Mike Finn

Dr Mike Finn

Small Group Project 2021-22

Anarchist Violence: Myth and memory

Anarchism is at the centre of contemporary news coverage; US President Donald Trump has branded states opposed to him ‘anarchist jurisdictions’, whilst UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accused the Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer of being in hock to ‘anarchist union bosses’, simultaneously decrying environmental protestors Extinction Rebellion (XR) as ‘left-wing anarchists’. Central to these characterisations is the spectre of anarchism-as-violence; the rhetorical construction of anarchism-as-violence which has bedevilled anarchism since the era of propaganda of the deed in the 1890s, here mobilised as part of a right-wing, populist, ‘culture war’ against left-wing and progressive politics in general, rather than anarchism in particular.

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Areas of interest

Anarchism Politics

Cohort

FG7

Biography

Dr Finn studied history as an undergraduate at the University of Liverpool, before moving to Magdalene College, Cambridge for an MPhil and PhD. A Kennedy Scholar at Harvard in 2002-2003, he also read for a second undergraduate degree in Theology at Exeter College, Oxford. He has taught widely in UK higher education, and was a Bye-Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and a Junior Research Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. He has also served as Director of Liberal Arts at the University of Exeter, and Deputy Head of the School for Cross-Faculty Studies at the University of Warwick

Dr Finn’s research interests address political culture, broadly defined, and his most recent book Debating Anarchism was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. Previous books include a study of Brexit’s impact on UK higher education, and a co-edited history of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition.

Biographical details correct as of 24.04.26