Associate Professor Geoffrey Levey

I research issues in contemporary political theory at the intersection of liberal democracy, multiculturalism, citizenship, ethnicity, religion, and nationalism. I am especially interested in the terms on which cultural minorities are justly incorporated into liberal democracies and conceptions of national identity and how they relate to liberal democracy. A major focus of my work is the Australian experiment and experience with multiculturalism and how it should be understood and assessed. I have published over 100 scholarly journal articles and book chapters, and am editor or co-editor of six books, most recently the Research Handbook on Multiculturalism for Edward Elgar Publishing (2025). From 2012-2016, I was an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, working on multiculturalism and Australian national identity. I was the last Associate Dean Research for the UNSW Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences before it was amalgamated in the wake of COVID.

I received my BA from the University of Queensland, a Masters in Social Science (magna cum laude) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a Masters and PhD in Political Science from Brown University, USA. Prior to returning to Australia, I held the Anna Biegun Warburg Junior Research Fellowship in Human and Social Sciences, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. My visiting appointments include: British Academy Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, University of Bristol; visiting research fellowships at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, the Political Theory Program, Australian National University, the Centre for the Study of Social Justice, University of Oxford, the Institute of Advanced Study of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and the Arts, Brussels, Robert Schuman Distinguished Scholar, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, and Richard Hodder-Williams Visiting Fellowship, SPAIS, University of Bristol. I have advised the Australian Government’s Multicultural Advisory Council, the Race Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission, and the Museum of Australian Democracy, Canberra, among other bodies, and served as an expert consultant to the Global Centre for Pluralism, Ottawa, Canada.