Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Luis Harrison
Part-time Lecturer
I am a political theorist working on the relationship between the climate crisis, populism, and extractivist political economies. My research focuses on Latin America and examines how both right wing and left climate populisms reproduce or challenge the structures that drive ecological breakdown. I also work on Indigenous and more than human politics and have an emerging interest in critical pedagogy. I teach across political economy, international relations, and environmental politics and regularly engage with the media to communicate political research to wider audiences.
0000-0002-0809-7711
About
I am a political theorist working on the relationship between the climate crisis, populism, and extractivist political economies. My research focuses on Latin America and examines how both right wing and left climate populisms reproduce or challenge the structures that drive ecological breakdown. I also work on Indigenous and more than human politics and have an emerging interest in critical pedagogy. I teach across political economy, international relations, and environmental politics and regularly engage with the media to communicate political research to wider audiences.
I am a Part Time Lecturer in Politics and International Relations and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. My research and teaching focus on critical approaches to world politics, especially the climate crisis, populism, and the political economy of extractivism. I work at the intersection of political theory and empirical research, with a regional focus on Latin America. My teaching covers political theory, international relations, political economy, and research methods, and I am committed to inclusive and creative pedagogies that support students from a wide range of backgrounds. I also design and run immersive simulations that help students engage critically with complex political issues.
Degrees
BA (hons)
Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom | 12 September 2016 - 09 July 2019MRes
Leeds Beckett University, Leeds, United Kingdom | 30 September 2019 - 06 July 2021PhD
University of Brighton, Brighton, United Kingdom | 03 October 2022 - 14 July 2026
Certifications
FHEA
Advance HE, York, United Kingdom | 09 June 2025 - present
Languages
English
Can read, write, speak, understand and peer review
Related links
Research interests
- Climate politics, climate populism, and political mobilisation
- Extractivism, green transitions, and the global political economy of natural resources
- Indigenous and more than human ontologies in Latin America
- Critical political theory, decolonial thought, and critiques of the Human or Nature binary
- Critical pedagogy and experiential learning
Publications (1)
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Climate populism: the limits of the ideational and discursive approaches
19 November 2025
Environmental Politicsahead-of-print(ahead-of-print):1-21 Informa UK Limited
In this article I critique the ideational approach to climate populism, arguing that it fails to recognise the plurality of positions on the climate crisis amongst different populist movements. It inadequately distinguishes left from right populism and overlooks the populist right’s ongoing shift, particularly in Europe, away from climate change denialism and scepticism. This shortcoming arises from the core assumptions of the ideational approach: that populism involves a unified and homogenous people, and an inherent anti-science and anti-expert outlook. I argue that a discursive, pluralist account of populism can address these theoretical inadequacies and make sense of the variation in exclusionary climate populism where the ideational approach fails to. Finally, I assess the potential limits of this approach. In particular, an inability to extend its pluralism to the needs or demands of non-human beings and integrate them into the people of populism.
