Summer 2010 | Public lectures and events | Video: Recent Episodes
London School of Economics and Political Science
Video files from LSE's summer 2010 programme of public lectures and events, for more recordings and pdf documents see the corresponding audio collection.
Contributor(s): Professor Tariq Ramadan | In this public lecture Tariq Ramadan, philosopher and Islamic scholar will talk about his new book The Quest for Meaning |in which he invites the reader to join him on a journey to the deep ocean of religious, secular, and indigenous spiritual traditions to explore the most pressing contemporary issues. Along the way, Ramadan interrogates the concepts that frame current debates including: faith and reason, emotions and spirituality, tradition and modernity, freedom, equality, universality, and civilization. He acknowledges the greatest flashpoints and attempts to bridge divergent paths to a common ground between these religious and intellectual traditions. He calls urgently for a deep and meaningful dialogue that leads us to go beyond tolerant co-existence to mutual respect and enrichment.
Contributor(s): Sir Christopher Greenwood | Sir Christopher Greenwood is a member of the International Court of Justice. Andrew Murray is Reader in Law at the Department of Law at LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox | Michael Cox is Professor of International Relations at LSE.
Contributor(s): Alan Beattie | Going back to Philip II of Spain in the 16th century, government debt defaults need not be disastrous as long as they accept the reality of their situation. The main problem with Greece is not the prospect of default but the fact that the eurozone has been in denial about its problems. Alan Beattie is the Financial Times world trade editor, he writes about economics, globalisation and development. Born in Chester, he attended a local comprehensive school before graduating from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in history. After taking a master's degree in economics at Cambridge, he worked as an economist at the Bank of England and then joined the Financial Times in 1998. This event celebrates the publication of his most recent book, False Economy: A Surprising Economic History of the World published by Penguin.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Vince Cable, Adair Turner, Andy Haldane, Martin Wolf, Peter Boone, Charles Goodhart, John Kay, Andrew Large, Andrew Smithers, Sushil Wadhwani and Paul Woolley | On July 14th, Bastille Day, twelve leading economists presented their opinions of what is wrong with the world's financial system - and how it should be radically reformed. A new book launched at the Conference - The Future of Finance: The LSE Report - draws together the various strands of their debate.
Contributor(s): Professor Nicholas Burns | Nicholas Burns is Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Faculty Chair for the Programs on the Middle East and on India and South Asia. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was a visiting Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in summer 2008.
Contributor(s): Professor Costas Markides | Costas Markides is the Robert P Bauman Professor of Strategic Leadership at London Business School. Connson Locke is Lecturer in Management at LSE EROB Group.
Contributor(s): Professor Amartya Sen | In the first dialogue of the Global Policy Dialogue series, Amartya Sen and David Held will discuss Sen's new book, The Idea of Justice. Injustices in the contemporary world include global inequities as well as disparities within nations. Understanding the demands of justice in each context requires public reasoning, and the challenges of global justice specifically call for global public reasoning. The Idea of Justice also investigates the contributions of human rights movements to the removal of some of the nastiest cases of injustice in the world in which we live.
Contributor(s): Professor Peter Hennessy | Peter Hennessy will examine the most secret files recently declassified from the Cold War years and contrast the Secret State of the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s with the the new protective state the UK has constructed since 9/11. Peter Hennessy is Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at QMUL and was recently elected a Fellow of the British Academy as well as being an Honorary Fellow of LSE. Before joining the Department in 1992, he was a journalist for twenty years with spells on The Times as a leader writer and Whitehall Correspondent, The Financial Times as its Lobby Correspondent at Westminster and The Economist. He was a regular presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Analysis programme from 1987 to 1992. In 1986 he was a co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary British History.
Contributor(s): Slavoj Zizek | There should no longer be any doubt: global capitalism is fast approaching its terminal crisis. In his latest book, Living in the End Times, Slavoj Zizek has identified the four horsemen of this coming apocalypse: the worldwide ecological crisis; imbalances within the economic system; the biogenetic revolution; and exploding social divisions and ruptures. But, he asks, if the end of capitalism seems to many like the end of the world, how is it possible for Western society to face up to the end times? In a major new analysis of our global situation, Slavok Zizek argues that our collective responses to economic Armageddon correspond to the stages of grief: ideological denial, explosions of anger and attempts at bargaining, followed by depression and withdrawal. After passing through this zero-point, we can begin to perceive the crisis as a chance for a new beginning. Or, as Mao Zedong put it, "There is great disorder under heaven, the situation is excellent."
Contributor(s): Clay Shirky | For decades, technology encouraged us to squander our time as passive consumers. Today, tech has finally caught up with human potential. In his new book Cognitive Surplus, Clay Shirky examines the changes we will all enjoy as our untapped resources of talent are put to use at last.
Contributor(s): Andrius Kubilius | Andrius Kubilius is Prime Minister of Lithuania, a position he has held since November 2008. He also served as Prime Minister between 1999 and 2000. Between 2006 and 2008 he served Deputy Speaker of the Seimas and Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on European Affairs. Prime Minister Kubilius is interested in the political science, history, and the knowledge economy; he is a Chairman of the Policy Committee of the Knowledge Economy Forum. He was a Chairman of the Knowledge Society Council under the President of the Republic of Lithuania in 2001-2003. Kubilius has been Member of the international Advisory Board of the Baltic Development Forum since 2001.
Contributor(s): Professor Teddy Brett, Professor Paul Collier, Professor James Robinson. | Over the past twenty years many Western development agencies have suggested that good governance, and possibly even democratisation, are key to promoting economic growth and development in poorer countries. The Chinese take a more agnostic view. This panel discussion will discuss both the merits of democratic forms of rule in fragile states and the very possibility of democracy in such contexts.
Contributor(s): Dr Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield | A series of three lectures examining the proposition that contemporary art can go beyond transforming our understanding of the political and build new forms of political and social relations.
Contributor(s): Joaquín Almunia | Joaquín Almunia was appointed Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Competition in February 2010. Prior to this he served as Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs from 2004-2010. From 1997-2000 he was leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE).
Contributor(s): Richard McGregor | China's political and economic growth in the past three decades is one of astonishing, epochal dimensions. The country has undergone a remarkable transformation on a scale similar to the industrial revolution in the West. The most remarkable part of this transformation, however, has been largely left untold the central role of the Chinese Communist Party. As an organization alone, the Party is a phenomenon of unique scale and power. With more than seventy-three million members, it does more than just rule a country. The Party not only has a grip on every aspect of government, from the largest, richest cities to the smallest far-flung villages in Tibet and Xinjiang, it also presides over all official religions, the media, the military and large state-owned businesses.
Contributor(s): Stephen Graham | Cities have become the new battleground of our increasingly urban world. From the slums of the global South to the wealthy financial centres of the West, Cities Under Siege traces how political violence now operates through the sites, spaces, infrastructures and symbols of the world's rapidly expanding metropolitan areas. Drawing on a wealth of original research, Graham shows how Western and Israeli militaries and security forces now perceive all urban terrain as a real or imagined conflict zone inhabited by lurking, shadow enemies, and urban inhabitants as targets that need to be continually tracked, scanned, controlled and targeted. He examines the transformation of Western militaries into high-tech urban counter-insurgency forces, the militarization and surveillance of March international borders, the labelling as "terrorist" of democratic dissent and Politics/Geography protests, and the enacting of legislation suspending "normal" civilian law. In doing so, he reveals how the New Military Urbanism now permeates the entire fabric of our urban lives, from subway and transport systems hardwired with high-tech "command and control" systems and the infection of civilian policy with all-pervasive "security" discourses; to the pervasive militarization of popular culture.
Contributor(s): Professor Herman Rapaport | A series of three lectures examining the proposition that contemporary art can go beyond transforming our understanding of the political and build new forms of political and social relations.
Contributor(s): Marcelo Ebrard | Centrally involved in the shaping of Mexico City since the early 80's, Marcelo Ebrard has lead ambitious and innovative campaigns to face the city's challenges, in relation to public security and environmental sustainability. The lecture will address his government's developmental priorities, making a case for social equality as being at the core of its initiatives to enhance mobility, improve public transport, and restore public space. Social inclusion, it will argue, is a necessary first step for a sustainable future of one Latin America's largest megacities.
Contributor(s): Bronislaw Komorowski | Bronislaw Komorowski, Poland's parliamentary speaker, has been thrust into the role of acting president after the death of Lech Kaczynski in a plane crash in Russia. As Marshal of the Sejm, Poland's lower house of parliament, since November 2007, presidential powers were automatically transferred to Mr Komorowski upon Mr Kaczynski's death.
Contributor(s): Ritt Bjerregaard | As mayor of Copenhagen, Ritt Bjerregaard presided over a number of pioneering initiatives - including promoting cycling and low emissions zones - which help demonstrate how cities can provide solutions to global challenges such as climate change
Contributor(s): Shankar Acharya, Isher Ahluwalia, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Surjit Bhalla, Martin Wolf | India has traversed a long way since the economic reforms of the early 1990s, and is now widely recognized as one of the fastest growing countries in the world. In view of Montek Singh Ahluwalia's key role in crafting reforms which helped integrate India with the world economy, this volume (India's Economy: Performance and Challenges Essays in Honour of Montek Singh Ahluwalia) in his honour brings together essays by leading experts on the Indian economy and on international economic policy. It spans the main features of India's economic development and addresses a wide rang of topics such as growth, inequality, macroeconomic performance, monetary policy, capital markets, infrastructure, human resources, global finance, climate change and international trade.
Contributor(s): Carlos Gutierrez | The global financial crisis caused some governments to turn inward. Is protectionism here to stay? What can the US and EU do to stimulate growth and encourage trade?
Contributor(s): Dr Antonieta Medina Lara, Barbara Nyanzi-Wakholi | Until only a few years ago, an AIDS diagnosis in Africa was seen as the harbinger of an inevitable and lingering death. In rich countries, anti-retroviral therapy has made AIDS a manageable condition for most infected people. The challenge has been to provide such treatment in resource constrained settings, particularly in Africa. In a unique study combining sophisticated quantitative and qualitative analysis, Antonieta Medina Lara and Barbara Nyanzi-Wakholi examine the way that the roll out of anti-retroviral medications for HIV/AIDS have changed people's lives in Uganda. In this lecture they report on the detail of their research undertaken as part of the DART (The Development of AntiRetroviral Therapy in Africa) reported in Lancet in December 2009.
Contributor(s): Professor Claudia Goldin | The talk concerns the challenges facing highly-educated young men and women who wish to have families while pursuing careers such as those in business, medicine, law, and academia. The long history of the career and family quest among college graduate women is explored, and relationships between demands in the labor market for workplace flexibility and the response by occupations, firms, and institutions are addressed.
Contributor(s): Lieutenant Colonel Shannon D. Beebe, Professor Mary Kaldor, Clare Short, Rory Stewart MP | A panel of speakers explore an idea for stabilising the dangerous neighbourhoods of the world through the implementation of human security ideas. The event celebrates the publication of The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon: Human Security and the New Rules of War and Peace written by Shannon D Beebe and Professor Mary Kaldor, published by Perseus Books.
Contributor(s): Zack Cooper, Simon Dietz, Sarabajaya Kumar, Sarah Mistry | This keynote panel is part of the LSE PhD Poster Exhibition: Relating Research to Reality hosted on May 26 in the NAB. The panel will speak to the theme of the PhD Poster Exhibition, exploring diverse approaches to engagement between academia and wider society.
Contributor(s): Professor Hashim Sarkis | Is there anything to say about Beirut beyond the obvious, and by now exhausted, lessons of post-war reconstruction and identity politics? What is a "Beirut normal"? Is it worth examining? The lecture puts forward these questions not in order to diminish the city's architectural output but to reveal aspects of the city that have been overwhelmed by the discourses of war and politics. Through a series of specific architectural and urban analyses, the lecture proposes that a certain urbanism could be derived out of seemingly unrelated attributes of the city such as the speculative intensities of development, Beirut's geography between countryside and Mediterranean, and its insatiable pursuit of "a worldly aesthetic."
Contributor(s): Saif al-Islam Alqadhafi | Saif al-Islam Alqadhafi is currently Chairman of the Gaddafi International Foundation for Charity and Development based in Tripoli, Libya. He received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics in 2009. The topic of his thesis was The Role of Civil Society in the Democratization of Global Governance Institutions: From 'Soft Power' to Collective Decision-Making? He received a Masters Degree in Business from Vienna's IMADEC University in 2000. He graduated with BSc in Engineering from Tripoli's Al Fateh University in 1994.
Contributor(s): Dr Paul Woolley | Paul Woolley explains why banking has grown so dominant, profitable and prone to crisis. He shows how giant funds, the custodians of social wealth, should act to make finance a better servant to society.
Contributor(s): Professor Muhammad Yunus | Muhammad Yunus has developed a visionary new dimension for capitalism which he calls "social business". By harnessing the energy of profit-making to the objective of fulfilling human needs, social business creates self-supporting, viable commercial enterprises that generate economic growth even as they produce goods and services that make the world a better place. In Building Social Business, Professor Yunus shows how social business has gone from being a theory to an inspiring practice, adopted by leading corporations, entrepreneurs and social activists across the world. He also demonstrates how social business transforms lives; offers practical guidance for those who want to create social businesses of their own; explains how public and corporate policies must adapt to make room for the social business model; and shows why social business holds the potential to redeem the failed promise of free-market enterprise.
Contributor(s): Dr Adam S Posen | There is a battle for the future of our planet between profiteers who threaten to destroy natural resources for gain and backward-looking environmental romantics who thwart constructive development. Paul Collier uses his ground-breaking research to offer realistic and sustainable solutions that reconcile the immediate needs of the world's growing population without despoiling the planet for future generations.
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Collier | Cities are the magnets for more than half the world's population. In such urban conditions, architects are increasingly called into debates about environmental and social sustainability, governance, and social inequality. Shaping Cities is an Urban Age public lecture series organised by LSE Cities that identifies the growing complexity of architectural practice in relation to the challenges of exponential urbanism.
Contributor(s): Professor Edwin Hutchins | Edwin Hutchins discusses how the shift to seeing cognition as a biological rather than a logical phenomenon presents challenges and opportunities for understanding the relations between culture and cognition.
Contributor(s): Professor John Roberts | As early as 2005 Roubini speculated that house prices would soon sink the economy, and in 2006 warned the IMF that the The quality of management varies significantly across countries, with less developed countries featuring a large share of poorly managed firms. In a field experiment we explore why so many Indian firms are poorly managed, whether this can be improved and what the effect of better management is on performance. We find strong positive results
Contributor(s): Dr Sam Tororei | The WHO estimates that 10 per cent of the population in poor countries is disabled. Disabled people have and want sexual lives - and, because of their disabilities, they may also be sexually abused and exploited. In this lecture Dr Sam Tororei from the Nairobi based Regional AIDS Training Network (RATN) will present findings from the most recent research. He will talk about how in Kenya steps are being taken to protect disabled people from sexual abuse while encourage them to lead full sexual lives, this in an environment where HIV infection is an ever present threat. The lecture will be of particular interest to those interested in health, disability, HIV/AIDS, Kenya, gender and sexuality issues.
Contributor(s): Professor William Easterly | This lecture argues that occasions when development economists were more certain about 'the solution to global poverty' have often led to harmful consequences for the world's poor in the long-run. Sceptical criticism is a creative force that redirects attention and effort away from centrally-directed expert solutions towards effective decentralised problem-solving.
Contributor(s): Professor Rahul Mehrotra. | Mumbai, a Kinetic City, presents a compelling vision that potentially allows us to better understand the blurred lines of contemporary urbanism and the changing roles of people and spaces in urban society. An architecture or urbanism of equality in an increasingly inequitable economic condition requires looking deeper to find a wide range of places to mark and commemorate the cultures of those excluded from the spaces of global flows. These don't necessarily lie in the formal production of architecture, but often challenge it. Here the idea of a city is an elastic urban condition, not a grand vision, but a grand adjustment.
Contributor(s): Professor Nouriel Roubini | As early as 2005 Roubini speculated that house prices would soon sink the economy, and in 2006 warned the IMF that the United States was likely to face a catastrophic housing bust resulting in deep recession. Back then he was nicknamed 'Dr Doom' by the New York Times. In hindsight, economists have called him a prophet.
Contributor(s): Professor Carlota Perez | Drawing lessons from history, this lecture will argue that the potential of information technologies, the challenges of the environment and the scope for re-specialisation in the globalised economy could bring about a sustainable global 'golden age'.
Contributor(s): Professor Richard Sennett, Dr Rowan Williams. | A dialogue between a social philosopher and theologian about ritual and narrative.
Contributor(s): Sir Christopher Kelly | The lecture will discuss some of the issues facing the health and social care system following the election.
Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun, Professor Bruno Latour, Alan Rusbridger, Professor Judy Wajcman, David Adjaye, Professor Geoff Mulgan, Lord Richard Rogers, Polly Toynbee. | In this exciting half-day conference two panels on 'Public Life and Public Policy' and 'Cities and the Public Realm', discuss these themes in the context of the work of Professor Sennett, the eminent sociologist whose recent books include The Culture of the New Capitalism and The Craftsman.
Contributor(s): Professor Craig Calhoun, Professor Bruno Latour, Alan Rusbridger, Professor Judy Wajcman, David Adjaye, Professor Geoff Mulgan, Lord Richard Rogers, Polly Toynbee. | In this exciting half-day conference two panels on 'Public Life and Public Policy' and 'Cities and the Public Realm', discuss these themes in the context of the work of Professor Sennett, the eminent sociologist whose recent books include The Culture of the New Capitalism and The Craftsman.
Contributor(s): Professor John Kay | Many goals are more likely to be achieved when pursued indirectly: the most profitable companies are not the most aggressive in chasing profits and the wealthiest are not the most materialistic. By understanding the principle of Obliquity we can make better decisions in our personal and professional lives
Contributor(s): Stefan Halper | Beyond the military and economic challenge presented by Beijing, there lies a battle of ideas. China's market authoritarian model promises to shape the developing world in the 21st Century offering both new modes of governance and a path around the West. What does this mean for the Enlightenment ideals that have informed Western progress for some 200 years? What does it mean for the millions seeking a better life across the Third World?
Contributor(s): Dr Rane Willerslev | The question which runs throughout this talk can be stated in stark form: is it a mistake to take our interest in an ethnographic phenomenon in the direction of an empirical investigation, when what is really needed with respect to its clarity is an imaginative contemplation of it? It is my overall argument that this is indeed the case and that the Malinowskian recourse to empirical evidence as the ultimate criterion for anthropological knowledge is misguided. Some phenomena dealt with by anthropologists are beyond empirical experience. As examples, I take two classical topics - the 'soul' and 'ritual blood sacrifice'. I will show how both are essentially metaphysical issues, not empirical ones. Understanding them, therefore, is not a question of advancement in the actual material practice of fieldwork, but of the power of the scholar's speculative imagination. This finds an echo in Frazer, the last survivor of the old 'armchair school'. His style of anthropology was marked by a deliberate speculative interrogation of ethnography - a process whereby abstract thinking gives force and meaning to ethnographic observations.
Contributor(s): Howard Davies and Paul Volcker | Howard Davies is director of LSE. Prior to this, from 1997-2003 he was Chairman of the Financial Services Authority, the single regulator for the UK financial sector, which was created under his leadership from nine separate regulatory agencies. From 1995-1997 he was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. His latest book is Banking on the Future: the fall and rise of central banking, written with David Green, which will be launched at LSE at a public debate on 12 May.
Contributor(s): Howard Davies, David Green | Not long ago, national central banks were endowed with wide-ranging authority, enormous prestige, and a high degree of independence. Today, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, rethinking their functioning and their modus operandi is both natural and needed. Howard Davies and David Green write on this issue with authority, reflecting their practical experience, political sensitivity, and high analytic skills.
Contributor(s): Professor Tim Crane, Professor AC Grayling | For the last 150 years or so European philosophers and sociologists have tended to regard religion as just one more pre-scientific myth and superstition that has had its day, and likely to wither on the vine of History. This view, the secularization thesis, seems today to be in poor shape. Not only does there appear to be no sign of withering, still less a clear path of scientific and rational progress, but religion seems to be reviving. Classic atheist criticisms of religion tend today to sound increasingly strident and dogmatic. In this dialogue two of Britain's leading philosophers who are also convinced atheists will explore the continued attractions of religious belief and its place in a European world whose secular character is itself today in question.
Contributor(s): Tariq Ali | Night of the Golden Butterfly concludes the Islam Quintet-Tariq Ali's award-winning series of historical novels, translated into more than a dozen languages, that has been twenty years in the writing. Completing an epic panorama that began in fifteenth-century Moorish Spain, the latest novel moves between the cities of the twenty-first century, from Lahore to London, from Paris to Beijing
Contributor(s): Baroness Catherine Ashton | Baroness Catherine Ashton is the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Vice President of the European Commission. Prior to this she served as European Commissioner for Trade.
Contributor(s): Professor Samir Okasha | Many animal species live in cooperative groups, but the tension between individual and group welfare is ever-present. Professor Okasha's talk will analyse how evolutionary biologists have theorized about this tension.
Contributor(s): Natasa Kandic, Professor Ruti Teitel, David Tolbert. | To mark the official launch of the London Transitional Justice Network, this panel of leading advocates and scholars will explore the unprecedented expansion and challenges for transitional justice in the 21st century.
Contributor(s): Philippe Legrain | The financial crisis brought the world to the brink of economic breakdown. As bubble turned to bust, Depression loomed. Now bankers' bonuses are back, house prices are rising again and politicians promise recovery while unemployment remains high, debts mount, frictions with China grow and the planet overheats. Is this really sustainable - or do we need to change course?
Contributor(s): Jon Lømoy, Dr Funmi Olonisakin, Professor James Putzel. | This panel discussion will focus on the January 2010 OECD report Do No Harm: international support for statebuilding in fragile situations, for which CSRC director, James Putzel, is the principal author.
Contributor(s): Thomas Mirow. | 18 months into the worst financial crisis since the 1930s, which countries seem to have made the grade? And how have they done so?
Contributor(s): Professor Pranab Bardhan | Professor Pranab Bardhan will deliver two lectures on the evening of 4 and 5 May. In this first lecture he will give a broad critical overview of the main achievements and failures in the two giant economies.
Contributor(s): Professor John Bowen | This lecture will draw on the understandings of Islam and secularism that have been explored in earlier talks to compare recent processes of social and legal adaptation across Europe, with a focus on the contrast between England and France and further comparisons of North American and German legal cases.
Contributor(s): Professor Pranab Bardhan | Professor Pranab Bardhan will deliver two lectures on the evening of 4 and 5 May. In this first lecture he will give a broad critical overview of the main achievements and failures in the two giant economies.
Contributor(s): Tessa Jowell, Lord McNally, Bob Neill | This public debate asks the country's leading parties what their policies are on making Britain's towns and cities more liveable and sustainable. What do their parties' manifestos offer on the built environment, urban development and quality of life? How will the inevitable conflicts between reduction in public expenditure and the need to invest in our urban infrastructure be resolved? What role can British cities play in leading the revolution in the green economy and setting new standards of environmental responsibility?
Contributor(s): Professor Benjamin Cohen | "After the Great Recession, the global monetary system is in turmoil. Can order be restored?"
Contributor(s): Phillip Blond | Conventional politics is at a crossroads. Amid recession, depression, poverty, increasing violence and rising inequality, our current politics is exhausted and inadequate. In Red Tory, Phillip Blond argues that only a radical new political settlement can tackle the problems we face.
Contributor(s): Espen Berg, Zoë Marriage, Bremley Lyngdoh, Andrew Lamb | The panellists will discuss the role of young people in development and what governments and the development community can do to improve the situation of young people living in a poverty environment.
Contributor(s): Professor George Alogoskoufis, Professor Wim Koesters, Dr Yannos Papantoniou, Simon Tilford | The fiscal crisis in Greece has received much international coverage. Can Greece correct its financial position and undertake the necessary reforms for future prosperity? What are the implications for the governance of the euro-zone and the future performance of the 'euro'?
Contributor(s): Lynne Featherstone, Harriet Harman, Theresa May | Women's votes will determine the result of this closely fought election and all the parties have mounted a media charm offensive to win their support. But is there any policy substance behind their spin? What would the parties' policies in key areas such as the economy, the family, crime and reforming politics mean for women's lives and which party would best progress women's equality and human rights?
Contributor(s): Professor Thandika Mkandawire | Africa lags behind other developing nations both economically and by other related social indicators. There is widespread feeling in Africa that, in the words of Nyerere, 'Africa must run while others walk'. The lecture will consider the implications of this task on African scholarship.
Contributor(s): Professor David Harvey | For three centuries the capitalist system has shaped western society and conditioned the lives of its people. Capitalism is cyclical - and increasingly bankrupt. Boom-and-bust is its model. Laying bare the follies of the international financial system, eminent academic David Harvey looks at the nature of capitalism and why it's time to call a halt to its unbridled excesses.
Contributor(s): Richard Stengel | For nearly three years Time magazine editor Richard Stengel collaborated with Nelson Mandela on his autobiography and travelled with him everywhere. Eating with him, watching him campaign, hearing him think out loud, Stengel came to know all the different sides of this complex man. He became a cherished friend and colleague. Now he has distilled countless hours of intimate conversation with Mandela into fifteen essential life lessons. In Mandela's Way, he recounts the moments in which 'the grandfather of South Africa' was tested and shares the wisdom he learned.