About Me
Hello! I am political theorist by training, conducting research on theories of habit and collective action, particularly in relation to political organizing. I teach at Loyola Marymount University in the Department of Political Science and International Relations. Until recently, I served as an assistant editor for Political Theory. In 2022, I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Los Angeles.
My dissertation, Vivacity of Our Ideas: Habit in Modern Political Thought, is the first full-length analysis of habit as an essentially contested concept in the history of political thought. In it, I contend that by giving a shared and material rhythm to otherwise individually-felt sentiments, habit constitutes the basis for both collective and transformative action. In a more critical vein, I argue that the inattention to habit as a domain of collective action by postwar Anglophone political theory has meant an avoidance of the problem of political agency in a world of tradition, custom, and repetition. This project engages a set of thinkers—David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, and Herbert Marcuse—who understood the contest over the meaning and significance of habit to be a contest over the terms of social transformation. What’s missing in our understanding of these thinkers is the regard they held for habit as a resource for collective attachment and political change: they not only provide arguments for how to act morally but understand habit as the central dimension of moral and political life.
I’ve designed and taught over a dozen courses as lead instructor, including seminars on democratic theory, the politics of extremism, feminism, empire, and the modern state. Prior to my academic work, I received my B.A. with honors from Amherst College and spent time in Hangzhou, China, as a private consultant.
Please get in touch at alexander.diones@lmu.edu. My CV is available below.