Contributor(s): Hazel Blears MP, Annie Machon, Professor Sir David Omand, Matthew Ryder QC | Without whistle blowers and the media the current debate over the accountability of the secret state would not be happening. What should be the future role of the media, if any, in holding the security services to account? Hazel Blears (@HazelBlearsMP) is a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee of parliament. Annie Machon (@AnnieMachon) is director of LEAP Europe and former intelligence offic...
Feb 05, 2014•1 hr 48 min
Contributor(s): Mike Marqusee | Why does the partisan choice between Real Madrid and Barcelona affect the identity of millions in North Africa, the Middle East and beyond? How does the India- Pakistan cricket rivalry remain salient in a world of 'globalised' sport? Why doesn't North America enjoy the same sports as the rest of the world?' Mike Marqusee seeks to explain the phenomena of 'globalised' spectator sport through examining its origins. He argues that the transnational, transcultural ten...
Feb 05, 2014•1 hr 25 min
Contributor(s): Professor Sami Zubaidi | For the BRISMES annual lecture, Sami Zubaida will explore the question of changing identities. What constitutes authenticity in different spheres of culture is contested between political and religious groups and ideologies. Discourses of difference between Muslim/national cultures and ‘the West’, and the resistance to perceived cultural invasion have featured prominently in these contests, over the generations from the inception of modernity to the prese...
Feb 05, 2014•1 hr 13 min
Contributor(s): Dr Gabriel Wollner | Gabriel Wollner offers a political philosophy perspective on questions of international finance and defends the idea of an international financial transaction tax as an instrument for making the international financial system more just. Gabriel Wollner is lecturer in philosophy at LSE.
Feb 04, 2014•1 hr 26 min
Contributor(s): David Epstein | In his ground-breaking exploration of athletic success, The Sports Gene, award-winning writer David Epstein get to the heart of the great nature vs nurture debate, and explodes myths about how and why humans excel. Join him for a thought provoking examination of the truth behind talent and success. David Epstein (@DavidEpstein) is an award-winning senior writer for Sports Illustrated, where he covers sports science, medicine and Olympic sports. Ed Smith (@EdSmithW...
Feb 04, 2014•1 hr 28 min
Contributor(s): George Papandreou | Professor Amartya Sen, the Eva Colorni Trust and LSE are delighted to be hosting this year's Eva Colorni Memorial Lecture. The Colorni lectures are held regularly in memory of Eva Colorni, who taught economics at the former City of London Polytechnic - now incorporated into London Metropolitan University - until her early death in 1985. A collection of the earlier lectures is published by Oxford University Press, under the title Living As Equals. This year's l...
Feb 03, 2014•1 hr 32 min
Contributor(s): Dr Florence Gaub | The lecture will cover post-2011 Libya and ask key questions related to post-conflict reconstruction, security sector reform and transitional justice. What can we learn for future cases of regime change? How can security be built without external security provision? What are the factors that facilitate or impede political transitions? Florence Gaub joined the European Union Institute for Strategic Studies in May 2013 where she works on the Arab world with a foc...
Feb 03, 2014•1 hr 29 min
Contributor(s): Paul Cheshire | LSE London's 2014 Lent term seminar series begins on the 20th of January. Speakers from within and beyond LSE will focus on London's current economic and political environment London, covering relevant issues such as the private rented sector, the distribution of poverty and the densification effects of international migrants. Presenters include academics and practitioners from relevant fields. Each seminar is chaired by one of the members of LSE London, while spe...
Feb 03, 2014•46 min
Contributor(s): Dr Joshua Busby | Drawing on a rich set of interviews and surveys, Joshua Busby shows how the global AIDS treatment advocacy movement helped millions in the developing world gain access to lifesaving medication. Joshua Busby is an associate professor of public affairs and a fellow in the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service.
Jan 30, 2014•1 hr 31 min
Contributor(s): Dr Matthew Goodwin, Peter Kellner | ‘Eurosceptic‘ parties all around Europe are gathering momentum in advance of the European Parliament elections in May. But how wide and how deep does their support actually run? And has hostility towards the EU become a surrogate for other discontents? Matthew Goodwin is associate professor at the University of Nottingham, where his research focuses on radical right parties, immigration and Euroscepticism. He is co-author of the new book, Revol...
Jan 30, 2014•1 hr 38 min
Contributor(s): Dr Keyu Jin | The CFM and Department of Economics lecture series focuses on topical macroeconomic questions. Its aim is to give an informative and balanced overview of available knowledge among macroeconomists. This talk considers China’s growing role in the world economy. Keyu Jin is a lecturer at LSE. Her research has focused on global imbalances and global asset prices, as well as international trade and growth. Wouter Den Haan is professor of economics and co-director of the ...
Jan 29, 2014•1 hr 10 min
Contributor(s): Mark Easton, Penny Lawrence, Aileen Murphie, Jeff Patmore, Professor Lord Stern | University social science plays an essential role in the ‘human-dominated’ and ‘human-influenced’ systems that are central to our modern civilization. Across the world around 40 million people now work or study in university social science, or work in jobs where they ‘translate’ or mediate advances in social science research for use in business, government and public agencies, health care systems, m...
Jan 29, 2014•1 hr 25 min
Contributor(s): Jonathan Cooper, Kseniya Kirichenko, Peter Tatchell | On the eve of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, a panel discusses the on-going threats to LGBT rights in Russia – from the recent ‘homosexual propaganda’ law to the banning of gay pride parades. Jonathan Cooper is an international human rights law practitioner and chief executive of the Human Dignity Trust. Kseniya Kirichenko is a legal assistance program coordinator for the St Petersburg LGBT organisation ‘Coming Out’. Peter Ta...
Jan 29, 2014•1 hr 34 min
Contributor(s): Professor Julia Darby, Professor Danuta Hübner MEP, Dr Alberto Montagnoli, Professor Andrés Rodríguez-Pose | A major innovation in the Four Presidents’ report is the proposal for a shock absorption mechanism that helps regions in the Euro area to adjust. This proposal is a revival of an earlier insurance device that the Commission was asked to develop in the 1990s. The stabilisation potential of such a scheme and its political viability have not been scrutinised in depth so far. ...
Jan 29, 2014•1 hr 29 min
Contributor(s): Dr Panos Hatziprokopiou | Migrant entrepreneurship remains a relatively marginal topic within migration studies in Greece. Yet immigrants’ involvement in self-employment and independent economic activity has grown rather fast and has been linked to the dynamics of immigrants’ settlement and the formation of ethnic communities at a local level, especially in Athens. The deepening crisis and austerity shaking the Greek economy and society transform radically the circumstances and t...
Jan 28, 2014•1 hr 28 min
Contributor(s): Professor Julia Black, Dr Jon Danielsson, Professor Charles Goodhart | The official response to the current economic crisis may create long term stability or, in actual fact, lay the seeds for the next. The panel of experts will debate what is the more likely outcome. Julia Black is director of LSE’s Law and Financial Markets Project. Jon Danielsson (@JonDanielsson) is co-director of the Systemic Risk Centre (@LSE_SRC). Charles Goodhart is emeritus professor of banking and financ...
Jan 28, 2014•1 hr 28 min
Contributor(s): Professor Gilbert Achcar | The euphoria that welcomed the Arab uprising in its initial stage tended to turn into gloom in recent months. Away from impressionistic reactions, Gilbert Achcar will assess and discuss the latest developments in the Arab-speaking region on the occasion of the publication of his recent book, The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising. Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon, researched and taught in Beirut, Paris and Berlin, and is currently ...
Jan 27, 2014•1 hr 24 min
Contributor(s): Professor George Loewenstein, Samuel Nguyen, Professor Drazen Prelec | Better decisions versus autonomous choices: should policy makers try to influence people’s behaviour using techniques from the behavioural sciences when it comes to retirement savings, organ donation and lunch choice? George Loewenstein is Herbert A. Simon Professor of Economics and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Samuel Nguyen is senior economist for the Behavioural Insights Team in the Cabinet Offi...
Jan 27, 2014•1 hr 29 min
Contributor(s): Alexandre A. Tombini | In his lecture Governor Tombini will discuss the current state of the Brazilian economy and perspectives on the future, with a focus on monetary policy. Alexandre Tombini is governor of Banco Central do Brasil, a position he has held since January 2011. He is a member of the BIS Board of Directors since December 2013, and also holds the position of co-chair of the FSB Regional Group of the Americas since July 2013 and the position of chairman of CEMLA´s Boa...
Jan 27, 2014•58 min
Contributor(s): Aruna Rao | We are pleased to announce that Aruna Rao, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Gender at Work, will be delivering a lunchtime seminar. How can change be made to happen to disrupt the deep structures of gender inequality in the programs, policies and every-day practices of social change organizations, mainstream development agencies and systems? This presentation will use the Gender at Work analytical matrix as a ‘lens’ to examine this question in a set of organizatio...
Jan 24, 2014•1 hr 32 min
Contributor(s): Nigel Farage | UKIP leader and MEP Nigel Farage will discuss the importance of this year’s upcoming European elections. Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) is leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).
Jan 23, 2014•1 hr 17 min
Contributor(s): Professor Barry Buzan, Trine Flockhart, Professor John Ikenberry, Professor Charles Kupchan | This roundtable of eminent scholars will debate the future of the liberal international order. The liberal order is a global system based on shared norms, economic openness, and commitment to cooperation through multilateral institutions. Will this system of global governance persist, or is the global system likely to become more fragmented, mercantilist, and more conflictual? Barry Buza...
Jan 23, 2014•1 hr 33 min
Contributor(s): Dr Mareike Kleine, Professor Duncan Snidal, Luuk van Middelaar, Professor Helen Wallace | This roundtable of eminent scholars and practitioners of the EU will debate a new way of thinking about how the EU and other international organisations really work as well as discussing the book’s insights and the implications of its argument. Simon Hix (@simonjhix) is professor of European and comparative politics at LSE. Mareike Kleine is lecturer in EU politics at LSE. Duncan Snidal is p...
Jan 22, 2014•1 hr 17 min
Contributor(s): Dr Alice Wilson | The outbreak of the Arab uprisings marked the 35th year of the conflict over Western Sahara, Africa’s last decolonization case. The international community has so far failed to produce a political climate conducive to the resolution of the conflict. If formal conflict resolution is locked in a stalemate, this paper analyses changes on the ground in recent years. These changes have been enacted by Sahrawis both in Western Sahara, and in the refugee camps in Alger...
Jan 22, 2014•32 min
Contributor(s): Professor Amartya Sen | Drawing on his ground-breaking work on poverty and development, Professor Sen will examine some of the biggest economic, moral and philosophical issues facing anti-poverty campaigners today. Amartya Sen is Thomas W. Lamont University Professor, and professor of economics and philosophy, at Harvard University. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his contributions to the study of fundamental problems in welfare economics. His most recent ...
Jan 22, 2014•1 hr 25 min
Contributor(s): Isabel Hilton | In 1912 the last emperor of China abdicated, leaving behind a country that had doubled in size under the Qing Empire. The collapse of the Qing set in train more than a century of savage political conflict as the unwieldy former empire struggled to find a modern political form and establish its identity as a nation state. More than 100 years later China still has fundamental questions to answer: what does it mean to be Chinese today? Who belongs and who does not? C...
Jan 21, 2014•1 hr 30 min
Contributor(s): Professor Timothy Snyder | At no other time in European history were so many human beings deliberately killed as a matter of policy as in Eastern Europe between 1933 and 1945. In the lands between Berlin and Moscow, the Soviets killed more than four million by starvation and bullets, the Germans more than twice that number by starvation, bullets, and gas. Most deliberate Soviet killing, and almost all deliberate Nazi killing, took place in this zone. If we can understand the tota...
Jan 21, 2014•1 hr 32 min
Contributor(s): Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Natalie Bennett, Camille Kumar, Finn Mackay, Pragna Patel, Professor Lynne Segal | With the arrival of The Women’s Library at LSE, the Gender Institute will be running a series of 'Conversations' for which audience participation is invited. Feminism is said to be both ‘over’ and a vibrant contemporary force; feminists from across generations discuss the meaning of feminism and hopes for its future. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (@y_alibhai) is a journalist and author...
Jan 21, 2014•1 hr 44 min
Contributor(s): Helen Clark | 2015 was the date set for achieving most of the Millennium Development Goals' targets. United Nations member states have agreed that there should be a post-2015 development agenda aimed at poverty eradication in the context of sustainable development. With negotiations on a new agenda set to begin in late 2014, Helen Clark will reflect on the inputs to the debate thus far and on how consensus can be reached on sustainable development goals. Helen Clark (@HelenClarkU...
Jan 21, 2014•1 hr
Contributor(s): Professor Ray Dolan, Dr Peter Hacker, Professor Nikolas Rose | What if anything, can neuroscience teach us about the mind? Does understanding the biology of the brain help illuminate human emotions, social relationships, decision making or personality? Ray Dolan is Mary Kinross Professor of Neuropsychiatry and director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL. Peter Hacker is emeritus research fellow of St John’s College at the University of Oxford. Nikolas Rose is pr...
Jan 20, 2014•1 hr 32 min
