Summer 2009 | Public lectures and events | Audio and pdf: Recent Episodes
London School of Economics and Political Science
Contributor(s): Professor Mick Cox | November 4th 2008 marked one of the great political moments in American history when the first black man was elected to the White House. Immensely charismatic and politically astute, Barack Obama immediately raised US standing around the world. However he also confronted the most daunting set of challenges. Catapulted into office as America's answer to George W. Bush and the near collapse of the world financial system following the fall of Lehman Brothers, President Obama faced at least six big tests when he took up office. How to bring order to the Middle East? How to repair America's bridges with the Moslem world? How to deal with a newly assertive Russia? How to work with communist China? How to save capitalism? And how to ensure America's continued position at the head of the international table. Professor Mick Cox of the LSE - one of Europe's leading commentators on the United States - will seek to answer these and any other questions in this wide-ranging address.
Contributor(s): Professor Andrew Gamble | Professor Andrew Gamble made his early reputation writing on British decline, the theory of Marxism and the rise and fall of that long-debated and most controversial political phenomenon in Britain: Margaret Thatcher and 'Thatcherism'. One of the most incisive analysts of British politics with over twenty books - and a raft of prizes to his name - he reflects here on the deeper causes of the current world economic crisis and why the crisis has been especially acute in the Anglo-American world. This public lecture is timed to coincide with the publication of his long-waited new book - The Spectre at the Feast: Capitalist Crisis and the Politics of Recession - and promises to be a memorable one.
Contributor(s): Ali A. Allawi | The increasing religiosity of Muslim societies and the spectacular rise of political Islam have served to mask the seeping of vitality from Islamic civilization. If Muslims do not muster the inner resources of their faith to fashion a civilising outer presence, then Islam as a civilisation may indeed disappear. Ali A. Allawi has served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Finance in the Iraqi postwar governments. A graduate of Harvard University and MIT, he is Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, Oxford. He has written two books: The Crisis of Islamic Civilization (Yale 2009) and The Occupation of Iraq (Yale 2007).
Contributor(s): Professor Amartya Sen | Amartya Sen explores the ways in which, and the degree to which, justice is a matter of reason, and of different kinds of reason. This event marks the launch of Professor Sen's new book The Idea of Justice. Amartya Sen is Lamont University Professor at Harvard and an honorary fellow of LSE. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 and was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge 1998-2004. His books include Development as Freedom (OUP), The Argumentative Indian (Allen Lane/Penguin) and Identity and Violence (Allen Lane/Penguin), and have been translated into more than thirty languages.
Contributor(s): Mary Kaldor | Mary Kaldor is a prolific author who has written widely on a range of key issues over the years ranging from the 'Baroque Arsenal' (1982) a study that challenged the logic of militarism and the belief that more weapons meant more security, through to her groundbreaking 'New Wars'(1999) a book that reveals the new forms that organized violence will take in the 21st century. Mary Kaldor today is one of the most influential and respected alternative voices in the field of applied international politics who over the last few years has forced the wider policy community to rethink the meaning of war and the foundations of what she has called 'human security'. An immensely influential figure who has shaped debates at both the United Nations and in the European Union, in this long awaited public lecture she will reflect on what it means to be secure and how security can be achieved in an age of increasing turbulence.
Contributor(s): Dr André Broome, Professor Herman Schwartz, Professor Leonard Seabrooke, Professor Mat Watson | Residential property is the single largest asset in people's everyday lives and its associated mortgage debt constitutes one of the biggest financial assets in most economies. Yet political economy largely ignores both. We know that the kind of housing people occupy and their level of debt affects their preferences for the level of public spending, taxation, and inflation. Housing is intimately tied to welfare systems and can be seen as a social right or as a means to acquire wealth over one's life. Housing systems are built from political struggles over the distribution of welfare and wealth. The organization and transformation of housing finance systems affects both national economies and international financial stability. This public event provides a brief presentation and a discussion of these concerns.
Contributor(s): Neil MacGregor, Nicholas Serota | In this 60th anniversary year of publishers Thames & Hudson, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, and Nicholas Serota, director of Tate, will be in conversation exploring the various roles of national, and other, collections in the 21st century. This rare joint appearance by two of today's most influential figures in the international world of arts and culture promises to provide a stimulating discussion touching on topics of contemporary global significance.
Contributor(s): Howard Davies, Stephen Green | As the world's financial order is in a state of flux, how do we align our desire to improve material human wealth, and capitalism, with our spiritual and psychological needs? Do businesses and banks in particular have a duty to society that goes beyond the creation of profit? Does open market capitalism remain our best hope for creating wealth that benefits all of society? Green and Davies discuss history, politics, religion and economics. This event marks the launch of Stephen Green's book Good Value.
Contributor(s): Fareed Zakaria | In this lecture, Fareed Zakaria will expound on the The Post-American World; a world in which the United States no longer dominates the global economy, orchestrates geopolitics or overwhelms cultures. He will explain how the 'rise of the rest' - the growth of countries like China, India, Brazil, Russia, and many others - is the great story of our time. He will also explain how economic growth in any given country produces political confidence, national pride, and international problems. What does it mean to live in a truly global era? Zakaria will answer this question with his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination.
Contributor(s): Walter Russell Mead | The rise of China and the global economic crisis have led many observers to speculate about whether the decline of American power, often predicted in the past, has now finally begun. The picture is more complex; a survey of world conditions suggests that while the American role is changing, the U.S. will continue to be a unique force in the international arena.
Contributor(s): Dr Tim Lewens, Professor David Papineau | The speakers will discuss the importance of Darwin's thinking to central philosophical issues, including creationism, the human mind, and the nature of morality.
Contributor(s): Ernest Aryeetey, Surjit Bhalla, Richard Portes, Yu Yongding | A meeting that will present perspectives on the global crisis from leading figures in the field of growth and international development. Presentations will focus on the effects of the global economic downturn on developing countries, how those countries are managing the impact of the crisis, and what more might be done to assist them. This event is being organized in cooperation with the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR).
Contributor(s): Professor Dani Rodrik | Capitalism needs to be reinvented for a new century in which the forces of economic globalization are much more powerful than before. Just as Adam Smith's minimal capitalism was transformed into Keynes' mixed economy, we need to contemplate a transition from the national version of the mixed economy to its global counterpart. We have to imagine a better balance between markets and their supporting institutions at the global level. Sometimes, this will require extending institutions outward from nation states and strengthening global governance. At other times, it will mean preventing markets from expanding too much and going beyond the reach of institutions that must remain perforce national. Dani Rodrik is Rafiq Hariri Professor of International Political Economy at Harvard University and teaches in the School's MPA/ID Program.
Contributor(s): Hussain Abdul Hussain | From military intervention in Iraq, to supporting an uprising in Lebanon, forcing elections in the Palestinian Territories and imposing international isolation on Syria, the world has tried several scenarios to spread democracy in Middle Eastern countries. In light of the Lebanese elections on June 7, Hussain Abdul-Hussain will explore the status of democracy in the Middle East as well as look at broader impact of these elections on the regional balance of power between Iran and the US. Hussain Abdul Hussain is a visiting fellow at Chatham House, and author of the forthcoming paper Confrontation through the Ballot Box: Middle East Elections and the US-Iranian Relationship. An Iraqi-born journalist, Hussain is the former managing editor of Beirut's Daily Star and an expert on the Levant region of the Middle East.
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Krugman | The global economic crisis has shaken a lot of what we thought we knew about economics. Over three consecutive evenings, Professor Krugman will cover the causes of the crisis; the deeply vexed question of how and when the world economy can recover; and the implications of the whole mess for economics and economists. Paul Krugman is centenary professor at LSE and professor of economics and international affairs at Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. In 2008 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Krugman | The global economic crisis has shaken a lot of what we thought we knew about economics. Over three consecutive evenings, Professor Krugman will cover the causes of the crisis; the deeply vexed question of how and when the world economy can recover; and the implications of the whole mess for economics and economists. Paul Krugman is centenary professor at LSE and professor of economics and international affairs at Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. In 2008 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Krugman | The global economic crisis has shaken a lot of what we thought we knew about economics. Over three consecutive evenings, Professor Krugman will cover the causes of the crisis; the deeply vexed question of how and when the world economy can recover; and the implications of the whole mess for economics and economists. Paul Krugman is centenary professor at LSE and professor of economics and international affairs at Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. In 2008 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.
Contributor(s): Renzo Martens | Renzo Martens will present a special screening of his film Episode III, (88 minutes). Episode III – 'Enjoy Poverty' investigates the emotional and economic value of Africa’s most lucrative export: filmed poverty. As with more traditional African exports such as cocoa and gold, the suppliers of this new African commodity hardly benefit from it at all. Deep in the interiors of the Congo, Dutch artist Renzo Martens launches an emancipatory programme that helps the poor become aware of their primary capital resource: poverty. Over several years, Martens single handedly undertakes an epic journey. Combining investigative journalism, satire and self awareness in a deeply singular view, Episode III – 'Enjoy Poverty' is ingeniously provocative and ironic, despite the sad reflection staring back in the mirror that he holds up.
Contributor(s): Bill Gates Sr., Howard Davies | Bill Gates Sr., is a prominent lawyer, civil activist, and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He is the author of Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime, a memoir that shares reflections on lessons from a lifetime of 'showing up' - lessons he learned growing up during the Great Depression, and that he instilled in his children and continues to practice on the world stage as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Contributor(s): Professor Lilie Chouliaraki, Max Houghton, Renzo Martens, Dr Julian Stallabrass | Faced with 'compassion fatigue', how is the practice of filmmakers and photojournalists changing and what are the implications for those who rely on photography and film? How will the internet open up new spaces and change the way in which images are used? Lilie Chouliaraki is a professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Max Houghton is Editor of Foto 8 and course leader, MA in Photojournalism, Westminster University. Renzo Martens is an artist. Julian Stallabrass is a reader at The Courtauld Institute.
Contributor(s): John Micklethwait, Professor John Gray | The global revival of religion has been predominantly fuelled by the creation of a religious free market defined by entrepreneurship, choice and personal revelation. So can religion and the market sit together and what can economics teach us about religion? John Gray is emeritus professor of European thought at LSE and author of Gray's Anatomy. John Micklethwait is editor of The Economist and co-author of God is Back.
Contributor(s): Mark Saunders, Martin Slavin | The Olympics are brief and transitory television events that disguise and justify mega projects of vast urban restructuring that permanently distort our cities for the benefit of a few business interests. The common features of these mega projects are unprecedented land grabs, the peddling of myths of 'regeneration' and 'legacy' benefits, the sweeping away of democratic structures and planning restraints, the transfer of public money into private hands, and 'information management' to hide truths and silence critics.
Contributor(s): Sue Donnelly, Mishka Henner, Professor Gillian Rose, Dr Mike Seaborne | From Charles Booth's 19th century maps and early photographs of East End tenements, to rich-poor divides in Hackney, this discussion will consider old and new ways of seeing poverty - understanding the underlying political processes that serve to reproduce and reduce it. Sue Donnelly is head of Archives at LSE. Mishka Henner is a photographic artist. Gillian Rose is professor of cultural geography at the Open University. Mike Seaborne is senior curator of photographs at the Museum of London.
Contributor(s): Mishka Henner | What does poverty in London look like? And can photography expose the often hidden mechanisms that keep the rich divided from the poor? Mishka Henner discusses the making of his photographic essay, All That Life Can Afford, deconstructing its production to reveal the negotiations and obstacles involved in visualising poverty. Mishka Henner is a photographic artist based in Manchester, England.
Contributor(s): Adam Broomberg, Oliver Chanarin | Documentary photography is problematic. Without a witness, a victim is alone and de-humanised. We also know that victims are made for, or even by, the camera. In presenting their work produced in Afghanistan, while embedded with the British Army last June, Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin attempt to highlight and compensate for these blind spots. In addition to showing The Day Nobody Died, they also present extracts from The Red House, produced in Iraq and Chicago, produced in Israel.
Contributor(s): Professor Fathali M Moghaddam | The two traditional policies for managing cultural diversity, multiculturalism and assimilation, are based on incorrect psychological assumptions, resulting in collective identity threats for both minority and majority groups, destructive intergroup conflicts, and the marginalisation of minorities. Omniculturalism represents a constructive third path.
Contributor(s): Professor Robert J. Shiller | The global financial crisis has made it painfully clear that powerful psychological forces are imperiling the wealth of nations today. From blind faith in ever-rising housing prices to plummeting confidence in capital markets, "animal spirits" are driving financial events worldwide. Robert Shiller will put forward a bold new vision that will transform economics and restore prosperity.
Contributor(s): Professor Mary Kaldor, Dr Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Rita Payne, Dr Maung Zarni | Even in closed authoritarian systems, or 'illiberal' regimes, spaces exist for civil society activity, debate, and networking. Accelerated by globalisation, this process is enabled by diverse actors using traditional and new communications tools, often challenging the status quo.
Contributor(s): Professor Andrew Bernard | This annual Sir Patrick Gillam Lecture examines the impact of the global economic downturn on East Asia and the prospects for East Asian manufacturing in its aftermath. Andrew Bernard is Jack Byrne Professor of International Economics and director of the Center for International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, USA.
Contributor(s): Professor Stefan Dercon, Dr Janet Seeley | The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa is almost 30 years old yet a number of the worst-case scenarios on the impact of AIDS in Africa have not come to pass. What did happen? The speakers give their answers using data from recent research in Tanzania and Uganda. Stefan Dercon is a quantitative economist, University of Oxford. Janet Seeley is an anthropologist at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia.
Contributor(s): Professor Richard Healey | Physicists talk about 'elementary particles'. But do particles exist? The Newtonian world depended on forces between particles, but the real world may be much stranger. Richard Healey is professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona.
Contributor(s): Peter Feith | A look at Kosovo's achievements and challenges over the past year, highlighting the current state of play and the priorities and vision of the Kosovo government and its international partners as the country prepares for European Union membership.
Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox, Professor Danny Quah | How will the world economic crisis impact the United States? Are we now witnessing the end of the American era? Michael Cox is professor of international relations and co-director of IDEAS at LSE. Danny Quah is head of department and professor of economics at LSE.
Contributor(s): Sharron Lovell | China is a country in superlative transition. Media attention focuses primarily on the economic miracle and burgeoning political power, while the interwoven and critically important story of mass human migration remains a postscript. Driven from crumbling countryside economics, 200 million Chinese have moved to the cities, serving as cogs in an engine powering unprecedented growth. Though they are changing every facet of Chinese life, these internal migrants are, by law and practice, second-class citizens in their own land. They gamble everything - health, safety and family - to grab a piece of the modern Chinese life.
Contributor(s): Will Hutton, Martin Wolf | Journalists Will Hutton and Martin Wolf discuss the global financial crisis. What are its dimensions? Have governments done enough to avoid the worst economic outcomes? And is the global economy teetering on the edge of depression?
Contributor(s): Lord Professor Meghand Desai, Dr Sharmila Bose | The fifteenth General Election in India, the world's largest democracy, with currently 714 million registered voters, is happening in five phases between 16 April and 13 May. The panel will discuss the most exciting election in India since Independence.
Contributor(s): Jessica Dimmock | Jessica Dimmock outlines the issues and obstacles relating to documentary photography, and the value of the long term project. She explores the process of engaging with subjects and the stories resulting from such sustained focus. This talk also considers the development of story ideas for the freelance photographer.
Contributor(s): David Aaronovitch | Why are people attracted to conspiracy theories and why are those theories are so damaging? David Aaronovitch is an award-winning journalist, who has worked in radio, television and newspapers in the UK since the early 1980s. This event marks the launch of his new book 'Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History'.
Contributor(s): Professor Conor Gearty | Conor Gearty speculates about the ongoing search for truth in human rights and reflects on his seven years as director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights at LSE.
Contributor(s): Dr Joshua Barker | Anthropologists often use key figures, such as the street tough, the child witch, and the flbneur, as a means to elucidate, personify, and critique underlying dynamics of social and cultural transformation. It is a method that is widely used, but seldom scrutinised. In this lecture Joshua Barker uses examples from his research in the slums of Bandung, Indonesia, to argue that this method can make a powerful contribution to a comparative anthropology of urban marginality.
Contributor(s): Prince Turki Al-Faisal | The Saudi-U.S relationship has always faced challenges that constantly test its strength. However, recent events in the region, such as the Iraq war, the 2006 war in Lebanon and the war in Gaza, have strained this relationship further. Prince Turki Al-Faisal, with his long and extensive experience in this area, gives his personal insight into this important relationship, its historical development and future challenges and prospects.
Contributor(s): Professor David Campbell, Teresa Hanley, Dr Ruth Kattumuri, Dr Sally Stares | This diverse panel explores global civil society approaches to the social problem of poverty. The ways in which poverty are articulated, how poverty is represented, and how 'the poor' are designated are important political processes with implications for people's agency, our perceptions of impoverishment, and policies to alleviate it.
Contributor(s): Professor Geoffrey Heal | The Stern Review stirred up the controversy surrounding the economics of climate change. This lecture will review these issues and give an assessment of the debate - where it is leading and what issues remain open.
Contributor(s): Linda Melvern | Linda Melvern is an investigative journalist and author. A world expert on the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, she was a consultant to the prosecution team at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in the military one case. She is an Honorary Professor of the Department of International Politics (University of Wales - Aberystwyth).
Contributor(s): Christopher Caldwell | After a half-century of mass immigration, has Europe overestimated the need for immigrant labour and underestimated the culture shaping potential of religion? Christopher Caldwell is a senior editor at the Weekly Standard, and a regular contributor to the Financial Times. His new book is entitled 'Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Islam, immigration and the west'.
Contributor(s): Professor Athar Hussain, Professor Chen Jian, Professor Danny Quah | Asia's rise has brought about profound changes to the international system and the current world crisis presents the continent with both opportunities and challenges. The initiatives and responses by Asian countries, China and India in particular, have the potential to define the world's path of development now and in the future.
Contributor(s): Professor John Gray | The world has entered a period of crisis and upheaval in which the ideologies of the past give little guidance. How did it reach its present condition? Is there a pattern of thinking that has led governments to make systematic errors? In conversation with Richard Reeves, John Gray will ask what went wrong and what we can expect in future. John Gray is Emeritus Professor of European hought at the LSE and author of Gray's Anatomy. Richard Reeves is Director of the think-tank Demos.
Contributor(s): Gillian Tett | Gillian Tett takes us inside the shadowy world of complex finance and derivatives and explains how the business of slicing and dicing debt led us to the devastating global credit crunch. Gillian Tett has worked as a journalist for the Financial Times for fifteen years. In 2008 she won the British Press Award for the Financial Journalist of the Year. This event marks the publication of her latest book Fool's Gold :How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe.
Contributor(s): John Christensen, Felicity Lawrence, Nick Mathiason, Dr Attiya Waris | Defenders of tax havens argue they provide vital financial services for international trade, and that most comply with money-laundering regulations and have juridical co-operation treaties. This panel will explore the issues surrounding tax havens, in particular their impacts on poor people.
Contributor(s): Dr Tristram Hunt | With capitalism in crisis, the shadow of Karl Marx is looming large. But what about the co-author of The Communist Manifesto? In advance of a major new biography, The Frock-Coated Communist, Tristram Hunt explores the life and work, the personal contradictions and ideological breakthroughs, of Friedrich Engels. Cotton-lord and communist, Engels was the man who turned Marxism into a political force - and whose vision was then brutally betrayed in the 20th century. Tristram Hunt is an historian, broadcaster and a lecturer in British history at Queen Mary, University of London.
Contributor(s): Professor Paul Collier | Award-winning author Paul Collier investigates the violence and poverty in the countries at the bottom of the world economy that are home to a billion people and asks why the democratic process in these countries so often fails.
Contributor(s): Professor Wang Gungwu | At the end of the 19th century, the Qing court described all Chinese living overseas as sojourners. Under the Republic, overseas Chinese were enjoined to be patriotic. After 1949, migration policies changed several times. Why did three different Chinese states pay so much attention to this subject?
Contributor(s): Nick Cohen | In the 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, socialism has been in hibernation - yet Britain has lived through its longest period of left-wing government. What is the future of the Left?
Contributor(s): Group Captain Bill Boothby | A discussion on future directions in the law regulating weaponry in armed conflict to mark the release of Bill Boothby's new book Weapons and the Law of Armed Conflict. Bill Boothby has served for 27 years as an officer in the Royal Air Force legal branch. He developed and implemented the British system for the legal review of new weapons, and formed and led the team charged with conducting these reviews. Tom Porteus is London director of Human Rights Watch.
Contributor(s): George Papandreou | George A. Papandreou is president of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and president of Socialist International. He was minister of foreign affairs from 1999 to 2004, a period that saw inter alia a new rapprochement with Turkey. He has served as minister for national education and religious affairs on two occasions (1988-89; 1994-96).He is the son and grandson of two Greek prime ministers. In 2006 he became president of the Socialist International. The latter has given him a privileged perspective on the challenges to social democracy internationally. Combining these responsibilities, he will address the twin themes of domestic and international governance. He will outline how he believes Greece needs to reform its own politics and governance and he will place this in the context of the current challenges to the international economic order.
Contributor(s): Professor Alejandro Aravena, Professor Ricky Burdett | The challenge to provide affordable housing is a global issue. At a time when market forces are eclipsing architecture's social value, Elemental's pioneering housing is transforming urban communities in Latin America.
Contributor(s): Francois Bayrou | Frangois Bayrou will address the theme of humanism. He will outline how he believes that Europe needs a new set of values and specially humanism after the failures of capitalism. Frangois Bayrou is the leader of the French centre party called Mouvement Democrate (Democratic Mouvement) and former presidential candidate. Mr Bayrou entered politics in the early 1980s and joined the centre right party called UDF. He served as education minister in centre-right governments between 1993 and 1997. He ran for the presidency in 2002 and 2007 and in 2007 polled almost seven million votes. He is the son of a farmer in south-western France and studied literature, and worked as a teacher while continuing to help his mother on the farm. He is still a part-time farmer.
Contributor(s): Nandan Nilekani | Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani, who has been a key player in India's growth story, argues that the country's future rests on more than simply economic growth. Only a safety net of ideas - from genuinely inclusive democracy to social security, from public health to sustainable energy - will enable the country to continue to grow and support the young people who have become one of its greatest assets.
Contributor(s): Professor Lord Stern of Brentford | Nicholas Stern presents an outline of his new book, A Blueprint for a Safer Planet, which describes how to manage climate change while creating a new era of growth and prosperity.