Autumn 2007 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf: Recent Episodes
London School of Economics and Political Science
Contributor(s): Professor Lawrence Hirschfeld | This event presents recent findings about representations of social categories that have potential relevance for anthropology, psychology and evolutionary biology.Lawrence Hirschfeld is professor of psychology and anthropology at the New School for Social Research, New York.
Contributor(s): Kenneth Roth | In the past decade, Human Rights Watch has emerged as one of the leading human rights organisations in the world, its reports increasingly acclaimed for their accuracy and for the depth of their human rights advocacy. Executive Director Kenneth Roth discusses the human rights landscape in the Centre's annual Human Rights Day lecture: What have been the main challenges that Human Rights Watch has faced as it has worked to achieve this position? How has the organisation adapted to the new climate of opinion after 11 September 2001 and to the new militarism of the Bush years? What are the key challenges that human rights NGOs face in the world today? With an eye to the future, what is the current state of health of the human rights ideal?
Contributor(s): Dr Robert Kagan | The years immediately following the end of the Cold War offered a tantalising glimpse at the possibility of a new kind of international order, but that was a mirage.Robert Kagan is senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund.
Contributor(s): Jacqui Smith MP | Jacqui Smith is Home Secretary, a position she has held since June 2007. Prior to this she held several ministerial posts. From 1999 she served for two years as parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department for Education. In 2001 she was promoted to minister of state for health with responsibility for social services. She was promoted again to be minister of state at the Department for Trade and Industry, and deputy minister for women. After the 2005 general election she became minister of state for schools. In May 2006 she joined the cabinet as chief whip.
Contributor(s): Professor Nicola Lacey | Only by understanding the institutional preconditions for a tolerant criminal justice system can we think clearly about the possible options for reform within the British system.
Contributor(s): Gérard Errera | Most would agree that what unites those 'sweet enemies', France and Britain, is much greater than what divides them. But how can shared perspectives and interests be translated into practical strategies which will make a real difference to the world? Girard Errera is French ambassador to the UK.
Contributor(s): Sir Ronald Cohen | Sir Ronald Cohen is a founder of the private-equity industry in Europe and one of the world's leading private equity investors. At the age of 26, he co-founded the firm that became Apax Partners. When he stepped down from the chairmanship thirty-three years later, Apax was the largest global private-equity firm founded in Europe. He is currently chairman of Bridges Ventures and The Portland Trust. He was knighted in 2001 for his services to venture capital.
Contributor(s): Helen Epstein | This lecture is one event in the LSEAIDS series of Public Lectures on HIV/AIDS, Infectious Diseases and Reproductive Health funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).
Contributor(s): Sam Hirsch, Iain McLean | One person, one vote is a core principle of a democratic system. Electoral districting in the UK and US is far from satisfactory and seriously compromises claims to democracy.Sam Hirsch specialises in election law, voting rights, and re-districting. Iain McLean is director of the Public Policy Unit, Oxford University.
Contributor(s): Sir Roderic Lyne | Under Vladimir Putin, Russia's relations with many Western states has become increasingly edgy. What are the prospects for policy developments after Putin? Roderic Lyne was UK ambassador in Moscow in 2000-04.
Contributor(s): Professor Carol Berkin | Was the US constitution the work of confident demigods and innovators or the handiwork of anxious political leaders who relied on longstanding Anglo-American political traditions to save a republican in crisis? Carol Berkin is presidential distinguished professor of history at Baruch College and The Graduate Centre, CUNY.
Contributor(s): Ambassador John R. Bolton | This lecture and question and answer session marked the launch of Ambassador Bolton's new book Surrender in Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad (Simon and Schuster, November 2007). John R. Bolton currently serves as a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Prior to arriving at AEI, Ambassador Bolton served as the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations from August 1, 2005 to December 9, 2006. From May 2001 to May 2005, Ambassador Bolton served as Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, also in the Bush Administration.
Contributor(s): Daniele Archibugi, Armine Ishkanian, Dr Iain King | Democracy promotion became a key foreign policy issue pursued by Western governments after 1989. To what extent are external democracy promotion efforts effective?
Contributor(s): Ed Richards, Damian Tambini | The countdown to the end of British public service broadcasting has begun. In 2012 analogue is switched off as the digital competition threatens to shatter the status quo. Is this a cultural disaster in the making or an opportunity to create a more open and creative broadcast media?
Contributor(s): Professor David Laibson | Over three lectures, David Laibson will challenge many standard assumptions in economics and show how a combination of psychology and economics can better predict behaviour.David Laibson is professor of economics at Harvard University.
Contributor(s): Professor David Laibson | Over three lectures, David Laibson will challenge many standard assumptions in economics and show how a combination of psychology and economics can better predict behaviour. David Laibson is professor of economics at Harvard University.
Contributor(s): Professor Kees Christiaanse | The idea of the open city as a place of social integration, cultural diversity and collective identity is perceived as an irreversible achievement of modernity, and fuels our visions for a sustainable urban future. Nevertheless, we are witnessing increasing fragmentation and seclusion, which threatens the existence of the open city. Suburban compounds, gated communities, university campuses, covered shopping malls, urban entertainment areas, airport security zones, holiday resorts, all tend to develop into privatized and controlled zones, which are connected with the city at large by a limited number of corridors and access points. Public space ' traditionally understood as the ultimate space of social encounter and equality - is being eroded by commerce, changing lifestyles and functionality. This lecture will address whether these conditions are destroying the sensible tissue of the open city, which are intended to encourage social interaction and balance. Are cities degenerating into secluded islands that denying a balanced urban totality? And how might the open city react to these developments?
Contributor(s): Professor David Laibson | Over three lectures, David Laibson will challenge many standard assumptions in economics and show how a combination of psychology and economics can better predict behaviour.David Laibson is professor of economics at Harvard University.
Contributor(s): Lord Mark Malloch-Brown | Mark Malloch-Brown was appointed the Minister for Africa, Asia and the UN attending Cabinet in June 2007. His responsibilities include Africa, Asia (Afghanistan, Sub-Continent and Far East), the UN, the Commonwealth, human rights, global and economic issues, and FCO Services, as well as FCO business in the House of Lords.
Contributor(s): Professor Stephen Castles | Growing interest in migration research reflects the politicisation of international migration but this could lead to policy-driven research, cut off from critical analysis. Stephen Castles is professor of migration and refugee studies, and director of the international migration institute at the University of Oxford.
Contributor(s): Geoffrey Dennis, James Kliffen, Bernard Pécoul, Dr Edward Simpson | Humanitarian NGOs find themselves increasingly providing aid in conflict situations alongside military actors and private companies. Is this compromising their principles of neutrality and independence? Geoffrey Dennis is executive director of Care International UK. James Kliffen is head of fundraising at Midecins Sans Frontihres, UK.
Contributor(s): Rabinder Singh QC | Rabinder Singh QC, a barrister at Matrix Chambers and Visiting Professor of Law at the LSE, has been involved in some of the leading cases of the last five years raising legal issues arising out of the war against Iraq. In this lecture he will for the first time in a public forum give an account of that work, which includes: the legality of the UK's participation in the invasion in 2003; attempts to get a public inquiry into the circumstances leading to the invasion; the applicability of the Human Rights Act to British forces in Iraq; and the alleged torture and killing of Iraqi civilians (including Baha Mousa) by British forces. Singh will explore whether the concept of law can withstand the intense pressures which have been put upon it by these issues. He will ask whether we should not just give up on law and accept that force and realpolitik will prevail, or whether despite everything law still has a role to play.
Contributor(s): Professor Danny Quah | As China takes its place among the world's richest economies, economic growth in the long run will endure only if innovation and technology capabilities ramp up dramatically. How will this happen? Professor Danny Quah is head of the Department of Economics at LSE.
Contributor(s): Professor James Curran | Much of the world is moving towards the entertainment-centred, market-based media model of the United States. If this continues, we will enter a new era of political ignorance. James Curran is director of the Media Research Programme at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Contributor(s): Lord Browne | Based on his experience as former chief executive of BP, Lord Browne will share his thoughts about the future of oil, as it relates to its past and its present. Lord Browne is a crossbench member of the House of Lords.
Contributor(s): Ferenc Gyurcsány | The lecture will focus on Hungary's economic development, reform process and energy security. The Prime Minister will also touch on Hungary's unique opportunity to be a leader in the knowledge base economy.
Contributor(s): Don McKinnon | On the eve of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kampala at end-November 2007, Secretary-General Don McKinnon will set the 53-nation family of nations in the context of the challenges facing a fast-changing, interdependent world - above all in entrenching a genuine culture of democracy and in bringing the benefits of economic and social development to the world's poor, with 800 million Commonwealth citizens living in official poverty.
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Baum | Is it possible to regulate for impartiality in a post 2012 world or is the public service ethos doomed? Emily Bell is a journalist for The Guardian. Evan Davies is BBC Economics Editor. Richard North is a journalist and commentator for the BBC. Elinor Goodman is former political editor for Channel 4 news.
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Baum | Why exactly is a scientific approach to medicine preferable to so-called 'alternative' approaches? Michael Baum is professor emeritus of surgery and visiting professor of medical humanities at University College London.
Contributor(s): Howard Davies | Howard Davies is chair of the judges for the 2007 Man Booker prize. Following the award of the prize on 16 October he reflects on the judging process and what it reveals about the state of the English novel.
Contributor(s): Professor John Mearsheimer, Professor Stephen Walt | A look at the nature and activities of the 'Israel lobby' in the United States, and how various groups and individuals have encouraged policies that are unintentionally harmful to both US and Israeli interests. John Mearsheimer is at the University of Chicago. Stephen Walt is at the John F Kennedy School of Government.
Contributor(s): Mandira Sharma, Arnold Tsunga | In this seventh 'Field notes' event held in conjunction with Human Rights Watch UK, frontline human rights defenders will discuss monitoring human rights violations in Nepal and Zimbabwe: their different personal experiences, methods of collecting and evaluating information and the ways in which they develop advocacy campaigns both locally and at an international level.
Contributor(s): Dora Bakoyannis | Dora Bakoyannis is Greek minister of foreign affairs and a leading member of the governing New Democracy Party.
Contributor(s): Richard J Gnodde | The global capital markets are being transformed by the emergence of new actors, new flows and new partnerships - creating opportunities as well as challenges for business, government and civil society. In this lecture, Richard Gnodde will share the lessons of global businesses operating in this new environment, and reflect on the ways in which global capital markets can be a force for progress for business as well as society.
Contributor(s): Martti Ahtisaari | Martti Ahtisaari will draw attention to both challenges and opportunities of multi-stakeholder co-operation in conflict resolution. Mr. Ahtisaari's lecture is based on his extensive experience as a peace mediator, civil servant and board member of a number of non-governmental organisations.
Contributor(s): Howard Davies | Howard Davies, who has advised the Chinese government on financial reform for the last four years, reviews the implications of China's rise for the world's financial markets.
Contributor(s): Baroness Jane Campbell DBE, Francesca Klug OBE, Trevor Phillips | The new Equality and Human Rights Commission has just started its work in Britain. Its goal is to be an 'independent influential champion whose purpose is to reduce inequality, eliminate discrimination, strengthen good relations between people and protect human rights.' Its remit reaches the whole community, seeking to secure equality of respect for all, and it also plans to take 'an active role in helping to achieve change to benefit some of the most vulnerable and least well represented people in our society.' How likely is it that this new body will achieve its goals? Will it do a better job than the three long-standing bodies that it supersedes, the Commission for Racial Equality, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission? What will be its relationship with government? Can it avoid getting swamped with legal cases to the detriment of achieving lasting social change? Are there other priorities that it should have? In this question and answer session come and find out for yourself, with Commission chair Trevor Phillips and Commissioners Francesca Klug and Jane Campbell answering questions about the new body.
Contributor(s): Professor Sarah Franklin, Professor Peter Lipton, Professor Chris Mason, Dr J Craig Venter | The 1970s introduced genetic modification, the 1990s cloning and GM food, and the human genome was sequenced in 2000. Synthetic biology is heralded as the next frontier. But what is synthetic biology and how do we imagine its future directions? What are the implications of this new field for scientists, lawyers, regulators and ethicists? What social and political challenges does it pose and what role will the social sciences, the humanities and the public play in shaping the direction of this new field? The expert panel will debate these issues with the audience.
Contributor(s): Dr Stephen Cretney | Legal biographies and autobiographies are a rich and important source of information about the legal system, statute law and the legal profession. Stephen Cretney is an emeritus fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.
Contributor(s): Professor Lucy Riall, Professor John Breuilly | The Italian revolutionary leader Giuseppe Garibaldi was not only worshipped as national hero in his country but he was also a hugely popular global figure in his lifetime - an estimated 500,000 people turned out to greet him on his arrival in London in 1864. The lecture, which marks the bicentenary of Garibaldi's birth, examines the charismatic leader's emergence as global symbol in the context of nineteenth-century globalization processes, developments in mass media, and political conflicts.
Contributor(s): Dr Costas Simitis | This lecture will cover aspects of politics and policy in contemporary Greece in relation to recent developments in Europe. Costas Simitis, an alumnus of LSE, was prime minister of Greece from 1996-2004.
Contributor(s): John Monks | John Monks will explore the prospects for workers in a world increasingly dominated by the free movement of capital and the increased movement of goods and people. Who wins, who loses? Is free movement dangerous to workers? Is a return to protectionism on the cards? What should be the trade union, Government and EU approaches to globalisation?
Contributor(s): Shrenik Rao | The UK premier of a new documentary, Zimbabwe Revealed, by former LSE student Shrenik Rao, followed by a panel debate on media freedom in Zimbabwe.
Contributor(s): Professor John Gray | In his lecture Toby Lanzer looks at the challenges of kick starting and managing a humanitarian and development campaign for one of the world's forgotten crises, that of the Central African Republic.
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Collier | The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which track poverty among 5 billion people, miss the key future challenge for development policy. This is that around 50 countries, now at the bottom of the world economy, are economically stagnant and so are diverging from the rest of mankind at an accelerating rate. The lecture analyzes why these countries, with around a billion people, are diverging - why globalization generates both convergence for most of the developing world and divergence at the bottom. Based on this diagnosis of the problems, it shows why the current approach of the G8 is liable to fail, and how a more serious and broadly based set of policies could be radically more effective.
Contributor(s): Sam Frankhauser, Abyd Karmali, Ralf Martin, Professor Michael Mainelli, Jan-Peter Onstwedder, Martin Wolf | How 'The London Accord' has focused City Research on Climate Change. This introduction to the London Accord will be followed by a debate on two different approaches to Climate Change - Tax versus Carbon Trading.
Contributor(s): Professor John Gray | Where does the utopian impulse in politics originate, and does it have a future? John Gray argues that though they often claimed to be rooted in a scientific analysis of history and society the revolutionary political movements of the past.
Contributor(s): Professor John Gray | The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Antonio Miloaoski, will present a picture of the political and economic situation in this small but fascinating Balkan country, of the relations in the region, as well as of the impending challenges on its road to full-fledged membership of the European and Euro-Atlantic family.
Contributor(s): President Tarja Halonen | In a globalised world, can the welfare state model - such as the one in Finland and other Nordic states be successful and survive? Can the pursuit for competitiveness and welfare state be combined? Tarja Halonen was elected Finland's first female head of state in 2000, and re-elected 2006.
Contributor(s): Neil Duxbury, Professor Lisa Jardine, Professor Nicola Lacey, Geoffrey Lewis | Legal biographies and autobiographies are a rich and important source of information about the legal system, statute law and the legal profession. Lisa Jardine is centenary professor of renaissance studies at Queen Mary, University of London. Nicola Lacey is professor of criminal law at LSE. Neil Duxbury is professor of law at Manchester University. Geoffrey Lewis is author of the biographies of Lord Aitkin and Lord Hailsham.
Contributor(s): Antony Gormley, Darian Leader, Renata Salecl | Over the last 25 years Antony Gormley has revitalised the human image in sculpture through a radical investigation of the body as a place of memory and transformation. Antony Gormley was awarded the Turner Prize in 1994 and the South Bank Prize for Visual Art in 1999. Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst and author. Renata Salecl is centennial professor of law at LSE and a senior researcher in criminology at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Contributor(s): Dr Gwendolyn Sasse, Dr Andrew Wilson | On 30 September pre-term parliamentary elections will be held in Ukraine. Can the country's stalemate be resolved by the ballot box? Gwendolyn Sasse is based at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. Andrew Wilson is based at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London.
Contributor(s): Andris Piebalgs | Since the call of the Hampton Court European Council for a European Energy Policy the Commission has been actively answering this challenge, with a new set of concrete proposals to address the three challenge of competitiveness, sustainability and security of supply expected from the Commission during the second half of 2007. Commissioner Piebalgs will outline these challenges and Europe's emerging responses. Andris Piebalgs has been European energy commissioner since 2004.
Contributor(s): Professor Luis Garicano | This is the first in a series of lectures to mark the establishment of LSE's Department of Management. Professor Garicano will discuss how recent advances in the economic analysis of the internal organisation of firms allow for a deeper study of the organisational consequences of positioning choices, and thus permit a more complete understanding of strategy implementation'.
Contributor(s): Dr Helen Duffy | This lecture will explore some of the key human rights challenges posed by the 'War on Terror' and the experience of resorting to the courts to address them. Helen Duffy is the legal director of INTERIGHTS.
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Kennedy | Professor Kennedy's latest book is The Parliament of Man: the past, present and future of the United Nations (2006), which is inspired by the work he did on a report for the secretary general for the 50th anniversary of the UN.
Contributor(s): Lord Bingham, Professor Ross Cranston | Legal biographies and autobiographies are a rich and important source of information about the legal system, statute law and the legal profession.Lord Bingham is patron of The Legal Biography Project. Ross Cranston is centennial professor of law at LSE.
Contributor(s): Lord David Owen | Lord Owen will explore the effects of political power on politicians themselves and investigate the concept of the Hubris Syndrome and its impact on politicians including Tony Blair, George Bush and Margaret Thatcher.
Contributor(s): Miklos Haraszti, Edward Lucas, Pavel Andreev, Darya Pushkova | Who is to blame for the current state of the Russian media? Can press freedom be revived? Miklos Haraszti is the representative on freedom of the media at the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Edward Lucas is East European correspondent at The Economist and author of The New Cold War and How to Win It, to be published in 2008. Pavel Andreev is London deputy bureau chief, Russian News & Information Agency. Darya Pushkova is a correspondent from Russia Today.
Contributor(s): His Excellency Paul Kagame | Africa is experiencing major changes to its environment as a result of climate change. This has clear implications for a continent that has already suffered disproportionately from abuses of human rights and from slow economic growth. Paul Kagame is president of the Republic of Rwanda.
Contributor(s): Professor Bjørn Lomborg | Current policy proposals on global warming tend to focus on early and strong greenhouse gas cuts, although these will be very expensive and help very little. Lomborg suggests that we should focus on long-term, smart strategies.
Contributor(s): Mark Stephens | Telly has had a torrid 2007. Under fire for fake competitions, phones ins that are scams and documentaries that are 'fakes' public trust has plummeted and the audience relationship sorely tested. Join us as we put TV on Trial.
Contributor(s): Professor Ian Ayres | Today's best and brightest organisations are analysing massive databases at lightning speed to provide greater insights into human behaviour. From internet sites like Google and Amazon that know your tastes better than you do, to a physician's diagnosis and your child's education, to boardrooms and government agencies, a new breed of decision makers--call them super crunchers--are calling the shots. And they are delivering staggeringly accurate results. Want to know the value of a particular wine or whether the price of an airline ticket will go up or down before you buy? Super crunchers have the answers. In this brave new world of equation versus expertise, intuition and experience are often losing out. In this lecture, Ian Ayres will talk about the benefits and risks of Super Crunching, who loses and who wins, and how Super Crunching can be used to help, not manipulate us.