Chandran Kukathas is Chair in Political Theory in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics. Kukathas is a key protagonist in contemporary theoretical debates about liberalism, multiculturalism and diversity and has authored numerous scholarly articles and several books in these areas. Influential contributions include his books The Liberal Archipelago: A Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Oxford, 2003), Rawls: A Theory of Justice and Its Critics (with Philip Pettit, Polity and Stanford, 1990) and Hayek and Modern Liberalism (Oxford, 1989) and his articles on the concepts of cultural rights, multiculturalism and diversity. Kukathas has visited and lectured at many academic institutions across the world and in 2003 was awarded the Centenary Medal for services to Australian society through the study of social and political theory.
Until this academic year, Kukathas was the Neal A. Maxwell Professor of Political Theory, Public Policy and Public Service at the University of Utah. A graduate of the Australian National University, the University of New South Wales and the University of Oxford, he previously held faculty and research positions at each of these institutions as well as at the Australian Defence Force Academy and George Mason University.