Rate My Professor Paul Billingham

Paul Billingham is Associate Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and Official Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, positions he has held since April 2018. Prior to this, he was Junior Research Fellow in Political Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford, from 2015 to 2018, and held lecturing positions at Christ Church, Trinity College, and Queen’s College, Oxford. Billingham completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at the University of Oxford. He earned a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from The Queen’s College in 2010 with first-class honours, achieving one of the top ten highest marks in PPE finals and receiving the Gibbs Prize in Politics for the highest mark in undergraduate politics exams and the John Hicks Foundation Prize for the highest mark in macroeconomics. He obtained an MPhil in Politics: Political Theory from Lincoln College in 2012 with distinction, securing the highest thesis mark and highest marks in second-year papers in Oxford’s MPhil in Politics cohort. In 2015, he completed a DPhil in Politics (Political Philosophy) at St Anne’s College with a thesis titled Justification to All: Liberalism, Legitimacy, and Theology.

Billingham’s research centres on political theory, with a focus on public justification and public reason, the relationship between liberalism and religion, state legitimacy amid pluralism, religious freedom for individuals and groups, and the morality of online public shaming. His publications appear in leading journals, including ‘Can Civic Friendship Ground Public Reason?’ (with Anthony Taylor) in The Philosophical Quarterly (2024), ‘Religious Political Arguments, Accessibility, and Democratic Deliberation’ in Notre Dame Law Review (2023), ‘A Framework for Analyzing Public Reason Theories’ (with Anthony Taylor) in European Journal of Political Theory (2022), ‘Enforcing Social Norms: The Morality of Public Shaming’ (with Tom Parr) in European Journal of Philosophy (2020), and ‘The Scope of Religious Group Autonomy: Varieties of Judicial Examination of Church Employment Decisions’ in Legal Theory (2019). He has a book under contract with Routledge: Does Faith Belong in Politics?: A Debate (with Marilie Coetsee). Billingham received Arts and Humanities Research Council studentships for his MPhil and DPhil, University of Oxford funding grants, and was shortlisted for the 2016 Oxford University Student Union Outstanding Tutor award and the 2014 Res Publica postgraduate essay prize. He serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies and Harassment Officer in DPIR, teaches political theory courses at undergraduate and graduate levels, and supervises DPhil students.