

A former Trotskyist researching Hal Draper, Johnson is co-author of the Euston Manifesto. Johnson was opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Since 2003, he has worked with Abdullah Muhsin of the Iraqi Workers Federation. Arguing that the British state should be willing to "get its hands dirty," he proposed that the UK should withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, which he argued was obstructing the deportation of terrorism suspects. Critical of blanket labelling of advocats of military intervention against dictatorial regimes as neoconservatism in foreign policy, Johnson calls for a "proper consideration of the social democratic antitotalitarianism of Paul Berman, Václav Havel, Adam Michnik, Ladan Boroumand, Kanan Makiya, Azar Nafisi, Bernard Kouchner, Tony Blair, or Gordon Brown" and points out that "neo-conservatives" in the Democratic Party deserve "their share of the credit" for "undermining cynical and self-defeating 'realism' and embracing democracy-promotion." Johnson writes frequently for the guardian.co.uk Comment is Free.

Books

• Global Politics After 9/11: The Democratiya Interviews, Foreign Policy Centre, 2007, editor, ISBN 1-905833-11-3
• Hadi Never Died: Hadi Saleh and the Iraqi Trade Unions, TUC Publications, 2006, co-authored with Abdullah Muhsin, ISBN 1-85006-761-9
• Leadership and social movements, Manchester University Press, 2001, co-authored with Colin Barker and Michael Lavalette, ISBN 978-0-7190-5902-5