Leigh Jenco is a contemporary political theorist at the London School of Economics specializing in comparative political thought, with particular expertise in classical Chinese philosophy. Her work interrogates methodological assumptions underlying cross-cultural comparison and engages closely with Confucian thinkers including Xunzi and Mencius. She is known for recovering the internal logic of non-Western traditions on their own terms rather than through Western conceptual frameworks.
Developed methodological frameworks for cross-cultural comparison in political theory
Authored Changing Referents: Learning Across Space and Time in China and the West (2015)
Advanced scholarly interpretation of Xunzi's critique of Mencius and the water-metaphor reading of human nature
Challenged Western-centric assumptions in the canon of political philosophy
Contributed to the field of global political theory by centering Chinese classical sources