[5] In 2012 he was awarded the Serena Medal by the British Academy, given 'for eminent services towards the furtherance of the study of Italian history, literature, art or economics.

Afterwards, also at Cambridge, he did a PhD on ‘Liberalism and Historicism: History and Politics in the Thought of Benedetto Croce’ under the supervision of Quentin Skinner, during which time he spent two years as a researcher at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence from 1980-82.

He was seconded to the EUI as Director of the Max Weber Programme from 2014-19 and to the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin as Visiting Professor of Ethics and Public Policy from 2022-24.

He has also held Visiting Fellowships at Nuffield College, Oxford; the EUI; Australia National University (ANU); the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) in Oslo; and the Hanse Wissenschaft-Kolleg (HWK) in Delmenhorst.

His own writings have been translated into French, German, Arabic, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Chinese, Indonesian, Portuguese, Czech, Turkish, and Spanish.