David Miles

David Miles has a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews and an MA (Hons) in German with International Relations – also from St Andrews. His research interests encompass political and legal theory, institutions, and identity. He is particularly interested in how political and legal authority, and liberal values, can be sustained across different sub-state and supra-state identities and communities, one of the areas looked at in his recent book. His interest in political theory and law is centred on issues and questions arising at the intersection between domestic and global politics, and on how political communities fragment and cohere domestically and globally in response to particular ethical, practical, and legal challenges.

David has taught in the School of International Relations at St Andrews since 2015 and has also taught in The Open University Law School. He is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.

His PhD research was funded by a full Carnegie Scholarship from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. His book Democracy, the Courts, and the Liberal State: A Comparative Analysis of American and German Constitutionalism was published by Routledge in October 2020 under the Routledge Innovations in Political Theory series. He is Editor-in-Chief of Global Politics Magazine.

A further research focus of his book is the role of international institutions in supporting liberal democratic institutions within states after World War Two, and the tensions between constitutional courts such as Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court and the EU’s increasingly powerful institutions. His book also assesses the relationship between the development of constitutionalism after 1945 and developments in international law and international institutions (seen in the work of Hersch Lauterpacht and the various conventions on human rights).

Current modules in 2024/25

Honours modules:

IR3022 – International Law and International Relations

IR3023  US Foreign Policy: The Dilemmas of Power

Postgraduate Modules:

LC5022 - Aspects of International Law

Dr Miles contributes to team teaching at Sub-Honours level:

IR1005, IR1006, IR2005, and IR2006

Past modules

Dr Miles has taught on, or contributed to, the following modules:

IR1005, IR1006, IR2005, IR2006, IR3023, IR4099, IR5408, LC5023. 

09/2012-06/2017         University of St Andrews

PhD in International Relations – Fully funded by a Carnegie Scholarship (Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland). Graduated June 2017.

Thesis title: ‘Stability or Renewal: The Judicialisation of Representative Democracy in American and German Constitutionalism’.

09/2005 – 06/2010      University of St Andrews

MA (Hons) in German with International Relations – First Class

Areas of Core Research Interest

Constitutionalism; Institutions, Democracy and the State; Anglo-American and German Constitutional Law; German and American Political History; Constitutions and Society; International Law; The Domestic Sources of US Foreign Policy; Secularization, Identity and Democracy.

Additional Areas of Research Interest

Germany and Europe; the Role of Empathy and Restorative Justice in Conflict Resolution; Scotland’s Relationship with the UK; International Human Rights Regimes; Religion and the State; Populism and IR