Autumn 2014 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf: Recent Episodes
London School of Economics and Political Science
Contributor(s): Professor Keller Easterling, Dr David Madden | Infrastructure is not only the underground pipes and cables controlling our cities. It also determines the hidden rules that structure the spaces all around us – free trade zones, smart cities, suburbs, and shopping malls. In this lecture Keller Easterling drew on her new book ‘Extrastatecraft’ to chart the emergent new powers controlling this space and showed how they extend beyond the reach of government. Easterling explored areas of infrastructure with the greatest impact on our world – examining everything from standards for the thinness of credit cards to the urbanism of mobile telephony, the world’s largest shared platform, to the “free zone,” the most virulent new world city paradigm. In conclusion, she proposed some unexpected techniques for resisting power in the modern world.
Contributor(s): Yiannis Boutaris | Amidst the economic crisis in Greece, something unusual emerged in Thessaloniki, the idiosyncratic “co-Capital” of the country. Under the mayorship of Yiannis Boutaris, the first non-political figure to be elected as Mayor in the city’s modern history, the city started to re-invent itself, beginning from its very own mode of governance. In this lecture, the Mayor of Thessaloniki will talk about the challenges of administrative modernisation and the necessary institutional changes Greece needs to accomplish at the level of local administration so as to accommodate the principle of subsidiarity.
Contributor(s): Professor Angus Deaton | In lectures across three consecutive evenings (9 December, 10 December and 11 December) leading development economist Professor Deaton will discuss his work on health and poverty. Global poverty has been falling rapidly, even as income inequality has been inexorably rising in most of the world. Perhaps paradoxically, global income inequality has been falling. Or has it? Many claim not. Angus Deaton will discuss recent trends in poverty and inequality, nationally and internationally, and will ask why recent growth has brought such meagre reductions in poverty. He will also argue that measurement depends, not only on theory, but also on politics, and explain why and how the politics of poverty is so often disguised as science. The lectures will ask how we know what we know about poverty and inequality, discuss the many unresolved difficulties of measurement, and make proposals for improvement. Angus Deaton is Dwight D Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department at Princeton University. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Vincent Descombes, Alan Montefiore | What does it mean to speak of an individual’s very identity as a person? And what too of the ongoing identity of an institution or a group? And how is the sense of ‘identity’ as that which is identical related to ‘that which defines what and who we are’? Vincent Descombes will discuss some of the multiple complexities in what he has called Les embarras de l’identité. Vincent Descombes is a Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago and Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris. Alan Montefiore is Emeritus Fellow of Balliol College at the University of Oxford and President of the Forum for European Philosophy.
Contributor(s): Lady Williams, Mark Bostridge | Shirley Williams and Mark Bostridge will be discussing the impact of the First World War on the life and work of her mother, Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth. Shirley Williams is a politician, academic and former leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. Mark Bostridge is a British writer and critic. He is the author of Vera Brittain and the First World War: The Story of Testament of Youth and Vera Brittain: A Life. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Angus Deaton | In lectures across three consecutive evenings (9 December, 10 December and 11 December) leading development economist Professor Deaton will discuss his work on health and poverty. Global poverty has been falling rapidly, even as income inequality has been inexorably rising in most of the world. Perhaps paradoxically, global income inequality has been falling. Or has it? Many claim not. Angus Deaton will discuss recent trends in poverty and inequality, nationally and internationally, and will ask why recent growth has brought such meagre reductions in poverty. He will also argue that measurement depends, not only on theory, but also on politics, and explain why and how the politics of poverty is so often disguised as science. The lectures will ask how we know what we know about poverty and inequality, discuss the many unresolved difficulties of measurement, and make proposals for improvement. Angus Deaton is Dwight D Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department at Princeton University. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Angus Deaton | In lectures across three consecutive evenings (9 December,10 December and 11 December) leading development economist Professor Deaton will discuss his work on health and poverty. Global poverty has been falling rapidly, even as income inequality has been inexorably rising in most of the world. Perhaps paradoxically, global income inequality has been falling. Or has it? Many claim not. Angus Deaton will discuss recent trends in poverty and inequality, nationally and internationally, and will ask why recent growth has brought such meagre reductions in poverty. He will also argue that measurement depends, not only on theory, but also on politics, and explain why and how the politics of poverty is so often disguised as science. The lectures will ask how we know what we know about poverty and inequality, discuss the many unresolved difficulties of measurement, and make proposals for improvement. Angus Deaton is Dwight D Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department at Princeton University. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Costas Simitis | Costas Simitis will examine the European debt crisis with particular reference to the case of Greece. LSE alumnus Costas Simitis served as Prime Minister of Greece 1996-2004. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Sophia Money-Coutts | Sophia Money-Coutts is a former LSE student and has been the features editor on Tatler for two years. Prior to that, she worked on various newspapers, including the the Daily Mail, the Evening Standard, and The National in Abu Dhabi.
Contributor(s): Mirza Waheed | Acclaimed novelist Mirza Waheed will be introducing his new novel The Book of Gold Leaves: a book of piercing lyricism, a story of the impossible choice between personal duty and romantic love. ‘Waheed writes about war with a devastating and unflinching calm, with the melancholy wisdom of someone attuned to but never hardened by its horrors’ The Guardian. ‘Like his great-grandfather's gold painting, Waheed's work will undoubtedly endure’ Financial Times. Mr Mirza Waheed was born and brought up in Kashmir. His debut novel The Collaborator was shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award and the Shakti Bhat Prize, and long listed for the Desmond Elliott Prize. It was also book of the year for The Telegraph, New Statesman, Financial Times, Business Standard and Telegraph India. Waheed has written for the BBC, The Guardian, Granta, Al Jazeera English and The New York Times. He lives in London. Ms Razia Iqbal is a BBC Presenter. She is one of the main presenters of Newshour, the flagship current affairs programme on BBC World Service radio. She also presents arts programmes on Radio 4, and a books programme on BBC World TV, called Talking Books. She was a judge on the Baileys Prize for Women's fiction last year; Chair of the Commonwealth short story prize and this year, is judging the Wellcome Foundation book prize. She was the BBC's Arts Correspondent for many years.
Contributor(s): Professor William Easterly | The admirable fight against global poverty has a blind spot on democracy and human rights, which are both good in themselves and also the most well-proven and lasting path out of poverty. Experts in development have too often unintentionally provided a rationale for oppressive autocrats and unenlightened US foreign policy in poor countries. William Easterly (@bill_easterly) is Professor of Economics at New York University and Director of NYU’s Development Research Institute. The Department of Economics at LSE (@LSEEcon) is one of the largest economics departments in the world. Its size ensures that all areas of economics are strongly represented in both research and teaching. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dame Tessa Jowell | Dame Tessa Jowell will draw on her experiences at the heart of government to discuss the role of capacity building and social integration in cities. Tessa Jowell (@jowellt) has been an MP since 1992. She has served in a variety of ministerial and shadow ministerial roles including as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport from 2001-2007. Professor Craig Calhoun (@craigjcalhoun) is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. LSE Cities (@LSECities) is an international centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science that carries out research, education and outreach activities in London and abroad. Its mission is to study how people and cities interact in a rapidly urbanising world, focussing on how the design of cities impacts on society, culture and the environment. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Martha Acklesberg, Richard Cleminson, Terence Kissack | The panel brings together historians and political theorists of anarchism and sexuality to explore the importance of this relationship to how we conceive of sexual politics today. The panel will explore the history of sexual freedom as part of anarchist revolutionary practice, providing an alternative history to one focused exclusively on sexual rights. Martha Acklesberg is a leading authority on women and gender in the anarchist movement in Spain during the Civil War. Richard Cleminson is reader in Hispanic Studies at the University of Leeds. He lectures on Spanish history, gender studies and the history of sexuality. He has written about anarchism and homosexuality, the history of "hermaphroditism" and the history of eugenics. Terence Kissack is a leading authority on the history of homosexuality in the anarchist movement in the US. Clare Hemmings is Professor of Feminist Theory at LSE. The Gender Institute (@lsegendertweet) was established in 1993 to address the major intellectual challenges posed by contemporary changes in gender relations. This remains a central aim of the Institute today, which is the largest research and teaching unit of its kind in Europe. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Benjamin Noys | How can we imagine a way out of the stasis of a Europe mired in financial crisis? The proponents of ‘accelerationism’ argue the need to embrace forces of abstraction and technology that can escape ‘old’ Europe. In this talk, Benjamin Noys will critically explore these alternative geographical imaginaries as attempts to come to terms with the ‘uneven’ forms of capital within Europe. Benjamin Noys is Reader in English at the University of Chichester.
Contributor(s): Professor Matthew Connelly | The interwar years are vital to understanding the rise of the U.S. national security state and the government’s approach to official secrecy. World War I both revealed the dangers of secret diplomacy to the world, and rationalised its necessity to its leaders. The ensuing period was marked by intense struggles over the limits to official secrecy. Woodrow Wilson both advocated for the prosecution of anyone who revealed national defense information, but also called for open covenants between nations, openly arrived at. For Wilson, if the US did not join the League of Nations it would remain a nation in arms with a vast intelligence-gathering apparatus, forced to curtail civil liberties. It was not until World War II that Wilson’s premonition finally came into being. Professor Matthew Connelly is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2014-2015. Currently a professor in the Department of History at Columbia University, Matthew Connelly is also founder and director or the LSE-Columbia University Double Degree in International and World History. His current research focuses on planning and predictions, and using data science to analyse patterns in official secrecy. He received his B.A. from Columbia and his Ph.D. from Yale He has authored a wide-range of articles and publications, including the award-winning Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s fight for independence and the origins of the post-Cold War era, which has won five prizes since its publication. His most recent book, Fatal Misconception: the struggle to control world population, was chosen as one of the best books of the year by The Economist and the Financial Times. Professor Arne Westad (@OAWestad) is the director of LSE IDEAS. LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is a centre for the study of international affairs, diplomacy and grand strategy. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Lina Khatib, Dr Dina Matar, Dr Atef Alshaer | In this talk, Dr Lina Khatib, Dr Dina Matar, and Dr Atef Alshaer will present their most recent book, 'The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication'. In this book, the authors address how Hizbullah uses image, language and its charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to legitimise its political aims and ideology and appeal to different target groups. Dr Lina Khatib is director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and research associate at the Centre for Media Studies at SOAS. Previously, she was the co-founding head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Dr Dina Matar is Senior Lecturer in Arab Media and Political Communication at SOAS. Her research looks at the relationship between politics, culture and communication in the Arab world, especially in discourses of power and resistance. Dr Atef Alshaer is a lecturer in Arabic Language and culture at the University of Westminster. He is also a member of the Palestine Studies Centre and The Middle East Institute in London at SOAS.
Contributor(s): Professor John Broome | Climate change is a moral problem. Through our emissions, each of us causes harm to others - something that generally we should not do. Some people are already suffering great harm from climate change. What should we do to remedy the situation? A solution can be achieved only through the coordinated actions of governments, and difficult ethical analysis is required to choose the right actions. John Broome is the White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford.
Contributor(s): Robin Renwick | Will Hillary Clinton make history and become the first female President of the United States? Robin Renwick provides an invaluable insight into one of the most divisive figures in recent US political history. This event marks the publication of Ready for Hillary? Portrait of a President in Waiting. Robin Renwick, Lord Renwick of Clifton, is a crossbench peer in the House of Lords. He was the British ambassador in Washington when the Clintons arrived in the White House. Purna Sen (@Purna_Sen) is Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at LSE. This event is hosted by Above the Parapet (@LSEParapet), a research project at the LSE’s Institute of Public Affairs which explores the stories of women in high profile public life. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Mark Phillips | We are under attack by change. The marketplace and battle-space are increasingly populated by peer competitors and those who can achieve competitive advantage with limited resources. The value of traditional approaches is eroding. We can no longer gain and maintain our strategic position in an industry, market or contested area the way we used to. Cheap and abundant supply chains, the internet, easy user interfaces and the free flow of interpersonal connections over social media challenge our traditional models. This highly interactive discussion focuses on the one element that remains constant: human decision making. It is unpredictable, complex and wickedly creative. It is the source of all uncertainty. Yet it is the source of competitive advantage. Join us for a ground-breaking discussion on harnessing the power of uncertainty to gain and maintain competitive advantage.
Contributor(s): Marcelo Neri | Minister Neri will talk about the growth of social welfare in Brazil during the last twenty years, and its determinants. How have growth and distribution of incomes evolved in Brazil? What has been the role played by various public policies (such as income transfers, housing, technical education etc)? How have different groups (organized by gender, race, region etc) performed? Is Brazil becoming a middle class country? What about the middle income trap with respect to other BRICS countries? How sustainable are the observed changes? What is the new agenda on social policies in the country for the next 10 years? Marcelo Neri is Minister for Strategic Affairs for Brazil; has a PhD in Economics from Princeton University. Founder of the Center for Social Policies (CPS) at Getulio Vargas Foundation (FGV); teaches at EPGE/FGV. Edited books on Microcredit; Social Security; Diversity; Rural Poverty; Bolsa Familia; Consumption and Middle Class. He was secretary general of the Council of Economic and Social Development (CDES) and president of the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea). He evaluated policies in more than two dozen countries and designed and implemented policies at three government levels in Brazil. The Department of International Development (@LSE_ID) promotes interdisciplinary post-graduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change.
Contributor(s): Lord Clement-Jones | China's creative sector is a field in which Britain's creative industries can build a strong partnership if only we take the opportunity. Tim Clement-Jones is London Managing Partner of DLA Piper and Deputy Chair of the All Party Parliamentary China Group.
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Anand, Catherine Audard, Professor Jonathan Wolff | What is progress and how do we measure it? What account of wellbeing could accommodate a concern for self-realization and self-development? May an approach based on quality of life provide a superior alternative to utilitarian cost-benefit analysis? And could such an approach inform policy and practice? Paul Anand, Catherine Audard and Jonathan Wolff will combine insights from welfare economics and moral philosophy to offer new perspectives on the ideas of progress and human development. Paul Anand is Professor of Economics at the Open University. Catherine Audard is the Chair of the Forum for European Philosophy and Visiting Fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE. Jonathan Wolff is Professor of Philosophy at University College London.
Contributor(s): Professor Judy Wajcman, Genevieve Bell | Judy Wajcman explores why it is that we both blame technology for speeding up everyday life and yet turn to digital devices for the solution. The event marks the publication of Professor Judy Wajcman's new book Pressed for Time: the acceleration of life in digital capitalism. Judy Wajcman is the Anthony Giddens Professor of Sociology at LSE. Genevieve Bell (@feraldata) is Vice President of User Experience Research at Intel Labs. Anthony Giddens is a former director of LSE and a Member of the House of Lords. The Department of Sociology at LSE (@LSEsociology) was established in 1904 and remains committed to top quality teaching and leading research and scholarship today.
Contributor(s): Dr Ingrid Volkmer, Professor Mary Kaldor | Dr Ingrid Volkmer completely rethinks the “public sphere” concept for an age of global media. Ingrid Volkmer is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne. Mary Kaldor is Professor of Global Governance and Programme Director, Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, LSE. Nick Couldry (@couldrynick) is Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory in the Department of Media and communications at LSE. The Department of Media and Communications at LSE (@MediaLSE) has recently been ranked 2nd in the 2014 QS World University Rankings by Subject. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Rosen | Language is central to our understanding of migration: on the one hand, migrants bring languages with them and, on the other, the countries they arrive in develop a special language to describe migrants. Michael Rosen will explore the ways in which these two aspects meet, partly by looking at his own background, partly by looking at his experience in education over the last 40 years. Michael Rosen (@MichaelRosenYes) was born in 1946 in north-west London. His mother was born in London, his father in Brockton, Mass. USA. All their grandparents were migrants – mostly from Poland but also from what is now Romania. He is a former Children's Laureate and the present Professor of Children's Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London. The Migration Museum Project plans to create the UK’s first dedicated Migration Museum, to tell the story of movement into and out of the UK in a fresh and engaging way. The museum will be an enquiry into who we are, where we came from and where we are going. Britons at home and abroad have a shared cultural history and an exciting future. We aim to represent the thrilling tales, the emotion and the history that have gone into shaping our national fabric; we aim to be the museum of all our stories. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Mats Berdal | How can the UN’s mission to raise humanitarian standards find its way in a world dominated by security concerns and power competition? Mats Berdal is Professor of Security and Development at King’s College, London. The International Relations Department (@LSEIRDept) is now in its 87th year, making it one of the oldest as well as largest in the world. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Mzukisi Qobo | Widely considered to be Africa’s oldest liberation movement, the African National Congress (ANC) played a historic role in ending apartheid in South Africa and has been the country’s ruling political party since 1994. More recently, however, the ANC's legacy has been tarnished by allegations of corruption and inefficiency. Dr Mzukisi Qobo will discuss his view that political governance in South Africa has collapsed, and explore the possibilities of the country’s political future. Dr Mzukisi Qobo teaches international political economy at the University of Pretoria, and is deputy director at the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation. He is co-author of The Fall of the ANC: What Next? Professor Chris Alden is a Professor in International Relations at the LSE and Head of the Africa International Affairs programme at LSE IDEAS.
Contributor(s): Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd | Sir Ross Cranston will interview the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, about his career in the law. John Thomas is the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Monique Villa | We all need stories to make sense of the world. And very powerful stories sometimes are hidden behind data. When data is crunched to expose realities often ignored by mainstream media, the impact is global. From fighting human trafficking to empowering women, Monique Villa, CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, highlights the potential of data and smart storytelling to create lasting social change. Monique Villa is CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation. She has been ranked among the world’s 100 most influential people in Business Ethics by Ethisphere.
Contributor(s): Børge Brende | We live in a world of unprecedented progress and unexpected crises. We have to adapt to a changing security landscape, while at the same time maintaining the pillars of peace and prosperity: democracy, cooperation and respect for international law. Following agreed rules of behaviour brings benefits to all nations - a win-win situation. But we must take into account that not all leaders have taken this on board yet. Børge Brende (@borgebrende) is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway. He started his political career in 1985 as political adviser with the Young Conservatives. He has been Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party (1994–1998) and a member of the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) for more than 10 years. From 2001 to 2004, he was Minister of the Environment. He was Minister of Trade and Industry from 2004 to 2005. In 2008, Mr Brende was appointed as Managing Director of the World Economic Forum in Geneva. He was Secretary General of Red Cross Norway from 2009 to 2011, before returning to the World Economic Forum in 2011. Mr Brende was Chair of the UN Commission of Sustainable Development in 2003–2004 and member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (advisory body to the Chinese Government) from 2005 to 2013. He has also been Chair of the Board in Mesta, Norway’s largest onshore contracting group, and Member of the Board in Statoil. Mr Brende has a degree in Economics, Law and History from NTNU in Trondheim. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Fiammetta Rocco | All over the world, museums are springing up. Will they become white elephants? Fiammetta Rocco (@FiammettaRocco) is the Arts Editor of the Economist. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Susan J Carroll, Professor Sarah Childs, Orlanda Ward | Susan Carroll will present the 2014 Political Studies Association (PSA) annual lecture to highlight an impressive data span to argue convincingly that women's pathways to elected office are varied and sometimes unique. Carroll will also talk about the problems that Hillary Clinton faced the last time she ran for President and what she might encounter in 2016, if she decides to run as expected. Susan J Carroll is Professor of Political Science and Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University and also Senior Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) of the Eagleton Institute of Politics. She has authored numerous books on women’s political participation, including: Women as Candidates in American Politics (Second Edition, Indiana University Press 1994); Gender and Elections: Shaping the Future of American Politics (Third Edition, Cambridge University Press 2014, with Richard L. Fox); Women and American Politics: New Questions, New Directions (Oxford University Press 2003); and The Impact of Women in Public Office (Indiana University Press 2001). Her latest book is More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislature (Oxford University Press 2013, with Kira Sanbonmatsu). Sarah Childs is Professor of Politics and Gender at the University of Bristol. Orlanda Ward is Chair of the PSA Postgraduate Network. Purna Sen (@Purna_Sen) is Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the LSE. The lecture is held in collaboration with Above the Parapet (@LSEParapet), a research project at the LSE’s Institute of Public Affairs which explores the stories of women in high profile public life. Founded in 1950, The Political Studies Association (@PolStudiesAssoc) exists to develop and promote the study of politics. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Ignacio Garcia Bercero, Pascal Lamy | The EU's Chief Negotiator for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and a prominent former Director-General of the World Trade Organisation debate the implications of 'mega-regionals' for the future of multilateral economic governance. What are the prospects and modalities for the multilateralisation of arrangements such as the TTIP? LSE Law (@lselaw) is an integral part of the School's mission, plays a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world.
Contributor(s): Professor Muhammad Yunus | Muhammad Yunus (@Yunus_Centre) was born on 28 June 1940 in the village of Bathua, Chittagong, a seaport in Bangladesh. The third of fourteen children, he was educated at Dhaka University and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study economics at Vanderbilt University. He then served as chairman of the economics department at Chittagong University before devoting his life to providing financial and social services to the poorest of the poor. He is the founder of Grameen Bank, serving as managing director until May 2011. Yunus is the author of the bestselling Banker to the Poor. In October 2006, Muhammad Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with Grameen Bank, for their efforts to create economic and social development. Muhammad Yunus was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science (Economics) by LSE in November 2011. In April 2013 he received the US Congressional Gold Medal. Professor Alnoor Bhimani is director of LSE Entrepreneurship. LSE Entrepreneurship (@LSEship) runs a series of lectures, short courses, networking platforms, debates and social exchanges that explore entrepreneurship's extreme potential for change.
Contributor(s): Dr Robin Archer | Why did radicals retreat on the eve of the Great War, even where opposition was strongest? What are the lessons for us today? Robin Archer is Associate Professor in Political Sociology and Director of the Ralph Miliband Programme at LSE. Anne Phillips is Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government and Professor of Political and Gender Theory in the Gender Institute at LSE. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry.
Contributor(s): Lee Jackson | Lee Jackson will discuss why the Victorians had boundless enthusiasm for cleanliness and sanitation, but still left their capital mired in filth. Lee Jackson is an author specialising in Victorian London. His latest book is Dirty Old London.
Contributor(s): Sherry Coutu, Geoff Mulgan, Tamara Rajah, Andy Tong | This event marks the launch of a major report commissioned by the UK government on increasing the economic impact of high growth firms which will be published on 17 November during Global Entrepreneurship Week. The report seeks to identify the actions governments, corporates, universities and entrepreneurs in the UK should consider taking to ensure high growth firms are "scaling up" successfully. The approach is based on clear evidence that fostering the growth of scale up firms will realise significantly greater overall benefits for an economy in terms of jobs, wage growth and contribution to GDP. Panellists will address the impact of the report both on government and on business. Sherry Coutu (@scoutu), principal author of the report, is a leading entrepreneur and expert on the impact of scale-ups in economic growth. She is an NED on the London Stock Exchange, Cambridge University and Zoopla and an advisor to LinkedIn, as well as an alumna of LSE. Geoff Mulgan (@geoffmulgan) is Chief Executive of the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts (NESTA). From 2004-2011 he was the first Chief Executive of the Young Foundation. Between 1997 and 2004 Geoff had various roles in the UK government including director of the Government's Strategy Unit and head of policy in the Prime Minister's office. Before that he was the founder and director of the think-tank Demos. Tamara Rajah is a Partner in McKinsey & Company's London Office. Andy Tong is Director of Deloitte MCS Ltd. LSE Entrepreneurship (@LSEship) runs a series of lectures, short courses, networking platforms, debates and social exchanges that explore entrepreneurship's extreme potential for change. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Norman Lewis | I aim to explore the gap between the potential of information communication technologies and the narrow narcissistic focus which dominates society’s obsession with the technology today. The contrast between the productive potential of Big Data, cloud computing and billions of connected people across the planet on the one hand, versus our obsession with narrow narcissistic consumption and our lowered expectations about what this technology can deliver, is startling. We may have Big Data but we have small ambitions. We may have ‘smart’ devices in our pockets with more computing power than the Lunar module that put man on the Moon but we have a diminished view of human beings and the knowledge developed to create this in the first place. There is no app for low expectations, only apps’. Discuss…. Dr Norman Lewis is recognised as an expert on future trends and user behaviours with regard to technology innovation and adoption. He has spoken on these topics at events all over the world. Norman is currently a Director at PwC responsible for running their crowd sourced innovation service. He is a co-author of Big Potatoes: the London manifesto for innovation.
Contributor(s): Professor Timothy Garton Ash, Professor Renaud Dehousse, Giuseppe Laterza, Professor Jan Zielonka | A panel debate to mark the official launch of Eutopia (@EutopiaMag) - the pan-European online magazine in which incisive thinkers from Europe and beyond address searching questions about the very nature of Europe. What exactly is "Europe"? What should be the EU's final frontier? What's left ( if anything) of "The European Project"? And do Europeans need a new lexicon and a whole new mindset for thinking about their continent? Timothy Garton Ash (@fromTGA) is Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford, and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Renaud Dehousse holds a Jean Monnet Chair in European Union Law and Political Science at Sciences Po, Paris, where he directs the Centre d'études européennes. Giuseppe Laterza (@giuslat) is Chairman of Laterza Publishing. Jan Zielonka is Professor of European Politics at the University of Oxford and Ralf Dahrendorf Fellow at St Antony’s College. Maurice Fraser is Head of the LSE European Institute’. The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) was established in 1991 as a dedicated centre for the interdisciplinary study of processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Assessment Exercise, the Institute was ranked first for research in European Studies in the United Kingdom. The LSE European Institute has been a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence since 2009. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Michael Mainelli, Angela Ridgwell, Nick Robins | Speakers from the financial sector, NGOs and think tanks will discuss if the finance industry is doing enough to combat the challenges of environmental sustainability. Michael Mainelli (@mrmainelli) is Chairman of Z/Yen. Angela Ridgwell is Director General of Corporate Services at the Department of Energy and Climate Change. Nick Robins is Head of the Climate Change Centre of Excellence at HSBC in London. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): | Organised under the auspices of LSE and UNESCO, this international seminar brings together multiple voices from Brazil and the UK to discuss how ground level experiences of social development intersect with governments and policy-makers in shaping decisively processes of policy design and implementation. This dialogue builds on the lessons of Underground Sociabilities, a multiple stakeholder research partnership that mapped life trajectories and strategies of bottom-up social development in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Since the realisation of the research, LSE and UNESCO have led a series of international events focusing on the continuing dialogue between government bodies, policy-makers, NGOs, activists, researchers and disenfranchised citizens, and the role of grassroots agencies in bridging the gap. This event is supported by the LSE Knowledge Exchange Programme.
Contributor(s): | Organised under the auspices of LSE and UNESCO, this international seminar brings together multiple voices from Brazil and the UK to discuss how ground level experiences of social development intersect with governments and policy-makers in shaping decisively processes of policy design and implementation. This dialogue builds on the lessons of Underground Sociabilities, a multiple stakeholder research partnership that mapped life trajectories and strategies of bottom-up social development in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Since the realisation of the research, LSE and UNESCO have led a series of international events focusing on the continuing dialogue between government bodies, policy-makers, NGOs, activists, researchers and disenfranchised citizens, and the role of grassroots agencies in bridging the gap. This event is supported by the LSE Knowledge Exchange Programme.
Contributor(s): | Organised under the auspices of LSE and UNESCO, this international seminar brings together multiple voices from Brazil and the UK to discuss how ground level experiences of social development intersect with governments and policy-makers in shaping decisively processes of policy design and implementation. This dialogue builds on the lessons of Underground Sociabilities, a multiple stakeholder research partnership that mapped life trajectories and strategies of bottom-up social development in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Since the realisation of the research, LSE and UNESCO have led a series of international events focusing on the continuing dialogue between government bodies, policy-makers, NGOs, activists, researchers and disenfranchised citizens, and the role of grassroots agencies in bridging the gap. This event is supported by the LSE Knowledge Exchange Programme.
Contributor(s): | Organised under the auspices of LSE and UNESCO, this international seminar brings together multiple voices from Brazil and the UK to discuss how ground level experiences of social development intersect with governments and policy-makers in shaping decisively processes of policy design and implementation. This dialogue builds on the lessons of Underground Sociabilities, a multiple stakeholder research partnership that mapped life trajectories and strategies of bottom-up social development in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Since the realisation of the research, LSE and UNESCO have led a series of international events focusing on the continuing dialogue between government bodies, policy-makers, NGOs, activists, researchers and disenfranchised citizens, and the role of grassroots agencies in bridging the gap. This event is supported by the LSE Knowledge Exchange Programme.
Contributor(s): Professor Adam Swift | The family is hotly contested ideological terrain. Some defend the traditional two-parent heterosexual family while others welcome its demise. Opinions vary about how much control parents should have over their children’s upbringing. Adam Swift will discuss the ethics of parent-child relationships, telling us why the family is valuable, who has the right to parent, and what rights parents should -- and should not -- have over their children. Adam Swift is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Warwick.
Contributor(s): Satish Kumar | Our economy relies on stable ecological foundations. So why is ecology missing from big economic and political debates? Is it time for a new approach? Satish Kumar is Editor-in-Chief of Resurgence magazine (@Resurgence_mag). Martin Bolton is Head of Environmental Sustainability at LSE. The LSE Sustainability Team (@SustainableLSE) addresses LSE’s environmental impacts. Working with staff and students across the School, to embed good practice and incorporate sustainability into all areas of its activities. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Kimberly Hutchings | Professor Hutchings offers a feminist critique of the idea of just war and calls for the renewal of forms of pacifism and non-violent politics pioneered in feminist opposition to WW1. Kimberly Hutchings is a Professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias and Almyros | As historically a central pole of national identity, and with a new politics of nationalism evident, the way in which the Greek Orthodox Church is impacted by Greece’s economic crisis and how it responds to it is of major importance to the nation’s public and social affairs. The Bishop has a strong record of connecting the Church to contemporary social issues and of opening up to other faiths. This lecture will address the challenges posed by the crisis. His Eminence Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias and Almyros is a Diocesan Bishop of the Church of Greece. H. E. Metropolitan Ignatius of Demetrias, member of many synodal commissions of the Church of Greece, is also President of the Board of Directors of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, and of the General Assembly of the Greek Bible Society, while for the last twenty years he was presenting the religious emission on the Greek TV. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Sir John Hills, Polly Toynbee, Professor Holly Sutherland | This ground-breaking book Good Times Bad Times: the welfare myth of them and us challenges the idea of a divide in the UK population between those who benefit from the welfare state and those who pay into it. John Hills is Director of the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at LSE. Polly Toynbee (@pollytoynbee) is a political and social commentator for the Guardian. Holly Sutherland is a Director of EUROMOD, ISER at the University of Essex. Julian Le Grand is the Richard Titmuss Professor of Social Policy at LSE. The Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at LSE (@CASE_lse) focuses on the exploration of different dimensions of social disadvantage, particularly from longitudinal and neighbourhood perspectives, and examination of the impact of public policy.
Contributor(s): Professor Slavoj Zizek | Critique of ideology should not begin with the critique of reality, but with the critique of our dreams. As Herbert Marcuse put it back in the 1960s, freedom (from ideological constraints, from the predominant mode of dreaming) is the condition of liberation. If we only change reality in order to realize our dreams, and do not change these dreams themselves, we sooner or later regress to old reality. The first act of liberation is therefore for us to become ruthless censors of our dreams. Slavoj Zizek is a Hegelian philosopher, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and political activist. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and the author of numerous books on dialectical materialism, critique of ideology and art, including Less Than Nothing, Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce and The Year of Dreaming Dangerously. This event marks the publication of his new book, Trouble in Paradise: From the End of History to the End of Capitalism. Purna Sen (@Purna_Sen) is Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the LSE. The Institute of Public Affairs (@LSEPubAffairs) is one of the world's leading centres of public policy. We aim to debate and address some of the major issues of our time, whether international or national, through our established teaching programmes, our research and our highly innovative public-engagement initiatives. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Çağlar Keyder | Professor Keyder will propose an account of the last hundred years of the “state tradition” in Turkey. Çağlar Keyder is Centennial Professor at the LSE European Institute and Professor in the Department of Sociology at Boğaziçi University. Esra Özyürek is an Associate Professor and the Chair of Contemporary Turkish Studies at the European Institute, LSE. The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) was established in 1991 as a dedicated centre for the interdisciplinary study of processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Assessment Exercise, the Institute was ranked first for research in European Studies in the United Kingdom. The LSE European Institute has been a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence since 2009. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick | We know a lot about Stalin but less about the team – Molotov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan and the rest of a group whose membership was roughly but never quite equivalent to the Politburo – that surrounded him for 25 years. They went with him through collectivization, the Great Purges, the Second World War, and the travails of the postwar period, coming through the purges relatively intact but, in the case of Molotov and Mikoyan, barely surviving Stalin’s attempt to oust them in his last years. There can be no doubt that Stalin was the team’s boss, but what was the function of the rest of the team? Were they just yes men? If so, how do we explain their success, as the new “collective leadership,” in achieving a practically blood-free political transition, complete with a consensus reform programme, when he died? Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick is Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the University of Chicago and Professor of History at the University of Sydney, where she now lives. Professor Vladislav Zubok is Professor of International History at LSE.
Contributor(s): Karin Landgren | Ebola may not be a weapon but this disease threatens peace and security. To date, the total number of reported cases of Ebola exceeds 10,000, with over half of the reported cases occurring in Liberia. Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) Karin Landgren has run the UN peacekeeping operation in Liberia since mid-2012, with over 8,000 personnel including troops, police and civilians. Addressing the UN Security Council on 9th September 2014, Landgren said that Liberia faced its gravest crisis since the civil war, which ended in 2003. She pointed to a lack of confidence in the Government’s capacity to address the crisis, unstable political dynamics and deep economic uncertainty, noting that, “The enormous task of addressing Ebola has revealed persistent and profound institutional weaknesses, including in the security sector.” Can Ebola undo a decade of investment in Liberia's stability? In this public event Karin Landgren will discuss the threats posed by the Ebola crisis including to peace and security.
Contributor(s): Professor David Garland, Professor Nicola Lacey | What, in fact, is the Welfare State? Commentators talk as if it were an historic moment in post-war Britain or New Deal America. Academics discuss “the death of the social” and a shift “from social state to penal state” as if it had been displaced by neo-liberalism. This lecture traces the emergence of the welfare state as a specific mode of government, describing its distinctive rationality as well as its forms, functions and effects. It explains why the welfare state is now a “normal social fact” – an essential (though constantly contested) part of the social and economic organisation of advanced industrial societies. David Garland is Professor of Sociology at NYU and Shimizu Visiting Professor at LSE Law. Nicola Lacey is School Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy at LSE. Professor Craig Calhoun is the Director of LSE. LSE Law (@LSELaw) is an integral part of the School's mission, plays a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): John Micklethwait, Adrian Wooldridge | Is Britain falling behind in the global race to reinvent the state? Britain has led previous attempts to reinvent the state, from the Hobbesian security revolution of the 17th century, to the liberal, meritocratic revolution of the 19th century, to the welfare revolution of the early 20th century. We are now embarked on a new revolution, driven by IT, unsustainable debts and the rise of emerging markets. But Britain is much less well placed to lead this revolution. John Micklethwait is the Editor-in-Chief of The Economist. Adrian Wooldridge is The Economist's Management Editor and writes the Schumpeter column. They are co-authors of The Fourth Revolution: the global race to reinvent the state. They have previously co-authored five books together: The Witch Doctors, A Future Perfect, The Company, The Right Nation and God is Back. Tony Travers is Director of LSE London, a research centre at LSE. He is also a Visiting Professor in the LSE’s Government Department. British Government @ LSE is an initiative led by the LSE’s Government Department (@LSEGovernment) to promote research, teaching and debate about politics and government in the UK. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Molly Greene, Professor Stathis N Kalyvas, Professor Vassilis Lambropoulos | The debt crisis has provoked new debate over Greece’s historical path and its identity. Was the crisis a result of it somehow being less ‘modern’ than previously thought? But what is ‘modern’ in this context? This question is especially acute given that Europe today is said to be experiencing its own existential crisis. If Greece has not followed such modernity, what has been its trajectory and why? The answers to these questions go well beyond issues of economics. This panel brings together outstanding international scholars from different academic disciplines in an attempt to shed light on these enduring questions.
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Grubb | Professor Grubb assesses lessons from 20 years of debate on technology, economic dimensions of global energy and environmental problems from corresponding policy efforts. Michael Grubb is Professor of International Energy and Climate Change Policy at University College London. Alex Bowen is Principal Research Fellow in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at LSE. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Tomila Lankina, Professor Karen E Smith, Professor Vladislav Zubok, Dr Gwendolyn Sasse | LSE experts will be debating what the EU got right and what it got wrong in the political crisis that followed Ukraine’s refusal to sign the Association Agreement in November 2013.
Contributor(s): Professor Troy Duster | Professor Duster will analyse the resurgence of the idea that racial taxonomies deployed to explain complex social behaviours and outcomes have a biological and genetic basis. Troy Duster is Chancellor’s Professor at the Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at University of California, Berkeley and Emeritus Silver Professor of Sociology at New York University. Nigel Dodd is Professor of Sociology at LSE. The BJS (@SociologyLens), (@LSESociology) is committed to publishing high quality research that reflects the best standards of scholarship, appeals to the widest possible sociological audience, and represents the cutting-edge of the discipline world-wide. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Conor Gearty | Conor Gearty unpicks the myths, illusions and downright lies that infect political engagement with human rights in Britain - and discussion of the Human Rights Act in particular. Conor Gearty (@conorgearty) is Director of the Institute of Public Affairs and a Professor of Human Rights Law at LSE. Keith Best is the Chair of the Wyndham Place Charlemagne Trust. LSE Law (@lselaw) is an integral part of the School's mission, plays a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Aitemad Muhanna-Matar | Dr Aitemad Muhanna-Matar presents the findings of field research conducted in five countries (Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen and the occupied Palestinian territory) in 2013. The research focuses on the emergence of young female leaders who have shaped a new form of women’s activism that merges Islamism with feminism. The research reflects on the form of women's leadership that developed during and after the Arab Uprisings and how it could contribute to redefining women's activism and empowerment and its effect on social and gender transformation in Arab countries.
Contributor(s): Jason Furman | Jason Furman's talk will focus on the three major structural opportunities that he sees in the US economy: the slowdown in health costs; the boom in energy; and recent developments in technology. These issues have the potential to change long-term economic trends and structures. He will discuss the prospects they hold for the economy, the challenges they present, and the role of public policy in fostering them. Jason Furman (@CEAChair) is the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to this role, he served as the Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council. Furman has also previously served as Economic Policy Director for Obama for America, Director of the Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution, and Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy during the Clinton Administration. He has conducted research in a wide range of areas, including fiscal policy, tax policy, health economics, Social Security, and monetary policy. Furman earned his Ph.D. in Economics and a M.A. in Government from Harvard University and a M.Sc. in Economics from LSE. John Van Reenen is the Director of CEP. The Centre for Economic Performance (@CEP_LSE) is an interdisciplinary research centre at the LSE Research Laboratory. It was established by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in 1990 and is now one of the leading economic research groups in Europe. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Alejandro Mayorkas | The Deputy Secretary of US Department of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas, will deliver remarks on the close partnership between the United Kingdom and the United States on a variety of Homeland Security issues, including counterterrorism, aviation security, cybersecurity, travel and trade, and countering violent extremism. Alejandro Mayorkas was sworn in as Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security on December 23, 2013. Since 2009, following his nomination by President Obama and subsequent confirmation, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas served as the Director of the Department of Homeland Security’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency charged with operating the largest immigration system in the world. In that position, he led a workforce of 18,000 members throughout more than 250 offices worldwide and oversaw a $3 billion annual budget. While at USCIS he oversaw a number of important programs and enhancements, including the implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) as well as important reforms that safeguard our nation’s security, and ensure the integrity of the immigration system. Prior to his appointment at USCIS, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas was a partner in the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. In 2008, the National Law Journal recognized Deputy Secretary Mayorkas as one of the “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America.” In 1998, Deputy Secretary Mayorkas was nominated by President Clinton and confirmed by the Senate to be the United States Attorney for the Central District of California, becoming the youngest U.S. Attorney to serve the nation at that time. In addition to leading an office of 240 Assistant U.S. Attorneys, Mayorkas served as the Vice-Chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Subcommittee on Civil Rights and as a member of the Subcommittee on Ethics in Government. From 1989 to 1998, Mayorkas served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. Deputy Secretary Mayorkas is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and received his law degree from Loyola Law School. Peter Trubowitz is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The International Relations Department at LSE (@LSEIRDept) is now in its 87th year, making it one of the oldest as well as largest in the world. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Luc Bovens, Elena Rivilla Lutterkort, Duncan Williamson | You love it, you need it. But food production and consumption are changing fast. What are the ethics and policy issues on your dinner plate today? What does it mean to be healthy or sustainable? Do we need new food policies, and if so, which ones? Luc Bovens (@LucBovens) is Professor of Philosophy at LSE. Elena Rivilla Lutterkort is Sustainability Officer at LSE. Duncan Williamson (@DuncWilliamson) is Food Policy Manager at the World Wildlife Fund. Joe Mazor is Assistant Professor based jointly in the Department of Government as well as the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE. The Forum for European Philosophy (@LSEPhilosophy) is an educational charity which organises and runs a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Joel Beinin | Since 2002, local Palestinian popular committees have led a grass roots struggle against the separation barrier Israel has constructed, mostly on Palestinian land inside the West Bank. Israelis and internationals have joined this social movement. Using Doug McAdam’s conception of “high-risk activism” (derived from his study of the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964) Professor Joel Beinin will explore the history of the struggle and the motivations of Israelis for participating in it.
Contributor(s): Russell Roberts | Adam Smith gave the world the metaphor of the invisible hand, the most famous metaphor of economics. But he only used the phrase three times in his writings. And none of the uses reflect what the phrase has come to mean today--a justification of laissez-faire capitalism. Yet Smith is indeed a key figure in the idea of emergent order--order that is the result of human action but not human design. Ironically, his richest explanation of that concept may be found in his little-known masterpiece, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. His application there is not to our economic system, but to the very idea of civilization and culture. This talk explores Smith's concept of emergent order and its relevance for our conduct today and its potential to let all of us help to make the world a better place. Russell Roberts (@EconTalker), author of How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life, is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and the host of EconTalk, a weekly hour-long award-winning podcast. Previously, he was a professor of economics at George Mason University and founding director of the Center for Experiential Learning at the John M. Olin School of Business at Washington University. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Renzo Frike, Dr Stuart Gordon, Emma Graham-Harrison | This panel of experts reflect back on more than a decade of international aid and investment and discuss what is next for Afghanistan. Renzo Frike is responsible for Médecins Sans Frontières’ humanitarian operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Stuart Gordon is Assistant Professor in Managing Humanitarianism at LSE. Emma Graham-Harrison (@_EmmaGH) is International Affairs Correspondent at the Observer. This event is associated with the exhibition Medecins Sans Frontieres: barriers to accessing healthcare in Afghanistan on display at LSE 27 October – 28 November. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Anthony Thomson | Why build a customer centric bank? Indeed, having built one in which over 90% of the customers are satisfied or very satisfied, why build another one? Anthony Thomson shares his views on why the best banks, and businesses, are built by entrepreneurs who are passionate about their customers. He shares insights from business and from academia and reflects on what can be learned from this by Chinese bankers.
Contributor(s): Enrique Garcia | Enrique Garcia has been the Executive President of CAF since December 1991. He was Bolivia's Minister of Planning and Coordination and Head of the Economic and Social Cabinet between 1989 and 1991. In addition, he acted as Bolivia's Governor at the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the River Plate Basin Development Fund. He is the Chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Latin America, Vice President of Canning House, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Dialogue, member of the Advisory of the Latin American Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Harvard Kennedy School Dean's Council, among others. Professor Craig Calhoun is Director of LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor Robert O Keohane | Democratic global governance is a worthy ideal, but it is a naïve pursuit which risks purely nominal democracy. Robert O Keohane is Professor of International Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. Christopher R Hughes is Professor of International Relations and Head of Department at LSE. The International Relations Department at LSE (@LSEIRDept) is now in its 87th year, making it one of the oldest as well as largest in the world. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Minouche Shafik | The wholesale financial markets are some of the largest in the world, and matter to all of us. But public confidence in these markets has been rocked by a series of misconduct scandals in recent years, such as those affecting LIBOR. How far have the underlying causes of this misconduct been identified and tackled? And what is left to be done? Minouche Shafik, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, will discuss how the Fair and Effective Markets Review – launched by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England this summer – is seeking to answer these questions. Nemat (Minouche) Shafik became Deputy Governor of the Bank of England on 1 August 2014. She is Deputy Governor for Markets & Banking. She represents the Bank in international groups and institutions, including as G7 Deputy and in the Bank's engagement with the IMF, overseas central banks and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). Dr Shafik sits on the Monetary Policy Committee, and attends the Financial Policy Committee and the Bank's Court of Directors. Prior to joining the Bank, she was Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund from 2011-2014 where she was responsible for the IMF’s work in Europe and the Middle East, the IMF’s $1 billion administrative budget, human resources policies for its 3,000 staff and the IMF’s training and technical assistance on a variety of macroeconomic and financial stability issues. She regularly chaired the Board of the IMF and represented the organization in a variety of global fora. Minouche Shafik was Permanent Secretary of the Department for International Development from March 2008 to March 2011 where she was chief executive of the department responsible for all UK development efforts. Prior to joining DFID in 2004, Minouche Shafik was Vice President at the World Bank where she improved the performance of a private sector and infrastructure portfolio of investments worth about $50 billion and managed global groups to provide both policy advice, debt and equity investments jointly with the International Finance Corporation in the areas of oil, gas and mining, telecommunications, small and medium enterprises, project finance and guarantees. Minouche Shafik has also chaired six international consultative groups and served on seven boards on a wide range of sectors and issues. She has held academic appointments at the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Economics Department at Georgetown University. Minouche Shafik attained her BA in Economics and Politics from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, her MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a DPhil in Economics from St. Antony's College, Oxford University. Minouche Shafik has authored, edited, and co-authored a number of books and articles on a wide variety of economic topics. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, chair of the Grantham Research Institute and chair of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Beatrice Heuser, Dr Andrew Monaghan, Professor Vladislav Zubok | Twenty-five years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, how do these events shape the world today? What are the legacies of the Cold War? And are we truly in the midst of a new Cold War? This event will mark the launch of the special issue of Cold War History, entitled 'The Cold War in Retrospect - 25 years after its end', edited by Professor Beatrice Heuser. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Aleksandar Vučić | Aleksandar Vučić has been Prime Minister of Serbia since 27 April 2014. He is the Leader of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and has previously served as Minister of Information and Minister of Defence. James Ker-Lindsay is Senior Research Fellow on the Politics of South East Europe at LSEE Research on South-East Europe, European Institute, LSE. LSEE (@LSEE_LSE) is a research unit established within LSE's European Institute with the aim of developing the School's expertise on South East Europe. LSEE aims to provide a significant platform on which to build high quality, independent research and facilitate public dialogue and dissemination of information on the region. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Bruno Latour, Rowan Williams | Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams of Oystermouth and the renowned sociologist Professor Bruno Latour will discuss the role of religion in society within the context of escalating environmental crisis.
Contributor(s): Hugh Masekela | Hugh Masekela has long spoken out about South Africa’s struggle for civil rights. His talk will be about arts & activism, reflecting on the role that he and other artists, particularly those in exile, played in the anti-apartheid movement. Hugh Masekela is a world-renowned flugelhornist, trumpeter, bandleader, composer, singer and defiant political voice. With a career that spans over 5 decades, Masekela remains a driving cultural force at home and abroad, as well as an advocate for justice and equality globally. Thandika Mkandawire is the inaugural holder of LSE's chair in African Development. He is based in LSE’s Department of International Development. The Steve Biko Memorial Lecture, Europe, a partnership between LSE and the Steve Biko Foundation, is a platform for African thought leaders, policy makers and activists and to reflect on the past, present and future of Africa. The LSE African Initiative (@AfricaAtLSE) is a long-term programme designed both to reinvigorate African research at LSE and to put Africa at the centre of the social sciences and in the global public spotlight. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Andrew Miller | Andrew Miller will address the challenges facing the news-media amid continued technological upheaval, changing consumption habits and the emergence of new competitors. Andrew Miller (@AndrewMiller100) is CEO of the Guardian Media Group. Charlie Beckett (@CharlieBeckett) is the Director of Polis at LSE and has 20 years' experience of international journalism at the BBC and ITN's Channel 4 News. He is the author of SuperMedia: saving journalism so it can save the world (Blackwell 2008). He is a specialist in media change: how the news media is changing and the rise of online journalism and citizen journalism. Polis (@PolisLSE ) is the LSE's journalism and society think-tank, a part of the Department of Media and Communications aimed at working journalists, media practitioners, people in public life and students in the UK and around the world. Credits: LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor James Goode | This became one of the Shah’s most successful foreign initiatives. He entered at the request of Sultan Qabus to help quell a Marxist rebellion in Dhufar province. Acting for reasons wholly related to Iran’s regional security, he angered most of his Arab neighbours. His troops tipped the balance, helping to speed the end of the insurrection, for which Iran earned the lasting gratitude of the sultan. The annual LSE Gulf History Lecture was hosted by the LSE Department of International History, with the generous support of the LSE Kuwait Programme. Professor Goode teaches history at Grand Valley State University. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran, 1968-1971, and later taught for the University of Mashhad, 1971-1973. He has written widely on modern Iran, including Negotiating for the Past (2007), winner of the Robert H. Ferrell prize.
Contributor(s): Professor Nigel Dodd, Professor Keith Hart | Questions about the nature of money have gained a new urgency in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. Even as many people have less of it, there are more forms and systems of money, from local currencies and social lending to mobile money and Bitcoin. Yet our understanding of what money is—and what it might be—hasn’t kept pace. In The Social Life of Money, Nigel Dodd, one of today’s leading sociologists of money, reformulates the theory of the subject for a postcrisis world in which new kinds of money are proliferating. Nigel Dodd (@nigelbdodd) is Professor of Sociology at LSE and author of The Social Life of Money. Keith Hart is Centennial Professor of Economic Anthropology in the Department of International Development at LSE. Professor Stuart Corbridge is Deputy Director and Provost at LSE. The Department of Sociology at LSE (@LSEsociology) was established in 1904 and remains committed to top quality teaching and leading research and scholarship today. Credits: LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Laura Ruetsche, Dr David Wallace | Joint winners of the 2013 Lakatos Award, Professor Ruetsche will speak on “Developing the Scientific Image: The Quantum Darkroom” and Dr Wallace will speak on “The Emergent Multiverse”. Laura Ruetsche is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan. David Wallace is Tutorial Fellow at Balliol College and CUF Lecturer at the University of Oxford. John Worrall is Professor of Philosophy of Science at LSE. The Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE (@LSEPhilosophy) is internationally renowned for a type of philosophy that is both continuous with the sciences and socially relevant. Credits: LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Dolan | Professor Paul Dolan will define happiness in terms of experiences of pleasure and purpose. He will describe how being happier means allocating attention more efficiently: towards those things that bring us pleasure and purpose and away from those that generate pain and pointlessness. Behavioural science tells us that most of what we do is not so much thought about; rather, it simply comes about. So by clever use of priming, defaults, commitments and social norms, you can become a whole lot happier without actually having to think very hard about it. You will be happier by design. Paul Dolan (@HappinessBD) is a Professor of Behavioural Science in LSE’s Department of Social Policy and author of Happiness by Design: Finding Pleasure and Purpose in Everyday Life. Elaine Fox (@profelainefox) is a Professor of Cognitive and Affective Psychology and Director of the Oxford Centre for Emotions and Affective Neuroscience. The Department of Social Policy at LSE (@LSESocialPolicy) is the longest established in the UK and offers outstanding teaching based on the highest quality empirical research in the field. Credits: LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Ambassador Wu Jian Min | The rise of China has been one of the most important developments in global affairs. Despite China’s growing interactions with the rest of the world, the country’s foreign policy is largely dictated by domestic politics and further economic reform. Distinguished Chinese diplomat Wu Jian Min will explore China’s international strategy and what this means for the country’s relations with the rest of the world. Ambassador Wu Jian Min is the former Chinese Ambassador to France and the UN in Geneva and Spokesman of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). He is also LSE IDEAS East Asia International Affairs Programme Associate. Professor Arne Westad (@OAWestad) is the director of LSE IDEAS. Credits: LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Diane Abbott MP | The lecture will focus on the challenges facing London as a city and policy ideas to address these, chiefly the growing nature of inequality in London, the city’s growing population, the escalating housing crisis, the impact of welfare reform, and the effects of the health and social care act on public health. Additionally, the talk will seek to address the issue of powers available to City Hall in the light of the devolution question. Diane Abbott is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987, when she became the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons. In 2010, Abbott became Shadow Public Health Minister after unsuccessfully standing for election to the leadership of the Labour Party. She tweets as @HackneyAbbott.
Contributor(s): Ian Gilham, David Kershaw, William Underhill | This first seminar in this series will explore the role, if any, of the market for corporate control and its regulation by the Takeover Code in encouraging short term behaviour by UK companies. Other seminars in the series will address the relationship between short termism and Shareholder activism and Shareholder rights and Disclosure regulation.
Contributor(s): Ian Gilham, David Kershaw, William Underhill | This first seminar in this series will explore the role, if any, of the market for corporate control and its regulation by the Takeover Code in encouraging short term behaviour by UK companies. Other seminars in the series will address the relationship between short termism and Shareholder activism and Shareholder rights and Disclosure regulation.
Contributor(s): Professor Hilary Charlesworth | This lecture will consider rituals in the international human rights system and their connection to ritualism. Hilary Charlesworth is Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice at Australian National University and Shimizu Visiting Professor at LSE Law.
Contributor(s): Professor Matthew Connelly | For most of its history, the U.S. government’s commitment to transparency stood as a radical counter-example to the rest of the world. Washington, Madison, and Lincoln were in some ways as radical as Julian Assange in their commitment to transparency. During the Civil War, one hundred and fifty years before Wikileaks, the State Department routinely made public normally secret diplomatic correspondences. When the White House invoked executive privilege, legislators and citizens were remarkably determined in challenging it, and historians were unusually effective in exposing the self-interest hidden by official secrecy. More recent invocations of national security therefore stand in sharp contrast with America’s founders and their principles. Professor Matthew Connelly is Philippe Roman Chair in History and International Affairs at LSE IDEAS for 2014-2015. Currently a professor in the Department of History at Columbia University, Matthew Connelly is also founder and director or the LSE-Columbia University Double Degree in International and World History. His current research focuses on planning and predictions, and using data science to analyse patterns in official secrecy. He received his B.A. from Columbia and his Ph.D. from Yale He has authored a wide-range of articles and publications, including the award-winning Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s fight for independence and the origins of the post-Cold War era, which has won five prizes since its publication. His most recent book, Fatal Misconception: the struggle to control world population, was chosen as one of the best books of the year by The Economist and the Financial Times. Professor Arne Westad (@OAWestad) is the director of LSE IDEAS. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Nicholas Christakis, Professor Patrick Dunleavy, Dr Amanda Goodall, Professor Andrew Oswald | ‘Yes’, according to Nicholas Christakis. He wrote, in the New York Times, ‘Taking a page from Darwin, the natural sciences are evolving with the times. In contrast, the social sciences have stagnated. They offer essentially the same set of academic departments … This is not only boring but also counterproductive ...’ Is Christakis right? In this event, physician and sociologist Nicholas Christakis, political scientist Patrick Dunleavy, management scientist Amanda Goodall and economist Andrew Oswald will debate this question, and then join a discussion on the issue with policy and strategy officer Siobhan Benita. Nicholas Christakis (@NAChristakis) is the Sol Goldman Family Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University. Patrick Dunleavy (@PJDunleavy) is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at LSE. Amanda Goodall (@AmandaGoodall1) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Management at the Cass Business School. Andrew Oswald is Professor of Economics at the University of Warwick. Siobhan Benita (@SiobhanBenita) is Chief Policy and Strategy Officer in the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick and Co-director of Warwick Policy Lab (WPL). The Forum for European Philosophy (@LSEPhilosophy) is an educational charity which organises and runs a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Tomasello, Professor Rita Astuti, Dr Alex Gillespie | Professor Tomasello will explore what distinguishes humans from other great apes in terms of their cognitive and social capacities. Michael Tomasello is Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. Rita Astuti is Professor of Anthropology at LSE. She is an expert of the anthropology of Madagascar and her research, which focuses on kinship, gender and ethnic identity, aims to integrate the study of culture and cognition. Alex Gillespie is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Psychology at LSE and Co-editor of the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour published by Wiley-Blackwell. Sandra Jovchelovitch is a Professor in the Department of Social Psychology at LSE and Director of its Social and Cultural Psychology programme. The Department of Social Psychology (@PsychologyLSE) is a leading international centre dedicated to consolidating and expanding the contribution of social psychology to the understanding and knowledge of key social, economic, political and cultural issues. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Wolfgang Streeck, Colin Crouch | The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 still has the world on tenterhooks. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding about what is happening and how it started. Wolfgang Streeck is the Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Society at Cologne and author of Buying Time: The Delayed Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics and a member of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences as well as the Academia Europaea. Colin Crouch is one of the world's leading political economists, a Member of the Max-Planck Society and the head of Social Sciences at the British Academy. David Soskice is School Professor of Political Science and Economics at the LSE. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Sotirios Zartaloudis | Sotirios Zartaloudis will present and discuss his new book "The Impact of European Employment Strategy in Greece and Portugal". By focusing on three key areas of employment policy – public employment services, gender equality policies and flexicurity – in Greece and Portugal, this study provides a model to explore how European Employment Strategy can influence member states' employment policy.
Contributor(s): Professor Lawrence H. Goulder | How can climate change policies be designed to be not only environmentally effective but also cost-effective and fair? How can they be made more acceptable politically? Professor Lawrence H. Goulder’s talk will explore how these different and often competing goals can be approached. While acknowledging that no perfect approach exists, he will suggest some potentially promising directions, drawing from academic research and recent climate-policy experience at the national and international levels. In considering these issues, he will explore the potential roles for carbon taxes, cap and trade, performance standards and direct technology promotion. Lawrence H. Goulder is the Shuzo Nishihara Professor in Environmental and Resource Economics at Stanford University and Director of the Stanford Environmental and Energy Policy Analysis Centre. He is also a University Fellow at Resources for the Future and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Contributor(s): Professor Cass Sunstein | What impact is behavioural science having on politics and business? Simplified disclosure, default rules, social norms, and ‘choice architecture’ are all being used to steer people in specific directions. Are these ‘nudges’ improving our decisions? Are they offsetting irrational behaviour? Cass Sunstein, author of Nudge and the previous Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration will discuss these new policies and the question they raise about freedom of choice. Cass Sunstein (@CassSunstein) is the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School. Tali Sharot is Director of the Affective Brain Lab (funded by a fellowship from the Wellcome Trust) and Reader in the Department of Experimental Psychology at UCL. The Forum for European Philosophy (@LSEPhilosophy ) is an educational charity which organises and runs a full and varied programme of philosophy and interdisciplinary events in the UK. Credits: LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Roham Alvandi | Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, is often remembered as a pliant instrument of American power during the Cold War. In this lecture and book launch, Roham Alvandi offers a revisionist account of the Shah's relationship with the United States by examining the partnership he forged with Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Dr Alvandi will discuss how the Shah shaped US policy in the Persian Gulf under Nixon and Kissinger, including the CIA’s covert support for the Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq, and the US role in the origins of Iran’s nuclear program. Dr Alvandi will draw on the history of Iran’s Cold War partnership with the United States to examine the potential for Iranian-American cooperation in the Middle East today.
Contributor(s): Linda Tirado | Linda Tirado knows from experience what it is to be poor, to struggle to make ends meet. She was working all hours at two jobs - as a food service worker in a chain restaurant and as a voting rights activist at a non-profit organization - to support her young family. She knows what it’s like to have problems you wish you could fix, but no money, energy or resources to fix them, and no hope of getting any. In 2013, an essay on the everyday realities of poverty that Tirado wrote and posted online was read and shared around the world. In Hand to Mouth, she gives a searing, witty and clear-eyed insider account of being poor in the world’s richest nation. She looks at how ordinary people fall or are born into the poverty trap, explains why the poor don’t always behave in the way the middle classes think they should, and makes an urgent call for us all to understand and meet the challenges they face. In this event she will be in conversation with Rowan Harvey (@RowanHarvey1), Women's Rights Advocacy Adviser at Action Aid UK and LSE Governor. Linda Tirado (@KillerMartinis) is married with two children. Until 2014, she was working two jobs, most recently in a chain restaurant and as a voting rights activist for a disability non-profit organisation. She blogs, writes and campaigns on poverty and class issues. Hand to Mouth is her first book. The Department of Social Policy (@LSESocialPolicy) is the longest established in the UK and offers outstanding teaching based on the highest quality empirical research in the field. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr José Viñals | José Viñals is currently the Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). He is a member of the Financial Stability Board, representing the IMF. His professional career has been closely tied to the Central Bank of Spain, where he served as the Deputy Governor after holding successive positions. He has also held the positions of Chairman of the European Central Bank International Relations Committee; and Chairman of Spain’s Deposit Guarantee Funds. He has been a member of: the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Committee on the Global Financial System; the European Central Bank Monetary Policy Committee; and the high-level group appointed by the President of the European Commission to examine economic challenges in the European Union. He was also a member of the European Union Economic and Financial Committee and a Board Member of the Spanish Securities Authority, the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Valencia; a Master’s degree in Economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science; and Master's and Doctoral (Ph.D.) degrees in Economics from Harvard University. He is a former Faculty Member of the Economics Department at Stanford University. Jon Danielsson (@JonDanielsson) is one of the two Directors of the Systemic Risk Centre. He holds a PhD in economics from Duke University and is currently a reader in finance at LSE. LSE Enterprise (@lseenterprise) is LSE’s business arm, working with academics across the School to put their expertise into action for governments, public and private sector organisations around the world. The Systemic Risk Centre (@LSE_SRC) investigates the risks that may trigger the next financial crisis and develops practical tools to help policy-makers and private institutions become better prepared. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Yannis Palaiologos | Yannis Palaiologos, will present and discuss his new book "The Thirteenth Labour of Hercules: Inside the Greek Crisis". His presentation will be followed by a Q&A session with comments by Professor Featherstone and Philippe Legrain, author of the book "European Spring: Why Our Economies and Politics are in a Mess - and How to Put Them Right".
Contributor(s): Dr Joyce Banda, Dr Purna Sen, Marie-Pierre Lloyd | Joyce Banda will reflect on her journey to the highest level of public life. This event launches a new Institute of Public Affairs project exploring the roads taken by women who shape public life. Joyce Banda was the first female President of Malawi (2012 – 2014) and only the second woman to lead a country in Africa. Purna Sen (@Purna_Sen) is Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at LSE. Marie-Pierre Lloyd is Seychelles High Commissioner to the UK and a member of the Above the Parapet advisory group. Haleh Afshar OBE is Professor Emeritus at the University of York, serves as a Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords and is a member of the Above the Parapet advisory group. Above the Parapet (@LSEParapet) is a research project at the LSE’s Institute of Public Affairs which explores the stories of women in high profile public life. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Ed Conway | The idea of world leaders gathering in the midst of economic crisis has become all-too familiar. But the summit at Bretton Woods in 1944 was the only time countries from around the world have agreed to overhaul the structure of the international monetary system. And, what’s more, they were successful – it was the closest to perfection the world’s economy has ever been, and arguably the demise of the Bretton Woods system is behind our present woes. This was no dry economic conference. The delegates spent half the time at each other’s throats, and the other half drinking in the hotel bar. The Russians nearly capsized the entire project. The French threatened to walk out, repeatedly. John Maynard Keynes had a heart attack. His American counterpart was a KGB spy. But this summit would be instrumental in preventing World War Three. Drawing on a wealth of unpublished accounts, diaries and oral histories, Ed Conway describes the conference in stunning colour and clarity, bringing to life the characters, events and economics. Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) is the Economics Editor of Sky News and author of The Summit: The Biggest Battle of the Second World War - fought behind closed doors. Before joining Sky, he was Economics Editor of The Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph, where he was also a weekly op-ed columnist. During the early stages of the crisis, he was the first to reveal the Bank of England's plans to create money through quantitative easing, and to warn of the funding gap in the banking system which later led to the collapse of Northern Rock. He won a number of awards. Ed was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford and the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, where he was a Fulbright scholar. Paul Kelly is Pro-Director for teaching and learning at LSE. LSE100 is an innovative course that introduces first year undergraduates to the fundamental elements of thinking like a social scientist, by exploring some of the great intellectual debates of our time from the perspectives of different disciplines. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Benjamin Black | Benjamin Black is a London based obstetrics & gynaecology registrar, currently working for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as part of the Ebola response. He has a special interest in humanitarian emergencies and their impact on the reproductive health of affected populations. From June to September, Benjamin undertook a mission with MSF in Sierra Leone, he will be returning for his next MSF mission in Sierra Leone next week. In this talk, Dr Black will give provide an insight to the ethical dilemmas of continuing normal health services within the context of an Ebola epidemic.
Contributor(s): Professor Eleni Louri- Dendrinou | Professor Eleni Louri- Dendrinou’s talk will focus on a number of issues, starting with the roots of the crisis and the developments and shortfalls of the first and second adjustment programmes. She will discuss the Bank of Greece’s strategy, its next steps and the stabilisation of the Greek banking system - from repairing banks to financing the economy.
Contributor(s): Dr Flora Cornish, Mark Heywood, Sisonke Msimang | Expert activists and social scientists will debate the global state of the civil society response to AIDS, and what it teaches others fighting for health and justice. Flora Cornish is Associate Professor in Qualitative Research methodology at LSE. Mark Heywood, is Executive Director of SECTION27 and co-founder of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). Sisonke Msimang is a Senior Programme Specialist at Sonke Gender Justice.
Contributor(s): Professor Lord Giddens | Professor Lord Giddens published The Politics of Climate Change in 2007and is currently preparing a new edition for publication in 2015. In this lecture he will consider how much progress has been made since the work was first published in containing global warming - arguably one of the greatest threats to a stable future for humanity. Anthony Giddens is a former director of LSE and a Member of the House of Lords. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Ruben Andersson, Jeremy Harding, Dr Cecilia Malmström | The summer of 2014 has been yet another season of misery at Europe’s southern frontiers. The unseaworthy boats carrying migrants and refugees towards an uncertain destiny and destination have again multiplied along Italian shores, despite the large investments in more patrols, surveillance and coordination at the borders. Elsewhere, in Spain and Greece, a similar story repeats. A decade on from the founding of Europe’s border agency Frontex, the challenges at the border seem as steep and intractable as ever. In this time, Europe has developed ever more complex initiatives for tracking, halting, returning and assisting undocumented migrants seeking southern European shores, involving an expanding range of sectors: European border guards and African security forces, humanitarians and policymakers, academics and intelligence experts, defence companies and data managers. What are the stakes for these diverse and at times conflictive groups working on irregular migration at and beyond the EU external borders? Who are the winners and losers among them – and are they succeeding in their job of ‘managing the frontiers’? To mark the launch of Illegality, Inc. (UC Press), this event grapples with such difficult questions about the ‘business of bordering Europe’ in the boats’ wake – while also suggesting ways in which the suffering at the borders may be alleviated in the future. Ruben Andersson (@ruben_andersson) is AXA Postdoctoral Research Fellow at LSE’s Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit. Jeremy Harding is a contributing editor to the London Review of Books. Cecilia Malmström (@MalmstromEU) is the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs. Professor Mary Kaldor is Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at LSE. The Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit is a research unit in the Department of International Development at LSE (@LSE_ID). The Department promotes interdisciplinary post-graduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Nick Davies | Nick Davies is a freelance journalist, working regularly as special correspondent for the Guardian. In the last few years, he was centrally involved in the publication of secret US logs and cables obtained by Wikileaks and in exposing the phone-hacking scandal in Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper empire. His book ‘Hack Attack’, which exposes Rupert Murdoch’s use of power as well as the crime in his newsrooms, was published in the summer of 2014 in the UK, US, Canada and Australia.
Contributor(s): Dr Anthony Downey | Since the turn of the 21st century, contemporary artists have increasingly engaged with some of the most pressing issues facing our world, from globalisation, migration and citizenship to conflict, terrorism and social activism. In this talk, Dr Anthony Downey explores the implications of this development, for both art and politics alike. Art and Politics Now by Anthony Downey is published by Thames & Hudson (@thamesandhudson) on 13 October. Anthony Downey is an academic and writer. He is the editor of Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practice in North Africa and the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2014); and co-editor of The Future of a Promise: Contemporary Art from the Arab World (Ibraaz Publishing, 2011). He is currently editing Archival Dissonance: Knowledge Production and Art Practices in the Middle East (forthcoming, I.B. Tauris, 2015) and Mirrors for Princes (NYU Press, forthcoming 2015). He is the Director of the Contemporary Art Masters Programme at Sothebys Institute of Art, London, and the Editor in Chief of Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org), a research forum on visual culture across the Middle East and North Africa. Credits: LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): HE Sylvie Bermann, Peter Chase, Pascal Lamy, Sir Peter Ricketts | A deal on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership would be a powerful shot in the arm for the world's anaemic economy. But does the political will exist to reap the gains from trade? Sylvie Bermann is French Ambassador to the UK. Peter Chase is Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - Europe Office. Pascal Lamy is former Director General of the World Trade Organisation (2005-13). Peter Ricketts (@HMARicketts) is British Ambassador to France. Peter Sutherland is Chair of the LSE Council, Chairman of Goldman Sachs International and former Director General of the World Trade Organisation (1993-95). The LSE European Institute (@LSEEI) was established in 1991 as a dedicated centre for the interdisciplinary study of processes of integration and fragmentation within Europe. In the most recent national Research Assessment Exercise, the Institute was ranked first for research in European Studies in the United Kingdom. The LSE European Institute has been a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence since 2009. The Franco-British Council (@francobritish) was created on the joint initiative of Président Georges Pompidou and Prime Minister Edward Heath in 1972. The Council’s purpose is to promote better understanding between Britain and France through seminars and events on topical subjects of the day. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Owen Jones | Owen Jones, one of the most prominent political voices today, sets out on a journey into the heart of our Establishment, from the lobbies of Westminster to the newsrooms, boardrooms and trading rooms of Fleet Street and the City. Exposing the revolving doors that link these worlds, and the vested interests that bind them together, Jones shows how, in claiming to work on our behalf, the people at the top are doing precisely the opposite. In fact, they represent the biggest threat to our democracy today - and it is time they were challenged. Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) is a political activist, bestselling author and a weekly columnist for the Guardian. He has over 200,000 Twitter followers and appears regularly in broadcast media, including BBC1's Question Time, ITV's Daybreak, Channel 4 News and BBC 2’s Newsnight. This event marks the publication of Owen's new book, The Establishment: And How They Get Away with It. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Ross Garnaut | Professor Garnaut will look forward to where the global economy is headed across a diverse range of nation-states (using Australia, China, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea as exemplars). The challenges that fertility rates and climate change pose for the global economy will also be considered. Ross Garnaut is an economist whose career has been built around the analysis of and practice of policy connected to development, economic policy and international relations in Australia, Asia and the Pacific. He has held senior roles in universities, business, government and other Australian and international institutions. He is a professorial research fellow in economics at The University of Melbourne. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, chair of the Grantham Research Institute and chair of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Brian P Farrell | Indonesia ‘confronted’ the establishment of Malaysia in 1963 by waging an undeclared war, which included armed incursions across recognized international frontiers. The lecture will discuss the work of a military historian in the field and explore the role and perspectives of the local populations during this cross-border conflict. Brian Farrell is professor of military history and (currently) head of the Department of History at the National University of Singapore. His main areas of research interest are the military history of the British Empire, especially in the 20th century; the modern history of empires and imperialism, especially in Asia; the history of Western military power in Asia; and problems related to collective security and coalition warfare. He is currently acting as principal investigator on the major research project Empire in Asia: A New Global History, and serving as Asia-Pacific regional coordinator for the Society for Military History, the largest such professional organization in the world. Kirsten Schulze is associate professor in International History, LSE. She has conducted research on armed conflicts in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and has been the head of the LSE Ideas Southeast Asia Program since 2012. The Department of International History (@lsehistory) is one of the top five university history departments in the UK. Its reputation as a centre of new developments in the study of international history is now recognised as a separate school of thought; the “London School”.
Contributor(s): Professor David Armitage, Dr Jo Guldi, Professor Simon Szreter | How should historians speak truth to power - and why does it matter? Why is five hundred years better than five months or five years as a planning horizon? And why is history - especially long-term history - so essential to understanding the multiple pasts which gave rise to our conflicted present? The History Manifesto is a ‘call to arms’ to historians and everyone interested in the role of history in contemporary society. Leading historians David Armitage and Jo Guldi identify a recent shift back to longer-term narratives, following many decades of increasingly specialization, which they argue is vital for the future of historical scholarship and how it is communicated. This provocative and thoughtful book makes an important intervention in the debate about the role of history and the humanities in a digital age. It will provoke discussion among policymakers, activists and entrepreneurs as well as ordinary listeners, viewers, readers, students and teachers. David Armitage (@DavidRArmitage) is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History and Chair of the Department of History at Harvard University. Jo Guldi (@joguldi) is Assistant Professor of History at Brown University. Simon Szreter is Professor of History and Public Policy at St John's College, University of Cambridge. He will be representing the History & Policy group. Paul Kelly is Pro-Director for teaching and learning at LSE. British Government@LSE is an initiative led by the LSE’s Government Department (@LSEGovernment) to promote research, teaching and debate about politics and government in the UK. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Qaiser Khan, Marta Foresti, Peter Hawkins | Dr Qaiser Khan will be joined by a panel to discuss Improving Basic Services for the Bottom Forty Percent: Lessons from Ethiopia, which examines Ethiopia's model in delivering basic services and why it appears to be succeeding. Qaiser Khan is a lead economist and program leader at the World Bank and the co-author of Improving Basic Services for the Bottom Forty Percent: Lessons from Ethiopia. Marta Foresti is Director of Politics and Governance Programme at the ODI. Peter Hawkins is Head of Profession for Programme Management at DFID. Jean-Paul Faguet is a Professor of the Political Economy of Development in the Department of International Development at LSE. He is chair of the Decentralization Task Force of the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University and author of a wide range of publications. The Department of International Development (@LSE_ID) promotes interdisciplinary post-graduate teaching and research on processes of social, political and economic development and change. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Danny Dorling | It is widely accepted that high rates of inequality are damaging to society, although some skeptics remain to be convinced. Perhaps it is because the most damaging form of economic inequality now appears to occur when the very richest 1% take more and more, even if the other 99% are becoming more equal. So what exactly is it about inequality that causes most harm? Danny Dorling (@dannydorling) is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, Oxford. He advises government and the office for national statistics, appears regularly on TV and radio, and writes for the Guardian, New Statesman and other papers. His new book Inequality and the 1% is published by Verso Books. Professor Corbridge is Deputy Director and Provost of LSE. He is a professor of international development with longstanding research interests in governance and the political economy of growth, especially in India. The Geography and Environment department at LSE (@LSEGeography) is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Danny Dorling | It is widely accepted that high rates of inequality are damaging to society, although some skeptics remain to be convinced. Perhaps it is because the most damaging form of economic inequality now appears to occur when the very richest 1% take more and more, even if the other 99% are becoming more equal. So what exactly is it about inequality that causes most harm? Danny Dorling (@dannydorling) is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, Oxford. He advises government and the office for national statistics, appears regularly on TV and radio, and writes for the Guardian, New Statesman and other papers. His new book Inequality and the 1% is published by Verso Books. Professor Corbridge is Deputy Director and Provost of LSE. He is a professor of international development with longstanding research interests in governance and the political economy of growth, especially in India. The Geography and Environment department at LSE (@LSEGeography) is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Barry Buzan, Professor Arne Westad | Despite the widespread view that China does not have a coherent grand strategy, China has already articulated one that is based on the home-grown idea of ‘peaceful rise/development’ (PRD). The key issue is whether the logic of this grand strategy, and the contradictions within it, are fully understood, and whether China has sufficient depth and coherence in its policy-making processes to implement such a strategy. This lecture will explore key issues arising from the idea of ‘Peaceful Rise/Development’. Professor Barry Buzan is a senior fellow at LSE IDEAS and the Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at LSE. Professor Arne Westad (@OAWestad) is the director of LSE IDEAS. Professor Michael Cox is founding co-director of LSE IDEAS and emeritus professor in international relations. LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is a centre for the study of international affairs, diplomacy and grand strategy. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr James Dawson | Before beginning work on the book presented in this lecture, Dr James Dawson published survey and ethnographic research exploring political identities in an ethnically-mixed town in southern Bulgaria. The main finding of this comparative ethnographic project is that the Serbian public sphere is considerably more contested, pluralist and (at the margins) liberal than its Bulgaria counterpart. This demonstrates that the progress of Post-Socialist states in implementing liberal democratic institutions to the satisfaction of the European Union is not a reliable guide for ascertaining whether or not liberal democratic ideals have taken root in those societies. At a time when several formerly socialist EU member states are increasingly attracting scholarly attention for the rise to power of illiberal and sometimes plainly anti-democratic political movements (Hungary, Romania), this kind of analytical focus on ideas and identities could help to explain why institutional progress has not necessarily led to the formation of liberal democratic publics. Dr James Dawson has worked at UCL School of Public Policy since 2013 and currently serves as acting Director of MSc Democracy and Comparative Politics.
Contributor(s): Ben Hammersley | Your perception of The Media is probably entirely wrong. This is ok, because everyone’s is. But we’re all wrong in interesting ways, and in this talk, I’ll discuss why, and why that’s important. Ben Hammersley is an author, futurist and technologist, specialising in the effects of the internet and the ubiquitous digital network on the world’s political, cultural and social spheres. He enjoys an international career as a trends and digital guru, explaining complex technological and sociological topics to lay audiences, and as a high-level advisor on these matters to governments and business. Ben is the author of five books, including the acclaimed 64 Things You Need To Know Now For Then, which is a guide to the new concepts of the modern world. He is contributing editor of WIRED Magazine.
Contributor(s): Joel Backaler | With Chinese investment increasing dramatically in the EU, US and other overseas markets, the time is now to understand what the potential impact will be on businesses, consumers and the host governments where they invest. In this lecture Joel Backaler will address the following key issues we should be aware of when assessing the impact of Chinese firms playing an increasing role in the global economy: What are the motivations for Chinese companies to expand globally?; What forms of investment predominate in Chinese firms’ overseas expansion?; What are the potential concerns that we should consider?; What are the potential benefits?; How can business and government respond to maximize the benefits, while mitigating the risks? Joel Backaler (@joelbackaler) is associate vice-president at Frontier Strategy Group, an award-winning business blogger, a contributing columnist for Forbes, and a member of the National Committee on United States–China Relations. His work focuses on bridging the gap between Western and Chinese businesses, serving as an intermediary and advisor to executive leaders on both sides. Athar Hussain is Director of the LSE Asia Research Centre. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Philip Bobbitt, Richard Sennett, Robert Gerwarth, John Horne, Lord Glasman, Donald Sassoon, The Rt Hon. Douglas Alexander MP, Zygmunt Bauman | The centenary year of the outbreak of the Great War began with a serious debate over the war guilt question. Historians such as Christopher Clark, David Reynolds and Niall Ferguson engaged a wide public audience with their respective arguments. Since then,the focus has been very much on the nature of war itself. In the media, in theatres and concert halls, in stately homes and village halls, the British commemoration of the Great War is strikingly visceral. History, it seems, is less about rationalising past events than it is about accessing the emotional experience of those who lived in it. Yet, 1914 marked the beginning of a conflict that was much more than a ‘national catastrophe’ for Britain. In the words of the American diplomat and historian George F Kennan this was ‘the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century’, the big bang that determined the course of history and continues to define the political reality in Britain, Europe and America to this day. The aim of this conference is to move beyond the parochial and broaden the view of the British debate.
Contributor(s): Philip Bobbitt, Richard Sennett, Robert Gerwarth, John Horne, Lord Glasman, Donald Sassoon, The Rt Hon. Douglas Alexander MP, Zygmunt Bauman | The centenary year of the outbreak of the Great War began with a serious debate over the war guilt question. Historians such as Christopher Clark, David Reynolds and Niall Ferguson engaged a wide public audience with their respective arguments. Since then,the focus has been very much on the nature of war itself. In the media, in theatres and concert halls, in stately homes and village halls, the British commemoration of the Great War is strikingly visceral. History, it seems, is less about rationalising past events than it is about accessing the emotional experience of those who lived in it. Yet, 1914 marked the beginning of a conflict that was much more than a ‘national catastrophe’ for Britain. In the words of the American diplomat and historian George F Kennan this was ‘the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century’, the big bang that determined the course of history and continues to define the political reality in Britain, Europe and America to this day. The aim of this conference is to move beyond the parochial and broaden the view of the British debate.
Contributor(s): Philip Bobbitt, Richard Sennett, Robert Gerwarth, John Horne, Lord Glasman, Donald Sassoon, The Rt Hon. Douglas Alexander MP, Zygmunt Bauman | The centenary year of the outbreak of the Great War began with a serious debate over the war guilt question. Historians such as Christopher Clark, David Reynolds and Niall Ferguson engaged a wide public audience with their respective arguments. Since then,the focus has been very much on the nature of war itself. In the media, in theatres and concert halls, in stately homes and village halls, the British commemoration of the Great War is strikingly visceral. History, it seems, is less about rationalising past events than it is about accessing the emotional experience of those who lived in it. Yet, 1914 marked the beginning of a conflict that was much more than a ‘national catastrophe’ for Britain. In the words of the American diplomat and historian George F Kennan this was ‘the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century’, the big bang that determined the course of history and continues to define the political reality in Britain, Europe and America to this day. The aim of this conference is to move beyond the parochial and broaden the view of the British debate.
Contributor(s): Philip Bobbitt, Richard Sennett, Robert Gerwarth, John Horne, Lord Glasman, Donald Sassoon, The Rt Hon. Douglas Alexander MP, Zygmunt Bauman | The centenary year of the outbreak of the Great War began with a serious debate over the war guilt question. Historians such as Christopher Clark, David Reynolds and Niall Ferguson engaged a wide public audience with their respective arguments. Since then,the focus has been very much on the nature of war itself. In the media, in theatres and concert halls, in stately homes and village halls, the British commemoration of the Great War is strikingly visceral. History, it seems, is less about rationalising past events than it is about accessing the emotional experience of those who lived in it. Yet, 1914 marked the beginning of a conflict that was much more than a ‘national catastrophe’ for Britain. In the words of the American diplomat and historian George F Kennan this was ‘the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century’, the big bang that determined the course of history and continues to define the political reality in Britain, Europe and America to this day. The aim of this conference is to move beyond the parochial and broaden the view of the British debate.
Contributor(s): Philip Bobbitt, Richard Sennett, Robert Gerwarth, John Horne, Lord Glasman, Donald Sassoon, The Rt Hon. Douglas Alexander MP, Zygmunt Bauman | The centenary year of the outbreak of the Great War began with a serious debate over the war guilt question. Historians such as Christopher Clark, David Reynolds and Niall Ferguson engaged a wide public audience with their respective arguments. Since then,the focus has been very much on the nature of war itself. In the media, in theatres and concert halls, in stately homes and village halls, the British commemoration of the Great War is strikingly visceral. History, it seems, is less about rationalising past events than it is about accessing the emotional experience of those who lived in it. Yet, 1914 marked the beginning of a conflict that was much more than a ‘national catastrophe’ for Britain. In the words of the American diplomat and historian George F Kennan this was ‘the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century’, the big bang that determined the course of history and continues to define the political reality in Britain, Europe and America to this day. The aim of this conference is to move beyond the parochial and broaden the view of the British debate.
Contributor(s): Professor Diane Perrons | This lecture takes an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective to highlight the persistence of gender inequalities, the power relations that support these inequalities, and the everyday processes through which such inequalities are reproduced and normalised. By addressing inequality in this way, it is possible to obtain a fuller understanding of contemporary economic inequality and what to do about it. Diane Perrons is Gender Institute director and a professor of economic geography and gender studies at LSE. Naila Kabeer is professor of gender and development at LSE. The Gender Institute (@lsegendertweet) was established in 1993 to address the major intellectual challenges posed by contemporary changes in gender relations. This remains a central aim of the Institute today, which is the largest research and teaching unit of its kind in Europe. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor David Miles, Professor Charles Goodhart | MPC member, David Miles will explore the paradox of giving guidance on the course of monetary policy in an uncertain economic environment and consider the subsequent lessons for setting policy. Professor David Miles joined the Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England in June 2009. He is also a professor at Imperial College, London where he was formerly head of the Financial Economics department. As an economist he has focused on the interaction between financial markets and the wider economy. He was Chief UK Economist at Morgan Stanley from October 2004 to May 2009. He has been a specialist economic advisor to the Treasury Select Committee. In Budget 2003, the Chancellor commissioned Professor Miles to lead a review of the UK mortgage market. The result, published at Budget 2004, was the report: "The UK mortgage market: taking a longer-term view". He is a council member of the Royal Economic Society, a research fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and at the CESIFO research institute in Munich. He is a former editor of Fiscal Studies. He was re-appointed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a second term on the MPC in February 2012 . His second term will run until May 2015. Charles Goodhart, is Emeritus Professor of Banking and Finance with the Financial Markets Group at the London School of Economics, having previously, 1987-2005, been its Deputy Director. Until his retirement in 2002, he had been the Norman Sosnow Professor of Banking and Finance at LSE since 1985. Before then, he had worked at the Bank of England for seventeen years as a monetary adviser, becoming a Chief Adviser in 1980. In 1997 he was appointed one of the outside independent members of the Bank of England's new Monetary Policy Committee until May 2000. Wouter den Haan is Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science and co-director of the Centre for Macroeconomics at LSE. The Financial Markets Group Research Centre (FMG) at LSE (@FMG_LSE) is one of the leading European centres for academic research into financial markets and is a focal point for research communication with the business, policy making, and academic finance communities. The Systemic Risk Centre (@LSE_SRC) investigates the risks that may trigger the next financial crisis and develops practical tools to help policy-makers and private institutions become better prepared. The Centre For Macroeconomics (@CFMUK) brings together world-class experts to carry out pioneering research on the global economic crisis and to help design policies that alleviate it. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Roger Graef, Professor Conor Gearty | This event celebrates the official opening of the new media studio at the London School of Economics and Political Science. The event will include BAFTA award winning film maker Roger Graef in conversation with Conor Gearty about his films, the impact they have had, and the challenges faced by film-makers today. Roger Graef is a criminologist and film-maker. Born in New York, he moved to Britain in 1962, where after nine years directing in the theatre, he moved to documentaries. He was a pioneer in the ‘fly on the wall’ school of unstaged observational films inside normally closed institutions such as the UN, the EU, the US Senate, British Steel, government ministries, multinational corporations, prisons, probation, hospitals, and care homes to make many award winning and ground-breaking documentaries. He is Founder and Chair of Films of Record. He has made films in the arts, current affairs, science, as well as making innumerable films in criminology – he is a Visiting Professor at the Mannheim Institute for Criminology at LSE. Graef became a UK citizen in 1995. He was Visiting Professor of Communication and Media at Oxford University, a founding board member of Channel 4 and a governor of the British Film Institute. In 2004 he was awarded a BAFTA Fellowship for Lifetime achievement, the only documentary maker to have received that accolade. He was awarded an OBE in the 2006 New Year's Honours list for services to broadcasting. In May, Bafta devoted an entire tribute evening to his fifty years in documentaries. Conor Gearty is Director of the Institute of Public Affairs and Professor of Human Rights Law in the Department of Law at LSE. Adrian Thomas is Director of Communications at LSE. The media studio is a facility for the production and post-production of digital video and audio, with capability for recording or broadcasting. The studio enables staff across the School to produce videos and podcasts of a high quality. It also enables academics to undertake interviews with broadcasters from around the world. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Richard Blakeway, Cllr Sir Merrick Cockell, Councillor, David Orr, Professor Henry Overman | Britain’s housing crisis is a nationwide issue with multiple dimensions. In the run-up to the election, all politicians recognise that the electorate expect fresh ideas on how to address the shortage of decent, affordable housing. This event presents an opportunity to take part in a discussion among experts in the field from the industry and academia, with a particular emphasis on planning and urban policy, and to consider how the Conservative Party intends to address the issue. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production).
Contributor(s): Peter Thiel | It's easier to copy a model than to make something new. Adding more of something familiar takes the world from 1 to n. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. Today our challenge is to imagine and create new technologies to make the future more peaceful and prosperous. Peter Thiel (@peterthiel), an entrepreneur and investor, co-founded PayPal and the data analytics firm Palantir Technologies. He made the first outside investment in Facebook, funded companies like SpaceX and LinkedIn, and started the Thiel Foundation, which nurtures tomorrow's tech visionaries through programs such as the Thiel Fellowship and Breakout Labs. This event marks the publication of Peter's new book Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future (@zerotoonebook). Professor Al Bhimani is director of LSE Entrepreneurship. LSE Entrepreneurship (@LSEship) runs a series of lectures, short courses, networking platforms, debates and social exchanges that explore entrepreneurship's extreme potential for change. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dayo Olopade | Dayo Olopade, Nigerian-American journalist and author, will expose the global pretensions that have stymied African development, and explore the ingenious workarounds that are driving regional progress. Olopade will share case studies in innovation, drawn from her reporting across 17 African countries—moving beyond the dire headlines and toward a realistic, constructive assessment of modern Africa. Dayo Olopade (@madayo) is the author of The Bright Continent: Breaking Rules and Making change in Modern Africa. She has been a correspondent in Washington and Nairobi, reporting for publications including The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, The New York Times and The Washington Post. She holds a BA, JD and MBA from Yale University, and is currently a Yale World Fellow. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Professor Lord Stern | India has achieved remarkable progress over the last two decades, a process in which state institutions and reform has had a crucial role. Dr Ahluwalia will reflect on the Indian growth experience to distil his key lessons for growth and development. Montek Singh Ahluwalia is the former Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of the Republic of India. Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government, chair of the Grantham Research Institute and chair of the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy. Francesco Caselli is Norman Sosnow Professor of Economics at LSE. The International Growth Centre (@The_IGC ) aims to promote sustainable growth in developing countries by providing demand-led policy advice based on frontier research. Based at LSE and in partnership with Oxford University, the IGC is initiated and funded by DFID. This public lecture is part of Growth Week 2014 which takes place at LSE from 23-25 September organised by the International Growth Centre. There are two other public events taking place during Growth Week, one on the evening of 23 September (Financing Africa's future: infrastructure, investment and opportunity), the other on the evening of 24 September (Ten Facts about Energy and Growth). Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Greenstone, Dr Kaikaus Ahmad, Dr Mohammad Irfan Elahi, Sanjay Kumar Singh | Economic growth depends critically on access to reliable energy. However, in much of the world, connectivity remains low, supply in connected areas is unreliable, and, at the same time, pollution and carbon emissions are on the rise. Professor Greenstone will explore some of the key trends that are shaping energy in the developing world and outline some solutions to their energy challenges. Michael Greenstone is a Research Programme Director (Energy) at the International Growth Centre (IGC), the Milton Friedman Professor of Economics in the department of economics at the University of Chicago and director of the Energy Policy Institute at Chicago (EPIC). Kaikaus Ahmad is the Additional Secretary from the Power Division in the “Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources” in the Government of Bangladesh. He has a PhD in Public Policy and Political Economy and an MA in Development Economics. His academic and civil service career magnetized him towards interdisciplinary subjects, and issues relating to poverty, economic development, governance, global interdependence, and institutional development always intrigues him. Mohammad Irfan Elahi is Chairman of the Planning and Development Board for the Government of Punjab. He is responsible for capital investment planning for the provincial government of Punjab, as well as planning for economic growth. He also helps coordinate various Government line departments in achieving development objectives. Sanjay Singh is Secretary to the Chief Minister for the Government of Bihar and Managing Director of Bihar State Power Transmission Co. Ltd. Before moving to the CM office, he served as District Magistrate of Patna. Robin Burgess is Founder and Director of the International Growth Centre. The International Growth Centre (@The_IGC) aims to promote sustainable growth in developing countries by providing demand-led policy advice based on frontier research. Based at LSE and in partnership with Oxford University, the IGC is initiated and funded by DFID. This public lecture is part of Growth Week 2014 which takes place at LSE from 23-25 September organised by the International Growth Centre. There are two other public events taking place during Growth Week, one on the evening of 23 September (Financing Africa's future: infrastructure, investment and opportunity), the other on the evening of 25 September (Growth, Policy and Institutions: lessons from the Indian experience). Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Dr Donald Kaberuka, Professor Sir Paul Collier | Low investment in infrastructure is a critical constraint on economic growth in Africa. Dr Kaberuka will assess the challenges and offer his views on the way forward. Donald Kaberuka (@DonaldKaberuka) is the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB). Leonard Wantchekon is Professor of Politics at Princeton University. Paul Collier is a director of the International Growth Centre (IGC), professor of economics and public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University and co-director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies also at Oxford University. This public lecture is part of Growth Week 2014 which takes place at LSE from 23-25 September organised by the International Growth Centre. There will be two further public events, one of the evening of 24 September (Ten Facts about Energy and Growth), the other on the evening of 25 September (Growth, Policy and Institutions: lessons from the Indian experience). The International Growth Centre (@The_IGC) aims to promote sustainable growth in developing countries by providing demand-led policy advice based on frontier research. Based at LSE and in partnership with Oxford University, the IGC is initiated and funded by DFID. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Emma Reynolds MP, David Orr, Professor Christine Whitehead | Britain’s housing crisis is a nationwide issue with multiple dimensions. In the run-up to the election, all politicians recognise that the electorate expect fresh ideas on how to address the shortage of decent, affordable housing. This event presents an opportunity to take part in a discussion among experts in the field from the industry and academia, with a particular emphasis on the role of taxation and the state, and to consider how the Labour Party intends to address the issue. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production).
Contributor(s): Martin Wolf | Chief Economics Commentator of the Financial Times Martin Wolf gives an insightful and timely analysis of why the financial crisis occurred, and of the radical reforms needed if we are to avoid a future repeat. At this event he will be in conversation with Adair Turner. This event marks the publication of The Shifts and The Shocks. Martin Wolf (@martinwolf_) is Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times, London. He has been visiting professor of Oxford and Nottingham Universities, a fellow of the World Economic Forum in Davos, and a member of the UK’s Vickers Commission on Banking, which reported in 2011. He is an honorary graduate of LSE. Adair Turner has combined careers in business, public policy and academia. He became Chairman of the United Kingdom Financial Services Authority as the financial crisis broke in September 2008. He is now a Senior Fellow of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, and at the Centre for Financial Studies in Frankfurt. Lord Turner became a cross-bench member of the House of Lords in 2005. The Department of Economics at LSE (@LSEEcon) is one of the largest economics departments in the world. Its size ensures that all areas of economics are strongly represented in both research and teaching. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording).
Contributor(s): Lord May, Professor Doyne Farmer | The two sciences of interactions – economics and ecology – don’t interact enough. How many useful ideas must there be in ecology that have yet to be applied in economics, and vice versa? How much more could we discover about the human and social systems, or natural systems, by combining insights from these two subjects? It is crucial that these two fields work together to address the most pressing global challenges facing humanity. If the above intrigues then come along to our symposium Eco2: exploring the fundamental links between ecology and economics, which we’ll be running in collaboration with the British Ecological Society (BES) in London this September. It’s your chance to help create the new science that emerges when ecology and economics collide. Everything about the symposium is designed to foster as much interaction as possible between these two fascinating sciences and attendees will be an equal mix of ecologists and economists. Attendees will also be given the opportunity to submit questions and ideas for discussion at the symposium, and these can be conceptual, technical, or applied in nature, so long as they will spark a fruitful discussion between economists and ecologists. A specific aim of Eco2 is to examine the fundamental, conceptual links between these two sciences. These links are much deeper than most ecologists or economists appreciate, and they must be explored if we are to apply these two sciences properly to address pressing global issues.
Contributor(s): Lord May, Professor Doyne Farmer | The two sciences of interactions – economics and ecology – don’t interact enough. How many useful ideas must there be in ecology that have yet to be applied in economics, and vice versa? How much more could we discover about the human and social systems, or natural systems, by combining insights from these two subjects? It is crucial that these two fields work together to address the most pressing global challenges facing humanity. If the above intrigues then come along to our symposium Eco2: exploring the fundamental links between ecology and economics, which we’ll be running in collaboration with the British Ecological Society (BES) in London this September. It’s your chance to help create the new science that emerges when ecology and economics collide. Everything about the symposium is designed to foster as much interaction as possible between these two fascinating sciences and attendees will be an equal mix of ecologists and economists. Attendees will also be given the opportunity to submit questions and ideas for discussion at the symposium, and these can be conceptual, technical, or applied in nature, so long as they will spark a fruitful discussion between economists and ecologists. A specific aim of Eco2 is to examine the fundamental, conceptual links between these two sciences. These links are much deeper than most ecologists or economists appreciate, and they must be explored if we are to apply these two sciences properly to address pressing global issues.