Katy Wells

Associate Professor
katy.wells@warwick.ac.uk
Room: E2.19

For Term 1 A&F hours please see my Advice and Feedback Booking Form.

Profile

I am Associate Professor in Political Theory in the Department of Politics and International Studies.

My research interests lie within normative political theory. My main project, which is supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, is entitled Renting: Justice and Limited Sovereignty, and explores the normative reasons states have to support and promote renting as a means of accessing goods. My other research interests include questions of housing justice, questions of how the state should support our associative freedom and, in particular, our freedom to disassociate from others, and questions to do with state support for personal relationships, particularly, friendship. Finally, I am interested in exploring the possibility of developing a plausible “positive” account of power.

Teaching

For 2024-25 I am module director for:

• PO134: Justice, Democracy and Citizenship
• PO909: Justice and Equality

Publications

Wells, Katy "Empowerment and obsolescence: rejecting the self-transcending power claim". Analysis (forthcoming).

McTernan, Emily & Wells, Katy. "Against Parental Devotion: On Power, Friendships, and Flourishing". Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2025).

Wells, Katy. "Homelessness and Freedom". Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (2022).

Wells, Katy. "Crucial Options: Dagan on Self-Determination and Structural Pluralism". King's Law Journal (2022).

Jenkins, David, Katy Wells & Kimberley Brownlee. "Adequate Housing in a Pandemic". In Political Philosophy in a Pandemic, ed. Fay Niker and Aveek Bhattacharya (Bloomsbury, 2021).

Wells, Katy. “State-led Gentrification and Self-respect”. Political Studies (2021).

Wells, Katy. “Renting Personal Goods”. Social Theory and Practice (2019).

Wells, Katy. “The Right to Housing”. Political Studies (2018).

Wells, Katy. “The Right to Personal Property”. Politics, Philosophy & Economics (2016).

Wells, Katy. “High Liberalism and Weak Economic Freedoms”. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (2016).

Selected Recent Presentations

2025 “Ghosting and Decency”, Cambridge Contemporary Political Thought Seminar, University of Cambridge

2024 “State Neutrality, Tenure, and Choice of Housing”, PPE Journal Symposium on Justice and Housing, PPE Society Conference, New Orleans

2024 “State Neutrality, Tenure, and Choice of Housing”, MANCEPT seminar series, Department of Politics, University of Manchester

2024 “State Neutrality and Housing”, Housing and Social Justice Conference, University of Montreal

2023 “Home Ownership and the State”, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies Seminar Series, University of Bristol

2023 “Renting and Failure”, Justice in Space Conference, Erasmus University Rotterdam