Courses

Dr Tom Mills

Lecturer in Sociology and Policy
Undergraduate Programme Director for Sociology and Policy

Tom Mills Head and Shoulders

I am a sociologist with a particular interest in the ideas and practices of elites and the social networks that influence policy making.  I am the author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service (Verso, 2016), a book which examines the BBC’s relationship with the ‘Establishment’ and the ways in which the rise of neoliberalism impacted on its organisational structure and culture.  Before joining Aston in 2016, I worked at the University of Bath on the ESRC funded project, ‘Understanding and Explaining Terrorism: Expertise in Practice’, research which forms the basis of the forthcoming monograph, The Politics of Terrorism Expertise.  I am the co-editor of What is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements and the State (Pluto Press, 2017), a book which offers a realist conception of Islamophobia as the product of concrete social, political and cultural action by the social movements and the state.

I am open to supervising PhD students with an interest in elites, media and communications, think tanks, corporate influence on public policy, Islamophobia and counter-terrorism, and neoliberalism and conservatism.

  • Media and Communications
  • Think tanks and policy networks
  • Elite social movements 
  • Sociology of knowledge and expertise
  • Counter-terrorism and Islamophobia
  • Investigative research, social network analysis, visualisation

 

  • CSI: Crime, Subversion and Injustice (LK2029)
  • Social Issues (LK1020)
  • Globalisation and Social Change (LYM002)
  • Social Problems and Public Policies A (LK1012) 

 

Journal articles

  • Mills, T. (2017) ‘What has become of critique? Reassembling sociology after Latour’, British Journal of Sociology, 1-20.
  • Fooks, G., and Mills, T. (2017) ‘The Tolerable Cost of European Union Regulation: Leaving the EU and the Market for Politically Convenient Facts’, Journal of Social Policy, 1-25.
  • Miller, D. and Mills, T. (2015) ‘Book Review: Lisa Stampnitzky, Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented ‘Terrorism’, Sociology, 49(3): 588-590.
  • Mills, T. (2013) ‘Remembering Thatcher and understanding Thatcherism’, Agora 48.2: 43–50.
  • Miller, D. and Mills, T. (2011) ‘Introduction: Teaching and Researching Terrorism: pressures and practice?’, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 4(3): 389-92.
  • Miller, D., Mills, T. and Harkins, S. (2011) ‘Teaching about terrorism in the UK: how it is done and what problems it causes’, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 4(4): 405-20.
  • Miller, D. and Mills T. (2010) ‘Counterinsurgency and terror expertise: the integration of social scientists into the war effort’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 23(2): 203-21.
  • Miller, D. and Mills, T. (2009) ‘The terror experts and the mainstream media: the expert nexus and its dominance in the news media’, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 2(3): 414–437.

Books and book chapters

  • Mills, T. (2017) ‘Democracy and Public Broadcasting’, In Albo G. and Panitch, L. (eds.), Socialist Register 2018: Rethinking Democracy. London: Merlin Press.
  • Massoumi, N., Mills, T. and Miller, D. (eds.) (2017) What is Islamophobia?: Racism, Social Movements and the State, Pluto.
  • Massoumi, N., Miller, D. and Mills, T. ‘Islamophobia, Social Movements and the State: For a Movement-centred Approach’, In Massoumi, N., Mills, T. and Miller, D. (eds.) What is Islamophobia?: Racism, Social Movements and the State, Pluto.
  • Griffin, T., Miller, D. and Mills, T. (2017) ‘The Neoconservative Movement: Think Tanks as Elite Elements of Social Movements from Above’, In Massoumi, N., Mills, T. and Miller, D. (eds.) What is Islamophobia?: Racism, Social Movements and the State, Pluto.
  • Massoumi, N., Miller, D. and Mills, T. (2017) ‘Liberal and Left Movements and the Rise of Islamophobia’, In Massoumi, N., Mills, T. and Miller, D. (eds.) What is Islamophobia?: Racism, Social Movements and the State, Pluto.
  • Mills, T. and Miller, D. (2017) ‘Religion radicalization and the Causes of Terrorism’, In Lewis, J. (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Religion and Terrorism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Mills, T. (2016) The BBC: The Myth of a Public Service, Verso.
  • Mills, T. (2016) ‘The General Strike to Corbyn: 90 years of BBC establishment bias’, in Seth-Smith, N. Mackay J. and Hind, D. (eds.), Rethinking the BBC Public Media in the 21st Century.  Margate: Commonwealth.
Room: N922E
Phone: 0121 204 3332
Email:  t.mills@aston.ac.uk