LSE: Public lectures and events

Contributor(s): Madhumita Murgia | On the surface a British poet, an UberEats courier in Pittsburgh, an Indian doctor, and a Chinese activist in exile have nothing in common. But they are in fact linked by a profound common experience—unexpected encounters with artificial intelligence.

Contributor(s): Priyanka Kotamraju, Professor Tarun Khaitan, Professor Christophe Jaffrelot, Professor Alpa Shah | In her latest book, The Incarcerations. Professor Alpa Shah finds a shocking case of cyber warfare - hacked emails, mobile phones and implantation of electronic evidence used to make the arrests of the 16 human rights defenders (the BK-16). Delving into the lives of the BK-16, The Incarcerations shows how the case is a bellwether for the collapse of democracy and why these events matter to all of us.

Contributor(s): Professor Anna Mahtani | In deciding whether to carry out a particular healthcare policy for example, the process for reaching a decision will almost certainly involve a calculation of credences. Drawing from the Philosophy of Language, Anna Mahtani argues that objects of credence are "opaque". It matters then how the relevant object is described or designated.

Contributor(s): Gary Stevenson, Rebecca Gowland | Whilst studying at LSE, Gary won a competition run by a bank: "The Trading Game". The prize: a golden ticket to a new life, as the youngest trader in the whole city. A place where you could make more money than you'd ever imagined. Where your colleagues are dysfunctional maths geniuses, overfed public schoolboys and borderline psychopaths, yet they start to feel like family. But what happens when winning starts to feel like losing? Would you stick, or quit? Even if it meant risking everything? Gary's book is an outrageous, unvarnished, white-knuckle journey to the dark heart of an intoxicating world - from someone who survived the game and then blew it all wide open.

Contributor(s): Professor Judith Butler | Judith Butler confronts the attacks on gender which have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed "anti-gender ideology movements" dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous threat to families, local cultures, civilisation – and even "man" himself.

Contributor(s): Dr Kate Vredenburgh, Professor Geoffrey Hinton | As artificial intelligence (AI) moves beyond the realm of science fiction, it is already having a profound impact on our economies, societies and politics. Our panel examine its transformative power and disruptive potential.

Contributor(s): Professor Christopher Coker | For the late Professor Christopher Coker the answer lay in the rise of a new political entity, the civilizational state. In an episode of LSE iQ which explored China’s position in the world in the coming century, Professor Coker talked about this, the potential for war between the United States and China and what that might look like.   Christopher Coker, was Professor of International Relations at LSE for almost four decades, and co-Director of LSE IDEAS, LSE’s foreign policy think tank. He was a scholar of war and warfare. This episode of LSE iQ is a lightly edited version of our 2019 interview recorded before the COVID pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is dedicated to his memory.     Contributors   Professor Christopher Coker   Research The Rise of the Civilizational State by Christopher Coker   The Improbable War, China, the United States and the Logic of Great Power Conflict by Christopher Coker

Contributor(s): Professor Myria Georgiou, Dr Matt Mahmoudi, Professor Myria Georgiou, Professor Ayona Datta, Sara Alsherif | Our panel investigates the dynamic workings of technology and power in the city from a transnational and comparative perspective as illustrated in Myria Georgiou’s book, Being Human in Digital Cities. They discuss the the contradictory claims and struggles for the future of digital cities and their humanity.

Contributor(s): Rachel Kyte, Professor Lord Stern | As part of the Lionel Robbins Lecture Series, our panel discuss the growth story for the 21st century: building sustainable, resilient, and equitable development.

Contributor(s): Professor Cameron Hepburn, Professor Lord Stern | As part of the Lionel Robbins Lecture Series, the second lecture explores structural transformation; policies and institutions.

Contributor(s): Professor Tali Sharot, Professor Cass R. Sunstein | The authors tackle a great question: why are we so often oblivious to things around us, from pollution and lying to bias and corruption?

Contributor(s): Humza Yousaf MSP | Humza Yousaf MSP, First Minister of Scotland looks at the relative success of European countries comparable to Scotland, which benefit from an (economic) model grounded in the combination of social solidarity and economic dynamism. With the damage of  Brexit becoming clear, would an independent Scotland in the EU be well-placed to benefit from an economic model and direction different to Westminster’s?

Contributor(s): Professor Emily Shuckburgh, Professor Lord Stern | As part of the Lionel Robbins Lecture Series, our panel discussed the first theme on a world re-drawn; a world in crisis; a moment in history; the agenda for growth and transformation.

Contributor(s): Professor Scott Barrett | The ocean is governed by a combination of property rights, established in customary law, cooperative agreements, and under treaty law. Professor Scott Barrett looks at what these institutions have achieved and why.

Contributor(s): Professor James Feigenbaum | In this talk, James Feigenbaum shows how the ability to link individuals over time, and between databases, means that new avenues for research have opened up, thus allowing us to track intergenerational mobility, assimilation, discrimination and the returns to education.

Contributor(s): Dr Jason Casellas, Dr Ursula Hackett, Mark Landler, Professor Stephanie Rickard | Jason Casellas is the John G. Winant Visiting Professor in American Government at the University of Oxford affiliated with Balliol College and the Rothermere American Institute.  Ursula Hackett is Reader in Politics at Royal Holloway, University of London, and a British Academy Mid-Career Fellow.  Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The New York Times. Stephanie J Rickard is Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the Department of Government.

Contributor(s): Dr Tania Burchardt, Professor Neil Lee, Professor Mike Savage | Our panel of speakers will cover a range of topics, such as how we can improve the quality of employment, how to implement a levelling up agenda, and how we can tackle wealth inequality in the UK.

Contributor(s): Cally Beaton | They discuss how comedy can both perpetuate and conceal sexism, while also having the profound ability to reveal and rise above bias and discrimination.

Contributor(s): Marvin Rees OBE | What lessons are there about how to represent, lead and shape a city? How difficult is it to balance short-term priorities with long-term vision and strategy? And what does central government need to learn about public policy and city services from the sharp end? Join us as we host Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, to address this and more.

Contributor(s): Katie Schmuecker, Professor Mike Savage , Liam Byrne MP | Yet, it doesn’t have to be like this. In his new book The Inequality of Wealth: why it matters and how to fix it, former Treasury Minister, Liam Byrne, explains the fast-accelerating inequality of wealth; warns how it threatens our society, economy, and politics; shows where economics got it wrong – and lays out a path back to common sense, with five practical new ways to rebuild an old ideal: the wealth-owning democracy. Liam Byrne draws on conversations and debates with former prime ministers, presidents and policymakers around the world together with experts at the OECD, World Bank, and IMF to argue that, after twenty years of statistics and slogans, it's time for solutions that aren’t just radical but plausible and achievable as well.

Contributor(s): Kostas Bakoyannis | It has become vital to draw from the local perspective when tackling global issue. The same is true for many organisations and communities, for whom traditional, top-down approaches do not offer the agility and responsiveness that is essential for effective crisis management in our times. Having served local government for 13 years, from a rural to an urban context and from a small town to a region and a big city, Kostas Bakoyannis shares his experience of bottom-up crisis management including the economic, refugee and COVID-19 crises.

Contributor(s): Sarah Appleton, Nikki Sullivan, Paul Frijters, Helen | Joanna Bale talks to Helen, who found Ozempic ‘life-changing’, Clinical Psychologist Sarah Appleton, and LSE’s Nikki Sullivan & Paul Frijters.

Contributor(s): Stefanos Kasselakis | In Greece, SYRIZA rose dramatically to lead the fight against euro-zone imposed austerity. Yet, it lost badly in two national elections last year and the left is fragmenting. How can the fortunes of the left be restored? What kind of unity is feasible and desirable on the left? How can the left avoid further defeat?

Contributor(s): Tooba Syed, Professor Judith Butler | What might feminist, queer and decolonial forms of resistance teach us about diverse forms of 'anti-gender' backlash? How can we generate political solidarity to counter 'anti-gender' mobilisations across different contexts? Our keynote speakers reflect on political, epistemic and ethical interventions and open up for discussion with the audience.

Contributor(s): Dr Keyu Jin | Yet Western economists have long been incorrectly predicting its collapse. Why do they keep getting it wrong? Because, according to Keyu Jin, the Chinese economy that most Westerners picture is an incomplete sketch, based on Western dated assumptions and incomplete information. We need a new understanding of China, one that takes a holistic view of its history and its culture. Professor Jin presents The New China Playbook, a revelatory, clear-eyed, and myth-busting exploration of China’s economy, how it grew to be one of the largest in the world, and what the future may hold.

Contributor(s): Professor Richard Sennett | The Performer explores the relations between performing in art (particularly music), politics and everyday experience. It focuses on the bodily and physical dimensions of performing, rather than on words. Richard Sennett is particularly attuned to the ways in which the rituals of ordinary life are performances. The book draws on history and sociology, and more personally on the author's early career as a professional cellist, as well as on his later work as a city planner and social thinker. It traces the evolution of performing spaces in the city; the emergence of actors, musicians, and dancers as independent artists; the inequality between performer and spectator; the uneasy relations between artistic creation and social and religious ritual; the uses and abuses of acting by politicians. The Janus-faced art of performing is both destructive and civilizing.

Contributor(s): Professor Tania Murray Li | In Southeast Asia, 30 million more people live and work in rural areas today than they did in 1990. Yet rural people are largely absent from public and academic discourse, out of sight and out of mind. One reason for the neglect is the stubbornly persistent transition narrative which suggests that rural populations are anachronistic: they belong to the past, and sooner or later they will move to cities and join the march of progress. Hence it is not worth worrying too much about who they are or how they live, how national and global currents affect them, or how their aspirations and practices shape the course of history. The only question seems to be how to move them more quickly out of agriculture, into jobs, and off the land to free up more space for mining, corporate agriculture or conservation schemes. In this talk Tania Murray Li outlines the main powers and processes at work in transforming rural Southeast Asia and draw on her ethnographic research in Indonesia to illustrate how rural people navigate their ever-changing terrain.

Contributor(s): Lord Harrington, Professor Nigel Driffield, Professor Riccardo Crescenzi, Laura Citron | The recently published Harrington Review of Foreign Direct Investment offers a set of evidence-based and achievable recommendations for the UK to provide a tailored, responsive and comprehensive offer that meets foreign investors’ expectations and factors in the speed of the modern world. This panel discussion pushes the debate on FDI attraction and retention forward and consider how the Harrington Review’s recommendations can be put into practice and what impacts they will have. The panel discusses how best practices from around the world should inform new strategies to link FDI, Global Value Chains and sustainable and inclusive development in the UK and beyond.

Contributor(s): Christian Lindner | The German Finance Minister talks about new realities and strengthening Germany’s competitiveness for the benefit of its economy and its partners.

Contributor(s): Professor Nello Cristianini | Instead, the prevailing form of machine intelligence is the direct result of a series of decisions that we have made over the past decades. These were shortcuts aimed at addressing various technical (and business) problems, and that are now behind many of the current concerns about the impact of this technology on society. A major shortcut was taken with the creation of the very first statistical language models, and we will describe how that step was the first move towards statistical AI, how it challenged previous assumptions, and how it reflected a new mindset that was starting to emerge among AI researchers. When business models, data availability and scientific paradigms became aligned, the current revolution started. Understanding how those technical shortcuts limit the options of regulators will be essential to safely co-exist with the present form of AI.

Contributor(s): Professor Mark R Beissinger, Professor Olga Onuch | In his new book, The Revolutionary City, Mark R. Beissinger provides a new understanding of how revolutions happen and what they might look like in the future. He is joined by Olga Onuch who will discuss the book.

Contributor(s): Lord Bassam, Sheela Agarwal, Madeleine Bunting | England invented the seaside resort as a place of pleasure and these towns became iconic in the nation's sense of identity for over a century, but for over four decades the rise of package holidays and cheap flights have eroded their economies. This has resulted in a 'salt fringe' of deprivation, low pay, poor health and low educational achievement and the worst social mobility in the country. Despite persistent affection for many of these resorts which still attract millions of visitors, their chronic plight has failed to capture political engagement and investment. How can these resorts, with their wealth of cultural heritage, forge a new future?

Contributor(s): Dr Michael I Kanu, Philippe Carvalho Raposo, Lowri Mai Griffiths, Dr Robert Blasiak, Dr Siva Thambisetty | On 5 March 2023, state parties at the United Nations agreed the text of a new Treaty to cover biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, in areas also known as the high seas. The Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ) Treaty sets out governance mechanisms for oceans over nearly half the planet’s surface covering marine genetic resources, environmental impact assessments, capacity building and technology transfer and Area Based Management Tools. It has the potential to transform the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity on the oceans beyond national jurisdiction and bring about greater sharing of the wealth of the oceans.

Contributor(s): Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed | Mainly the pervasive sub-national identities that dominated Arabia or the supra-national Islamic identity that the regime promoted to achieve legitimacy. But since the rise of Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman in 2017, a new populist Saudi nationalism is promoted. This lecture traces the shift in Saudi nation-building from the early days of religious nationalism to the current populist trend. It will explain why only recently constructing a Saudi nation became a priority for the leadership after almost a century of creating a state. The new Saudi national narrative inevitably involves selectively remembering and forgetting aspects of the past in order to consolidate a shift in national consciousness about who Saudis are. But while the new nationalism promises to invigorate the nation, the process is accompanied by serious violence against dissenting voices.

Contributor(s): Professor Joseph Heath | Major unanswered questions involve the relationship between biological and sociocultural factors in promoting cooperativeness, as well as the vulnerability of human social systems to stagnation or collapse. We have amassed a great deal of theory regarding these questions, but our scientific knowledge remains fragmented. In recent years, however, a few pieces of the puzzle have begun to be fitted together. In this lecture Joseph Heath discusses two important advances: first, gene-culture coevolutionary theory, which has shed light on a number of fundamental questions about the early emergence of human sociality, and second, recent work on the development of hierarchy and the state, which has made it possible integrate fundamental sociological insights about how complex societies are maintained. He will attempt to show how these advances move us closer to having a unified scientific understanding of human sociality.

Contributor(s): Professor Lea Ypi, Martin Sandbu, Professor Ingrid Robeyns | What we need is a world without decamillionaires – people having more than ten million pounds. That is what the philosopher Ingrid Robeyns from the University of Utrecht argues in her new book, Limitarianism. The Case Against Extreme Wealth. Why would a world without anyone being superrich be better? Because extreme wealth undermines democracy; is incompatible with climate justice; and the money could be used much better elsewhere. Most fundamentally, no-one deserves to have so much money. But do these reasons stand up to scrutiny? Would preventing the accumulation of extreme wealth kill innovation, undermine our freedoms and opportunities to live the lives we lead, and in the end also harm the poor? Is limitarianism viable? Would it require us to abolish capitalism, and if so, what could replace it? And what, if anything, would it require from the overwhelming majority who do not have sizeable wealth? This event puts these ideas to the test in a lively debate with the author of Limitarianism in conversation with LSE's Lea Ypi and Martin Sandbu of the Financial Times.

Contributor(s): Professor Gargi Bhattacharyya | The framing of racial capitalism can become a way to freeze analysis - as if the same circuit of dispossession and violence continues across time and space and, with the desperate implication, for always. In this talk, Gargi Bhattacharyya considers the changing violences of racial capitalism and considers how can we use this language to identify emerging patterns of racialised dispossession, and what might we then do about it.

Contributor(s): Professor Ralph Hertwig | Nudging promises that minor adjustments in choice architecture can influence decisions without altering incentives. However, nudging has also been criticised, including objections to its soft paternalism and its neglect of agency, autonomy, and the longevity of behaviour change. In response to such criticisms— and the proliferation of highly engineered and manipulative, commercial choice architectures—other behavioural policy approaches have been proposed, focusing on empowering citizens to make well-informed decisions. Those approaches are based on a view of human cognitive and motivational capacities that goes beyond the deficit model underlying nudge. In the face of systemic problems such as climate change, pandemics, threats to liberal democracies, and rapid cycles of technological innovations, evidence-informed investments in a competent, informed, and active citizenry seem an essential—though not—sufficient policy approach. This talk outlines recent developments in conceptual and empirical research that aims to empower citizens by boosting their competences.

Contributor(s): Dr Brian Klaas | Brian Klaas explores how our world really works, driven by strange interactions and random events. How much difference does our decision to hit the snooze button make? Did one couple's vacation really change the course of the twentieth century? His new book, Fluke, is a provocative new vision of how our world really works - and why chance determines everything.

Contributor(s): Professor Manuel Pastor, T.O. Molefe | Traditional economics is built on the assumption of self-interested individuals seeking to maximize personal gain, but that is far from the whole story. Sharing, caring, and a desire to uphold the collective good are also powerful motives. In a world on fire – facing threats to multiracial democracy, tensions from rising economic inequality, and even the existential threat of climate change, can we build an alternative economics based on cooperation? In this lecture Manuel Pastor, joined by T.O. Molefe, will discuss his newest book Solidarity Economics: why mutuality and movements matter. He will introduce the concept of solidarity economics, which is rooted in the idea that equity is key to prosperity and social movements are crucial to the reconfiguration of power in our politics and show how we can use solidarity economics to build a fairer economy that can generate prosperity and preserve the planet.

Contributor(s): Adam Vaughan, Dr James Painter, Fiona Harvey, Roger Harrabin | This event gathers journalists from various backgrounds to discuss the challenges they face in informing and promoting balanced public discussions about decarbonisation, particularly in the context of looming local and general elections. Media coverage of climate change has long centered on alerting the public about, as well as debating and contesting, the dangers of climate change. Today, history has moved on. The UK public understands this issue is real and urgent; by and large, Britons supports decarbonisation of the economy. Yet, decarbonisation is at once a grand political project – offering the possibility of revamping and redesigning the make-up of infrastructure, technological networks, and land-use, in ways that will increase well-being, health, and possibly the vitality of many local economies – but also a slow process, difficult to understand for the lay person, full of trade offs and uncertainties.

Contributor(s): Alexander De Croo | Belgium will enter 2024 as the rotating chair of the European Union. As one of the founding fathers of the Union, Belgium presides over the EU for the 13th time. The number might sound unlucky and the challenges ahead are surely daunting. That said, Prime Minister De Croo will talk about the strengths of the Union, its relationship with the United Kingdom, and the ways in which the EU needs to reform to stay in shape.

Contributor(s): Dr Bisher Khasawneh | Bisher Khasawneh (@BisherKhasawneh) is Prime Minister of The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Minister of Defence, positions he has held since October 2020. He held the position of Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 2016 to 2017 and Minister of State for Legal Affairs 2017-2018. He served as King Abdullah II’s Advisor for Communication and Coordination Affairs from April 2019 to August 17, 2020 and as the King’s Adviser for Policies in the Royal Hashemite Court until he became Prime Minister. He obtained a bachelor's degree in law from the University of Jordan, in addition to a master's degree in International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science, as well as a Doctorate in Law. David Kershaw is Dean of LSE Law School. He is also a member of the LSE Council, the Governing Body of LSE, and an Associate Tenant at Cornerstone Barristers. He is a former General Editor of the Modern Law Review. He joined LSE in 2006. Prior to joining LSE he was a Lecturer in Law at the University of Warwick between 2003-2006.

Contributor(s): Professor Sam Friedman | More than one in four people in the UK, from solidly middle-class backgrounds, mistakenly think of themselves as working-class. Why is this? In this episode of Extra iQ, a shorter style of the LSE iQ podcast, Sue Windebank speaks to Sam Friedman, a sociologist of class and inequality at LSE to find out more. Sam spoke to the podcast in November 2022 for an episode which asked, ‘How does class define us?’ The whole interview was fantastic but we couldn’t include it all in the original episode. This episode features some more of the thought-provoking content from that interview.   Contributors Sam Friedman   Research Deflecting Privilege: Class Identity and the Intergenerational Self by Sam Friedman, Dave O’Brien and Ian McDonald

Contributor(s): Professor Iván Werning | Previous inflationary episodes have taught us a lot on what causes inflation and what can be done to reduce it. But the world has changed and previous insights may no longer be valid. Iván Werning will discuss how old insights extended with new frameworks can be used to shed light on the recent surge in inflation.

Contributor(s): Mia Amor Mottley, Esther Phillips, Dr Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah | Ms Mottley was elected to the Parliament of Barbados in September 1994 as part of the new Barbados Labour Party Government. Prior to that, she served as one of two Opposition Senators between 1991 and 1994. One of the youngest persons ever to be assigned a ministerial portfolio, Ms. Mottley was appointed Minister of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture from 1994 to 2001. She later served as Attorney General and Deputy Prime Minister of Barbados from 2001 to 2008 and was the first female to hold that position. Ms Mottley is an Attorney-at-law with a degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, specialising in advocacy. She is also a Barrister of the Bar of England and Wales. In 2002, she became a member of the Local Privy Council. She was also admitted to the Inner Bar, becoming the youngest ever Queens Counsel in Barbados.

Contributor(s): Professor Susan Parnell | Sue Parnell outlines why a new urban disposition, that breaks with geographies, disciplines, and ideologies might be helpful in building new communities of practice to advance a global urban agenda. Creating solutions to the complex problems of cities, like gender inequality, informality, climate resilience or disease prevention, necessitates global not just national and local analysis and intervention. Some progress has been made, for example in the SDGs and other multi-lateral agreements. But there remains a mismatch between the importance of the urban question and the global policy attention it demands. To be effective the global urban agenda must be informed by a broad range of evidence, scientific voices must be appropriately embedded to influence policy, and the urban agenda needs to have universal credibility.

Contributor(s): Lord Wolfson, Professor Paul Cheshire, Dame Kate Barker, Stephen Aldridge | It is 40 years since Paul Cheshire began to investigate the economic effects of our land use planning system and 20 years since Kate Barker published her first review of the impact of planning on housing supply. Their insights have helped us understand what can be done to ensure decent housing for all and boost productivity – but, after three failed attempts at significant planning reform - we are now in a time of economic stagnation and facing a housing affordability crisis that is only becoming more desperate as interest rates rise.

Contributor(s): Professor Kimberly Hutchings | For the past twenty years the idea of human rights as an absolute and universal ethical standard has been subject to a barrage of criticism. Critiques have come from all philosophical and political directions, including communitarian, pragmatist, poststructuralist and decolonial. In this lecture, Kimberly Hutchings explores the critical landscape of human rights thinking today and how we might re-think the concept of human rights in ways that will sustain its power as an ethical discourse into the future.

Contributor(s): Heather Kappes, David McDaid, Molly Taylor | According to the Office for National Statistics, 7.1 per cent of adults in Great Britain - nearly 4 million people - say they 'often or always' feel lonely. Look around you when you’re in a crowded place – a supermarket or an office - 1 in 14 of the people you’re looking at are likely to be lonely, not just sometimes but most of the time. And that’s half a million more people saying that they feel chronically lonely in 2023 than there were in 2020 – suggesting that the pandemic has had some enduring impacts in this respect. Sue Windebank talks to a young person who responded to her own deep feelings of loneliness by campaigning to help others. She hears how people can be influenced to feel more or less lonely – at least for a short time. And she got a surprising insight into which group of people are the loneliest. Sue talks to: Heather Kappes, Associate Professor of Management at LSE; David McDaid Associate Professorial Research Fellow in the Care Policy and Evaluation Centre at LSE; and Molly Taylor, Loneliness Activist, Founder of #AloneNoMore.

Contributor(s): Dr Siva Thambisetty, Dr John Siddorn, Ishbel Matheson, Dr Joanna Post, Dr Darian McBain | The blue economy is estimated to be worth over US$1.5 trillion per year globally, providing over 30 million jobs and supplying protein to over three billion people. With new large-scale industrial activities, such as offshore renewable energy as well as the growing interest in ocean mining and marine biotechnology, the oceans have moved to the top of political and economic agendas. This event will bring together leading voices in the field for a discussion on the risks to the health of our oceans and the opportunities in the transition to a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient blue economy. The speakers speaks at first hand about key negotiations, such as the UN High Seas Treaty or the Biodiversity Conference COP15; scientific work in the ocean; the role of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission in bringing hundreds of nations to one table; as well as the challenges, priorities, and opportunities to make the oceans and the blue economy an effective part of a sustainable future.

Contributor(s): Professor Ann Oakley, Professor Chris Renwick, Professor Sally Sheard, Professor John Stewart | Richard Titmuss, the first chair in Social Administration at the London School of Economics and Political Science, died fifty years ago in 1973. From his appointment in 1950 until his death Titmuss established and defined the field of social policy. This event will discuss Titmuss’s critique of the ‘welfare state’, and how his insights have had to evolve in the light of the challenges to, and strategies for, social welfare which have come to predominate since his death. The event brings together authors of published and planned biographies of Richard Titmuss, Brian Abel-Smith, and Peter Townsend, alongside Titmuss’ daughter, renowned academic Ann Oakley.

Contributor(s): Professor George Gerapetritis | Climate change, worldwide aggression, migration flows, food crisis and public health emergencies have core common characteristics: they destroy certainties, they produce extraterritorial effects, they are not dealt through deliberative mechanisms. In light of these, we need to revisit the current status and, perhaps, return to the basics. Enhancing democratic institutions and global principled governance, acknowledging the moral value of solidarity and the right to belonging and combating root causes of global challenges, mainly inequalities among people and states. A global alliance is needed towards this goal.

Contributor(s): Professor Mary S Morgan | While the conventional view is that ideas create policy change and economic change follows on - it is just not that simple. We can see what is involved by looking at major changes - such as the reconstruction of post-war economies, post-colonial economic development planning, or switching from capitalist to socialist systems. Designing such new kinds of worlds required new ways of thinking about how the economic world could work involving imagination and cognitive work, and new kinds of economic measurements and accounting systems to deliver that change.

Contributor(s): Professor Vimal Ranchhod, Faeza Meyer, Dr Eleni Karagiannaki, Dr Shabna Begum | Wealthy households able to draw on owner occupied housing assets, private pensions, savings and financial investments have prospered. Meanwhile the majority of the populations, even in rich nations – have been exposed to harsh ‘austerity’ policies, and often the need to balance debt obligations. There is increasing evidence that wealth assets play a significant role in allowing social mobility advantages to the children of wealthy households. However, it is not widely appreciated that these developments underscore the intensification of racial wealth divides. Although the historical study of the racialised elements of wealth inequality is widely known, with widely appreciated studies of slavery and imperialism, the contemporary racialisation of wealth inequality needs to be much better known. This event features original research reporting on their findings from the UK, South Africa, and elsewhere.

Contributor(s): Professor Richard Pettigrew, Dr David Jarrett, Nicci Gerrard, Ruth Bright | Many of us will face this important question: over 850,000 people in the UK currently have dementia, and many more will be involved in their care. One of the great strengths of the LSE is its work in decision-theory – but how should we apply decision-theory to those with dementia? How can we figure out the preferences of a person who currently has dementia, whose desires may appear incoherent and ever-shifting? Should we focus on a person’s current desires – or rather on what they ‘would have wanted’ – or indeed what they did want for themselves before dementia took hold? And how should we make room for the needs of carers, and the wider community? To discuss these questions, we bring together a diverse collection of thinkers for a panel-style event, with discussion questions posed by the chair, and regular questions from the audience.

Contributor(s): Lord McFall | He advises caution on radical reform of the Upper House, arguing that incremental change to the process for nomination of peers would strengthen its role as a “forum for civil society” allowing the country to draw on expertise from outside politics.

Contributor(s): Professor Eric Schneider | Children with poor nutrition or who are exposed to high levels of chronic disease grow more slowly than healthy children. Thus, children’s growth is a sensitive metric of how population health has evolved over time. Eric begins by showing how child growth has changed around the world since the nineteenth century and linking changes in child growth to child stunting, children who are too short for their age relative to healthy standards, the most common indicator used to measure malnutrition in LMICs today. Then he discusses the key determinants of poor child growth drawing on historical research and contemporary findings related to the ‘Indian Enigma’, the puzzling fact that Indian children are shorter than sub-Saharan African children today despite India’s lead in many indicators of economic development. Finally, he will consider what lessons historical analysis of child malnutrition has for tackling child stunting today.

Contributor(s): Professor Catherine Boone, Professor Wendy Wolford | For over 100 years, plantations have served as the imagined ideal for agricultural production and labor management in Mozambique. This talk outlines the colonial roots of this desire for the always-elusive plantation and argue that it manifests in contemporary Mozambique in a variety of ways: the global market takes priority over local needs; agricultural researchers rely on external funding that is short-term, motivated by international interests and the search for new varieties rather than land management; and local residents long seen only as plantation labor are separated into ‘emerging’ and ‘poor’ farmers, with research aimed at the former and charity at the latter.

Contributor(s): Daffne Valdes Vargas, Sibila Sotomayor Van Rysseghem, Paula Cometa Stange | This is a timely event. 50 years after the Chilean coup that ushered forth a violent 17-year dictatorship and 5 years after Chile’s widespread democratic protests, known as the estallido social, they will discuss the importance of understanding history for the present and why feminist theory and resistance matters more than ever. They also speak about their book, Set Fear on Fire: the feminist call that set the Americas ablaze, published earlier this year. What role does art and performance have in politics and how does it shape activism around the world? What relevance does Chile’s history have for contemporary politics and society? How has the conceptualisation of human rights changed over time and what rights should we be concerned about safeguarding today?

Contributor(s): Stephen Timms MP, Professor Kirsten Sehnbruch, Professor James Foster | In the context of a worldwide cost-of-living crisis and likely recession, policy attention will focus increasingly on poverty and employment. In the UK, as elsewhere, those workers employed in low-wage, unstable jobs with poor working conditions are likely to suffer disproportionately in this crisis, thus exacerbating existing inequalities.  It will further discuss the policy implications and applications of this research, especially in the context of potential future disruptions in the labour market such as technological changes, climate change, population ageing and migration. The event will present research from a British Academy Global Professorship on multidimensional quality of employment deprivation.

Contributor(s): Professor Leslie Willcocks, Dr Michael Muthukrishna, Lucy Bailey, Dr Grace Lordan | The job market is in constant flux; industries change or become obsolete and new technologies emerge and disrupt. Never before has this been more salient, with the recent progress of AI. In this public event the panel will explain just how AI is now and will continue to disrupt the labour market.

Contributor(s): Professor Paul Dolan | Paul Dolan introduces his new podcast series, Get Happier, which aims to help you improve your own happiness and the happiness of those around you, at home and at work, without too much effort.  This recording contains strong language.

Contributor(s): Rachel Reeves MP | In this event, Rachel delves into the untold stories of remarkable women who have historically been sidelined in the economic landscape. As both a woman and an economist, Rachel brings a unique perspective to the challenges faced by women in the field and the broader impact on society. She addresses the barriers these women encountered, highlighting the consequences for us all when their contributions were dismissed. This event is a call to action, inspiring us to work towards an economy that fosters productivity, sustains growth, and creates opportunities for everyone, irrespective of their background.

Contributor(s): Professor Leslie Vinjamuri, Ann Pettifor, Professor Abraham L Newman, Professor Henry Farrell | The panel discusses debates around the weaponisation of the global economy with the sustainability of these tactics, how different major and emerging powers are reacting, and what role the UK has to play in both utilising and mitigating these tactics.

Contributor(s): Ros Taylor, Dr Abby Innes, Professor Gwyn Bevan | The post-war political settlement established by Clement Attlee’s government developed systems to tackle what William Beveridge identified as five giant evils of Britain in 1942: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Idleness, and Squalor. By 1979, these systems were failing. In the UK, from 1979, successive governments led by Margaret Thatcher aimed to tackle those failures in a neoliberal settlement based on rolling back the state and empowering markets. This strategy was based on two fundamental neoliberal ideas. First, the social responsibility of private enterprises is to maximise profits within rules of the game. Second, effective systems of governance can harness the attractions of market forces for services that violate the requirements for markets to be effective.

Contributor(s): Gemma Mortensen, Kirsty McNeill, David Robinson | How are we to live together? More than ever, the big questions that we face are all about relationships. Their substance and quality will determine the direction and quality of our lives. In his 2018 LSE public lecture David Robinson set out the case for building a better society by building better relationships. What happened next? David will tell the unfolding story of the Relationships Project, discuss new trends in our understanding of relationships, and put forward his practical vision of a place where 'meaningful relationships are the central operating principle' for social innovation.

Contributor(s): Dr SM Rodriguez, Dr Mame-Fatou Niang | In tandem with the theme of Black History Month, "Celebrating our Sisters, Saluting our Sisters, and Honouring Matriarchs of Movements", this panel discussion analyses the role of black women in social, cultural and political movements historically and in our times.

Contributor(s): Professor Martin Daunton | In his latest book, which forms the basis of this lecture, Martin Daunton pulls back the curtain on the institutions and individuals who have created and managed the economy over the last ninety years, revealing how and why one economic order breaks down and another is built.

Contributor(s): Faiza Shaheen, Duncan Green, Dr Jens Madsen | Experts will discuss how change isn't as straightforward as we'd like it to be – How it can be all in the timing and that, at times, you just need to wait for the right moment to make change happen. We’ll hear from an academic striving to become a Member of Parliament and make change from within the political system, rather than by lobbying from the outside. And an author and strategic advisor to Oxfam will explain how change is built around communities and groups of people rather than the individual. Mike Wilkerson talks to: Faiza Shaheen, an author and a Labour candidate running to become an MP; Dr. Jens Madsen an Assistant Professor at LSE’s Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science; and Dr. Duncan Green a Professor in Practice and Senior Strategic advisor to Oxfam. Contributors Faiza Shaheen Duncan Green Jens Madsen   Research How change Happens: Duncan Green

Contributor(s): Dr Sara Camacho-Felix, Professor Kehinde Andrews | An all-encompassing, insightful and wry look at living in a racist world, by a leading black British voice in the academy and in the media. Take a step through the looking-glass to a strange land, one where Piers Morgan is a voice worth listening to about race, where white people buy self-help books to cope with their whiteness, where Boris Johnson and Donald Trump are seen by the majority of the population as 'the right (white) man for the job'. Perhaps you know it. All the inhabitants seem to be afflicted by serious delusions, like that racism doesn't exist and if it does it can be cured with a one-hour inclusion seminar, and bizarre collective hallucinations, like the widely held idea that Britain's only role in slavery was to abolish it. But there is a serious side too. Black and brown people suffer from a greater number of mental health difficulties, caused in no small part by living in a racist society. Society cannot face up to the racism at its heart and in its history, so the delusions and hallucinations it conjures up to avoid doing so can only best be described as a psychosis, and the costs are being borne by the sons and daughters of that racist history.

Contributor(s): Arun Blair-Mangat | To celebrate Black History Month, join us for this conversation between LSE alumnus Arun Blair-Mangat and LSE President Eric Neumayer.

Contributor(s): Professor Jason Sharman, Oliver Bullough, Thomas Anthony, Dr Kristin Surak | Drawing on fieldwork in sixteen countries, Kristin Surak exposes the world of the wealthy elites who buy passports, the states and brokers who sell them, and the normalisation of a once shadowy practice. It’s a business that thrives on uncertainty and imbalances of power between big, globalised economies and tiny states desperate for investment. In between are fascinating stories of buyers, brokers, and sellers, all ready to profit from the citizenship trade. Joining Kristin will be three experts who offer different angles into this world. Thomas Anthony, CEO of Citizenship Investment Unit of the country of Grenada, brings a Caribbean perspective on the programs. Oliver Bullough, author and journalist, has examined issues around financial crimes. Jason Sharman of Cambridge University will share his extensive knowledge of the political economy of offshore.

Contributor(s): Paul Nowak | The protracted cost of living crisis has seen a resurgence of industrial action across almost every sector of the British economy. To discuss the political implications of this renewed activism in the labour movement, we are joined by Paul Nowak, General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress.

Contributor(s): Dr Jennifer Wynter, Professor Christine Whitehead, Dr Maria-Christina Vogkli, Pam Orchard, Manny Hothi | London accounts for around 60% of all households in temporary accommodation in England and over a quarter of those who are sleeping rough. Households also stay in temporary accommodation for much longer. In this debate we will be looking at the reasons why the situation has worsened; the consequences for individuals facing homelessness; the consequences for London’s local authorities; and the impact of proposed policy changes.

Contributor(s): Professor Danny Dorling | Britain was once the leading economy in Europe; it is now the most unequal. Fifty years ago the UK led the world in child health; today, twenty-two of the twenty-seven EU countries have better mortality rates for newborns. No other European country has such miserly unemployment benefits; university fees so high; housing so unaffordable; or a government economically so far to the right.

Contributor(s): | Climate change raises new, foundational challenges in science. It requires us to question what we know and how we know it. The subject is important for society but the science is young and history tells us that scientists can get things wrong before they get them right. How, then, can we judge what information is reliable and what is open to question? During the event the essential characteristics of climate change which make it a difficult issue to study will be highlighted. A series of challenges in the study of climate change across multiple disciplines will be presented and the audience will be taken on a journey through the maths of complexity, the physics of climate, philosophical questions regarding the origins and robustness of knowledge, and the use of natural science in the economics and policy of climate change.

Contributor(s): Mikhail Khodorkovsky | The book is Khodorkovsky's account of what is happening in Russia today and what could happen in the future. Putin will not last forever: sooner or later, there will be a post-Putin era. But Russia's history has been deeply shaped by an autocratic trap: a revolution against an autocracy has produced another autocracy, followed by another revolution and another autocracy, and so on. If Russia is to find its place as a constructive partner in a global community of civilised nations, then it has to escape this vicious cycle. His book is Khodorkovsky's account of his own journey and of how the vicious cycle of Russian history can be broken. He charts a pathway towards a parliamentary federal republic which would enable Russia to become a free and democratic society, living in peace and without dragons.

Contributor(s): Professor Yascha Mounk | He terms this as the "identity synthesis" which seeks to put each citizen's matrix of identities at the heart of social, cultural and political life. This, he argues, is "the identity trap". Mounk traces the intellectual origin of these ideas and their use as politica, social and cultural capital over the decades. He makes a nuanced case on why their application to areas from education to public policy is proving to be deeply counterproductive. He argues for universalism and humanism, and posits that the proponents of identitarian ideas will, though they may be full of good intentions, make it harder to achieve progress towards genuine equality.

Contributor(s): Professor Nina Lvovna Khrushcheva | With the war in Ukraine well into its second year, we are joined by Nina Khrushcheva to discuss the fault lines that the war has opened up in Russian society - and the potential of the Russia left to use these fractures to push for a more progressive Russia.

Contributor(s): Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Sir Isaac Julien | Henry Louis Gates, Jr in conversation with Isaac Julien and LSE's Imaobong Umoren.

Contributor(s): Professor Christian Leuz | Publicity and transparency are frequently proposed as solutions to societal and environmental problems; after all, sunlight is famously said to be the best of disinfectants. Such regimes have become common place for consumer protection, food safety, healthcare, campaign contributions, conflicts of interest, and more. They are viewed as less intrusive and more benign than directly regulating corporate activities. But do they work? Or are transparency regimes simply politically more expedient? These questions are very relevant in the context of sustainability as many countries are requiring firms to provide reports on their impacts on the environment and society more broadly. We will therefore ask what transparency can do when it comes to widespread environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions. Can disclosure mandate help clean up the environment? What are the limitations of transparency and why it is not always the best solution?

Contributor(s): Professor Mike Wilkinson, Professor Helen Thompson, Hans Kundnani, Professor Gurminder K Bhambra | The European Union is often seen as a cosmopolitan rejection of violent nationalism. Yet the idea of Europe has a long, problematic history—in medieval times, it was synonymous with Christianity; in the modern era, it became associated with ‘whiteness’. Eurowhiteness exposes the EU as a vehicle for imperial amnesia. Narratives of European integration emphasise the lessons of war and the Holocaust, but not the lessons of colonial history. The EU is about power as much as peace—and civic ideas of Europe are being displaced by ethnic and cultural ones. Since the 2015 refugee crisis, whiteness has become even more central to European identity—a troubling new turn in Europe’s long civilisational project. It is time to confront the relationship between ideas of Europe and ideas of race.

Contributor(s): Professor Tomila Lankina, Dr Eleanor Knott, Professor Robert Falkner, Professor Chris Alden | Few predicted the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Even fewer thought it would still be going on 18 months later. There is though almost complete agreement that what began as a regional conflict has changed the world forever.

Contributor(s): Matthew Syed, Dr Michael Muthukrishna | Playing on the phrase “a theory of everything” from physics, Michael Muthukrishna discusses his ambitious, original, and deeply hopeful book A Theory of Everyone, which draws on the most recent research from across the sciences, humanities, and the emerging field of cultural evolution to paint a panoramic picture of who we are and what exactly makes human beings different from all other forms of life on the planet.

Contributor(s): Professor Fabio Sánchez, Professor Sarmistha Pal, Professor Jean-Paul Faguet | This new book brings together a new generation of political economy studies, blending theoretical insights with empirical innovation, including broad cross-country data as well as detailed studies of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Ghana, Kenya and Colombia. The authors investigate the pros and cons of decentralisation in both democratic and autocratic regimes, and the effects of critical factors such as advances in technology, citizen-based data systems, political entrepreneurship in ethnically diverse societies, and reforms aimed at improving transparency and monitoring.

Contributor(s): Ryan Centner, James, Jamal | Homosexuality is illegal in just over a third of countries across the globe. Some nations, like Barbados, have recently repealed anti-gay laws, but others, like Uganda, have just introduced the death penalty. Joanna Bale talks to LSE’s Dr Ryan Centner about how Western gay men living in Dubai create covert communities where they can meet and socialise. James, a British gay man, and Jamal, an Emirati gay man, also share their very different experiences of life in the city. Research links: Peril, privilege, and queer comforts: the nocturnal performative geographies of expatriate gay men in Dubai http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/110762/ The Pink Line: The World’s Queer Frontiers https://www.markgevisser.com/the-pink-line

Contributor(s): Heather Boushey, Ed Miliband MP, Dr Arkebe Oqubay, Dr Anna Valero | The transition to a net zero economy requires a new industrial revolution. How should the UK and other countries craft effective policies to generate such radical change? What will be the effect of the Biden administration’s green subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act on the US, Europe and the rest of the world?

Contributor(s): Professor David Sumpter | What is the best way to think about the world? How often do we consider how our own thinking might impact the way we approach our daily decisions? Could it help or hinder our relationships, our careers, or even our health? Acclaimed mathematician David Sumpter shows how we can deal with the chaos and complexity of our lives with four easily applied approaches to our problems: statistical, interactive, chaotic and complex. Combining engaging personal experience with practical advice and inspiring tales of ground-breaking scientific pioneers (with a tiny bit of number crunching along the way), Sumpter explains how these tried and tested methods can help us with every conundrum, from how to bicker less with our partners to pitching to a tough crowd - and in doing so change our lives.

Contributor(s): Professor Oriana Bandiera, Chipokota Mwanawasa, Asif Saleh, Ali Sarfraz | The conversation will centre around the pressing needs of adaptation and social protection, both integral for survival and resilience in these regions. The speakers will discuss the need for research and innovative strategies promoting sustainable livelihoods and diversification of jobs, highlighting policy interventions that fortify the most vulnerable against escalating climate shocks.

Contributor(s): Professor Michael Greenstone, Professor Namrata Kala, Omar Masud, Liu Xin | This event raises the profile of this important determinant of human well-being and explore innovative ways to reduce it. To do this we will pair prominent academics and policy makers working on the frontline of the war on air pollution to help map a path forward for the world.

Contributor(s): Alison McGovern MP, Professor Henrik J Kleven, Professor Linda Scott | In this event, expert and best-selling author Linda Scott, in a conversation with academic and political leaders, discusses how the unequal division of the burden of parenthood fuels women’s systematic exclusion from economic participation.

Contributor(s): Professor Sir Christopher Pissarides, Professor Charlie Beckett, Dr Giulia Gentile | We’ll hear about the introduction of Artificial Intelligence in the courtroom, and what might happen if robots take over the roles of judges. Experts will explore how journalism and other professional fields could be affected by the AI revolution. They will discuss what individuals can do to prepare, and the role of governments and businesses in addressing practical and ethical concerns about the technology. Maayan Arad talks to: Professor Sir Christopher Pissarides, LSE professor of economics and Nobel Prize winner; Professor Charlie Beckett, LSE media professor and director of Polis, LSE’s journalism think-tank; and Dr Giulia Gentile, Lecturer in Law at the University of Essex Law School and former a Fellow at LSE Law School.   Contributors Professor Sir Christopher Pissarides Professor Charlie Beckett Dr Giulia Gentile Chat GPT Research LawGPT? How AI is Reshaping the Legal Profession by Giulia Gentile The digitisation of justice risks blurring the lines between public and private actors by Giulia Gentile AI in the courtroom and judicial independence: An EU perspective by Giulia Gentile Forthcoming report by JournalismAI – a project of Polis, the LSE’s journalism think-thank. The Pissarides Review into the Future of Work and Wellbeing The Institute for the Future of Work

Contributor(s): James Ball | The Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World, takes us into the depths of the internet to trace the origins and rapid ascent of QAnon – the world's first digital pandemic – and how we can build immunity. Imagine a deadly pathogen that, once created, could infect any person in any part of the globe within seconds. No need to wait for travellers, trains, or air traffic to spread it, all you need is an internet connection. In his new book, James Ball decodes the cryptic language of the online right and with a surgeon's precision tracks the spread of QAnon, the world's first digital pandemic. QAnon began in 2017 as an internet community dedicated to supporting President Trump and intent on outing a global cabal of human traffickers. What started as a macabre game of virtual make believe quickly spiralled into the spread of virulently hateful, dangerous messaging – which turned into tragic, violent actions. From a standoff at the Hoover Dam, to the storming of the U.S. Capitol on 6 January 2021, to protesting COVID-19 lockdowns, this digital pandemic has spread globally and shows no signs of stopping.

Contributor(s): Dr Joana Setzer, Catherine Higham, Dr Maria Antonia Tigre, Professor Lauge Poulson, Dr Birsha Ohdedar, Sophie Marjanac, Laura Ford | This influential report presents an overview of climate litigation, highlighting recent developments and future trends. The report is widely read and cited by civil society organisations, policymakers, the legal community, judges, financiers, scholars and media all around the world. Over the past year, the climate litigation field has seen novel case strategies deployed against a broad array of government and corporate actors. Notable examples in the private sector include a world-first case brought against Shell's Board of Directors, as well as against a commercial bank. Three new cases have also been brought against Russia, Finland and Sweden, to challenge the inadequacy of their national climate plans more Increasingly a broad range of actors is compelled to understand how the litigation landscape is evolving and what risks litigation poses to their activities in the public and private spheres. The event is chaired by the Grantham Research Institute’s Director, Elizabeth Robinson, and will begin with a short presentation from authors Joana Setzer and Catherine Higham on the findings of the 2023 Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation report. The presentation is followed by a panel discussion, with five distinguished experts in the field. Panellists react to the report and draw out key aspects from their own experience in the field.

Contributor(s): Professor Gary Younge, Gary Stevenson, Dr Faiza Shaheen, Kimberly McIntosh | Part memoir, part polemic, this is a personal and statistical look at how society is built, the people it leaves behind, and what we can do about it. Our panel of speakers discuss the prospects for social mobility in Britain today, and how we can create opportunities for all.

Contributor(s): | More and more individuals and groups are taking action and using their voices to tackle the growing social and economic inequalities. Social movements and activists engage with, challenge, and seek to shape policy processes and wider political transformations to tackle inequalities through forms of mobilisation as well as everyday forms of action and resistance. From racial justice to climate emergency and women’s rights, they are imagining and building more equal, just, and sustainable societies all across the world. Looking beyond just forms of resistance, this panel will discuss the role of activists and social movements in today’s world and examine their agency in imagining utopian futures and creating change. How are social movements providing creative spaces for not only challenging inequalities but also coming up with alternative ideas for solutions to address the problems they are fighting against? And how and to what extent are these ideas informing policy changes?

Contributor(s): Erin K. Wilson, Georgette Bennett, John Casson, Dr Mukulika Banerjee | But this has distracted us from asking how religion itself is changing and, in turn, changing understandings of identity, political participation and citizenship for millions of people around the world. In many countries religion is being fused with populist politics and becoming an important component in new nationalisms such as in Russia and India where Orthodox Christian and Hindu Nationalists discourse have taken on new importance. In other places it is being mobilised as a source of resistance to state oppression or corporate exploitation. Are these more political expressions of religion less grounded in personal piety and community practice, reflecting a different kind of secularisation – the loss of transcendence? Is religion in today’s world more politicised, more tribal, and less spiritual? Or are we in fact in a post-secular era where spiritual impulses are changing our understanding of ‘secular’ politics?

Contributor(s): Dr Angela Spatharou, Dr Alexandra Gomes, James Fransham | We are rightly concerned about the misuse of our personal data, but data science and the tracking of data reveal crucial information about the impacts of change on people, as the COVID-19 pandemic uncovered. Health and well-being must also be seen beyond the medical point of view - the space we live in has a strong impact on us, as shown in our Festival exhibition Mapping People and Change.

Contributor(s): Tomiwa Owolade | Debate abounds around racism, identity, diversity, immigration and colonial history, and, in the rush to address injustice, Britain has followed the lead of the world's dominant power: America. We judge ourselves by America's standards, absorb its arguments and follow its agenda. But what if we're looking in the wrong place?In This is Not America, Tomiwa Owolade argues that too much of the conversation around race in Britain is viewed through the prism of American ideas that don't reflect the history, challenges and achievements of increasingly diverse black populations at home. If we want to build a long-lasting and more effective anti-racist agenda - one that truly values black British communities - we must acknowledge that crucial differences exist between Britain and America; that we are talking about distinct communities and cultures, distinguished by language, history, class, religion and national origin.

Contributor(s): | These include reported mass rape, torture, and abductions of children, as well as the destruction of civil infrastructure like schools, hospitals, and residential homes. Efforts are under way by inter-state and non-state organisations, governments, and civil society to document the crimes and the material consequences and costs of the invasion. The panel, including prominent Ukraine policy practitioners and leading academic experts on Ukraine and Russia, discuss whether there is a legal case to be made that Russia is committing crimes of aggression and/or genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes; and what the prospects are for prosecuting the crimes in international tribunals. They will also ask what the perpetrators’ responsibility is for post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, whether through paying for damages or tackling legal issues (such as the possibility of using Russia’s frozen assets).

Contributor(s): Ros Taylor, Professor Gwyn Bevan | So what is wrong with the design of British government, and how has it resulted in catastrophic failures of governance in recent years? To mark the publication of his new book with LSE Press, Professor Gwyn Bevan and political podcaster and author Ros Taylor will reflect on a century of systemic failures of governance and explore what an innovative state might look like in the future.

Contributor(s): Professor Michael Wooldridge, Dr Giulia Gentile, Dr Thomas Ferretti, Dr Christine Chow | The sudden rise of ChatGPT has confirmed that artificial intelligence is no longer a technology of the future, but is already shaping our everyday lives – from work and education to policing, transport and even sport.

Contributor(s): Professor Vladislav Zubok, Professor Tomila Lankina, Adam Curtis, Grigor Atanesian | Adam Curtis’s BAFTA-nominated BBC series, Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone, documents what it felt like to live through the collapse of communism and democracy, based on preserved and digitised footage from BBC archives and forgotten or never shown scenes from Soviet life and life in post-Soviet states. Adam Curtis and Traumazone producer Grigor Atanesian, in conversation with Professor Vladislav Zubok and Professor Tomila Lankina, will reflect on what went wrong thirty-something years ago.

Contributor(s): Lucia Osborne-Crowley, Winnie M Li, Dr Kathryn Claire Higgins, Rowena Chiu | More than five years after the first Weinstein allegations appeared in news headlines, #MeToo continues to impact our media landscape, but we should not ignore the impact this movement has had on the individual people caught in the glare of the media spotlight. Which survivors are seen as believable in the media? What is the emotional labour required of survivors whose experiences of trauma are made so very public? Our unique panel looks at at these mediated struggles for visibility, authenticity, and recognition around #MeToo, drawn from their own lived experience, media practice, and academic research. Rowena Chiu’s story became public during the Harvey Weinstein investigation and later a Hollywood film adaptation. Winnie M Li’s experience with news media reports of her rape prompted her subsequent writing, activism, and PhD research. Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s personal trauma informed her own study of the law, and then her astute journalism around sexual assault. They will speak in dialogue with Sarah Banet-Weiser and Kathryn Claire Higgins, whose latest book is Believability: Sexual Violence, Media, and the Politics of Doubt (2023).

Contributor(s): Lord Willetts, Swatee Deepak, Dr Ayça Çubukçu, Daniel Chandler | Whilst many are dissatisfied with the status quo, it is surprisingly hard to find a coherent vision of what a better and fairer world would look like. In the Festival’s closing event, leading thinkers put forward their suggestions.

Contributor(s): Dr Katerina Glyniadaki | Drawing examples from her research on migration management, Dr Glyniadaki discusses some steps that organisations for migrants take to prevent crises, as well as some strategies individual migrants employ to tackle transition and overcome relevant challenges.

Contributor(s): Professor Sam Friedman, Professor Lee Elliot Major | A society with high social mobility creates opportunities for people from all backgrounds to excel. The UK is becoming less socially mobile, meaning that, compared to previous generations, the chances of young people starting out today are more tightly tied to their background. Leading experts in this field discuss not only what can be done to level the playing field - but why it’s not being done already and what is needed to turn ideas into action.

Contributor(s): Dr Eleanor Knott, Dr Kristin Surak, Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey | In this session three scholars from across the social sciences explore the varying, complex, and global nature of inequalities produced in and through citizenship in the 21st century. Drawing on their newly released books, our panel discuss new transformations in citizenship and (in)equality, ranging from contestations around dual citizenship for Liberia, to the sale of citizenship by microstates to millionaires, to the extra-territorial acquisition of citizenship in Crimea and Moldova.

Contributor(s): Dr Karin A. King, Dr Aurelie Cnop-Nielsen | Negotiation is one of the most important skills of successful managers in organisations today. In the context of ongoing change in business, economies and society, organisations need to adapt the design of work and the workplace. The ability to use negotiations effectively day to day has become a key skill for managers to support employees and teams through ongoing change. This session looks closely at what it takes to be an effective negotiator and what that means for supporting people in organisations today to navigate ongoing complex change. Participants consider how you can develop the skills it takes to support your teams to navigate change while creating more value for all involved through effective negotiations.

Contributor(s): Professor Nicola Lacey, Professor Robert J. Sampson | Does when you are born shape your life chances? A leading sociologist discusses his ground-breaking study of criminal justice that shows that when you come of age matters as much (and perhaps more than) who you are in determining whether you get arrested.

Contributor(s): Martin Lewis | Ours is an age of rampant inequalities and pervasive financial struggles, where the power of big banks and corporations seems overwhelming to the individual. Whilst you might hope for longer term systemic change, what can you do in the shorter term to improve your financial situation and change your relationship with money?

Contributor(s): Dr Jonathan Cardoso-Silva | Generative AI is a field of artificial intelligence that can create new data based on existing data, such as text, images, code and sounds. It can mimic the way humans create new ideas, concepts and designs that are both diverse and novel. It has the potential to transform higher education by enhancing learning outcomes, fostering creativity and enabling authentic assessments. However, it also poses challenges and ethical implications, such as ensuring quality, integrity and fairness. This talk will demonstrate how generative AI can be used to create engaging and personalised learning experiences for students in higher education. It will show examples of how generative AI tools can generate text, images, code and sounds based on text prompts, sketches or other inputs. It will also discuss how generative AI can enable more authentic assessments that measure students’ knowledge and skills in a relevant and meaningful way. The talk will highlight the opportunities and challenges of using generative AI in higher education and provide some practical tips and best practices for educators and learners.

Contributor(s): Sadiq Khan | For many years, Sadiq wasn't fully aware of the dangers posed by air pollution, nor its connection with climate change. Then, aged 43, he was unexpectedly diagnosed with adult-onset asthma - brought on by the polluted London air he had been breathing for decades. Scandalised, Sadiq underwent a political transformation that would see him become one of the most prominent global politicians fighting (and winning) elections on green issues. Since becoming Mayor of London in 2016, he has declared a climate emergency, introduced the world's first Ultra-Low Emission Zone, and turned London into the first-ever 'National Park City'. Now, Sadiq draws on his experiences to reveal the seven ways environmental action gets blown off course - and how to get it back on track. Whether by building coalitions across the political spectrum, putting social justice at the heart of green politics, or showing that the climate crisis is a health crisis too, he offers a playbook for anyone - voter, activist, or politician - who wants to win the argument on the environment. It will help create a world where we can all breathe again.

Contributor(s): Dr Rachel O'Neill, Adrienne Herbert, Dr Thomas Curran | Over the past 30 years, there has been a substantial increase in the percentage of people who feel they need to be perfect. The pressure we put on ourselves to be perfect and the expectations we feel from others and society-at-large can lead to depression, burnout and other mental illnesses, particularly amongst younger generations.

Contributor(s): Dr Luca Taschini, Annet Nakyeyune, Bogolo Kenewendo | We consider the ways in which climate change mitigation will be financed, seeking approaches from key African academics and professionals. We address the environmental and ecological challenges the continent faces and critically evaluate climate capitalism.

Contributor(s): Dr Emilio Lastra-Gil | People in different organisations may use the same new technology differently and, consequently, change informal organising in distinct ways. Materiality allows social effect if it is constant in the organisation under study. The aim of this session will be to discuss the socio-materiality perpective of ICTs.

Contributor(s): Dr Anna Valero, Rain Newton-Smith, Chris Skidmore, Dr Liam F Beiser-McGrath | As new ways to power our homes, workplaces and transport are developed there will be opportunities for sustainable, healthier economic growth. But there will also be costs for firms, workers and households. To date, climate action has faced challenges from the people, through protests and failed referenda, but has also been driven by public support and activism. How we can ensure the net zero transition is an inclusive one, so that crucial public support can be maintained and built?

Contributor(s): Dr Jens Madsen, Laura de Molière, Professor Conor Gearty, Stella Creasy | Prevented by risk or fear; hampered by bureaucracy; stifled by people circumventing interventions; or cancelled out by unintended consequences - the panel will consider the legal, social, political and psychological reasons why change is so hard.

Contributor(s): Dr Jasmine Virhia, Yolanda Blavo | In this session, we cover the changes to the workplace owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, the potential changes we expect to see in the future, and the UTOPIA framework, which we developed for the future of financial and professional services.

Contributor(s): Susan Scholefield, David Sinclair, Professor Sir Vince Cable | Prior to retiring people rarely consider these questions, and there is little of a public policy framework to help them do so. How much do we understand – or anticipate - the psychological life-change around moving from a full-time executive role to something else? The path to retirement is sometimes direct, sometimes voluntary and rarely what we think it will be. We discuss what research, teaching and ethnography can tell us about public policy around aging and the transition from work to retirement. The discussion touches on current public policy debates about the retirement age, anti-age discrimination, health and well-being.

Contributor(s): Dr Linda Yueh, Baroness Shafik, Zanny Minton Beddoes, Professor Richard Davies | Expert economists share stories of what is possible, and what the pitfalls might be, showing how economists and policymakers have changed our lives – to create safer, happier and fairer societies.

Contributor(s): Professor Adam Przeworski | The contemporary period of crisis has fundamentally altered party-political landscapes in democracies around the world. The rise of the far right, shifting voter preferences, renewed union activism, and new ideas have all contributed to a host of new opportunities and constraints for social democrats and the parties they inhabit -- and untangling this series of challenges will be key for understanding our shared political futures.

Contributor(s): Professor Kris Manjapra | Manjapra argues that during each of the supposed emancipations from slavery – whether Haiti after the revolution, the British Empire in 1833 or the United States during the Civil War – Black people were dispossessed by the moves meant to free them. Emancipation codified existing racial-colonial hierarchies - rather than obliterating them, with far-reaching consequences for climate colonialism and for environmental justice. For centuries, Black reparations movements emerged in opposition to emancipation’s racial distribution of social exploitation, toxicity, and precarity. Black reparations movements enacted liberation, sovereignty, Maroon ecologies, and alternative ways of dwelling beyond the racial-colonial order. Manjapra highlights the radical traditions of Black reparations as a long and ongoing struggle against the world order first created by slavery, then redoubled by emancipation, with deep consequences for how we approach climate justice today.

Contributor(s): Professor Tyler Cowen | For the first time, Large Language Models give us a direct and effective means of conversing with Artificial Intelligence on substantive questions of our choosing, including matters of economics. How do Large Language Models change our conception of how economies work? Are economies better described by words than we thought, or less well described? Given this new power of text, is Michael Polanyi's phenomenon of inarticulable knowledge more or less important?

Contributor(s): Professor Cornelia Woll, Dr C Raja Mohan, Professor Charles A Kupchan, Dr Selina Ho | Support for traditional international institutions such as the UN and the WTO is weakening in the Global North as well as the Global South. Can these institutions be revived and if so, how? Or is the postwar rules-based order now so fractured that we are likely to get more international and domestic “buy in” starting anew?

Contributor(s): Professor Raj Chetty | This talk will discuss recent research using data on billions of friendships from Facebook that identifies economic connectedness -- the degree of social interaction between low- and high-income people -- as a key predictor of economic mobility.  It will then discuss what factors determine the degree of interaction across class lines and policy implications to increase the forms of social capital most relevant for upward income mobility.

Contributor(s): Hannah Barnes, Professor Lucinda Platt | In this event investigative journalist Hannah Barnes speaks about her book: how she came to investigate the Tavistock’s gender service for children, the testimony she received, and her attempts to understand how safeguarding concerns got lost and the service unraveled.

Contributor(s): Professor Charles Stépanoff | In these three cases, we engage in opaque communication that is far from the standard psycholinguistic model of transparent discussion between adults. Yet anthropologists know that these asymmetrical situations can be some of the most emotionally intense in human lives. This willingness to build sociality beyond linguistic humanity (with infants, deceased and non-humans) allows humans to have a future, a past and a rich relationship with their living environment. This lecture argues that our ontological polyglossia is not a deviance but an intrinsic feature of the human condition. In these asymmetrical situations, the mind of our interlocutor remains opaque to us, which requires exploratory imagination and communicational creativity from us. We will explore this polyglossia in ritual language and in the kinship relationships Siberian peoples build with animals and the dead.

Contributor(s): Bee Rowlatt, Angela Saini | Join us as Angela reveals the true roots of gendered oppression, and the complex history of how male domination became embedded in societies across the globe. Travelling to the world’s earliest known human settlements, and tracing cultural and political histories from the Americas to Asia, she overturns simplistic universal theories to show that what patriarchy is and how far it goes back really depends on where you are. Despite the push back against sexism and exploitation in our own time, even revolutionary efforts to bring about equality have often ended in failure and backlash. Saini examines what part every one of us plays in keeping patriarchy alive, and asks that we look beyond the old narratives to understand why it persists.

Contributor(s): Dr William MacAskill | Does what we do today determine the happiness or misery of trillions of people in the future? MacAskill proposes that by making wise moral decisions today, we can navigate a multitude of crises – bioengineered pandemics, technological stagnation, climate change, and transformative AI – more fairly for generations to come.

Contributor(s): Dr Gabriella Paolucci, Dr Poornima Paidipaty, Professor Bridget Fowler | This book is the first sustained work reflecting on the relations between these two major theorists, and includes contributions from major writers drawing from both scholarly traditions. This new book especially focuses on "the practice of critique" that both thinkers exercised vigilantly throughout their careers. We reflect that ongoing dialogue with the entire body of Marxian critique is a constant in Bourdieu's writings, most clearly evidenced by the adoption of a critical perspective on the social world, and reinforced by the repeated references to Marx’s texts.

Contributor(s): Professor Raghuram Rajan | When the Federal Reserve expanded its balance sheet via large-scale asset purchases (quantitative easing) in recent years, we find an increase in commercial bank deposits with a shortening of their maturity, and also an increase in outstanding bank lines of credit to corporations. However, when it halted the balance-sheet expansion in 2014 and even reversed it during quantitative tightening starting in 2017, there was no commensurate shrinkage of these claims on liquidity. Consequently, the past expansion of the Fed’s balance sheet left the financial sector more sensitive to potential liquidity shocks when the Fed started shrinking it, necessitating Fed liquidity provision in September 2019 and again in March 2020. If the past repeats, the shrinkage of the central bank balance sheet is not likely to be an entirely benign process and will require careful monitoring of the size of on- and off-balance-sheet demandable claims on the banking sector. It is reasonable to ask whether the prior expansion and then shrinkage of the central banks balance sheets had left the private financial sector more vulnerable to such disruptions, and as a result, dependent on further liquidity interventions.

Contributor(s): Polly Toynbee, Professor David Runciman, Professor Margaret Levi, Daniel Chandler | In his new book, Free and Equal: What Would a Fair Society Look Like?, Daniel Chandler argues that the ideas we need are hiding in plain sight, in the work of the twentieth century's greatest political philosopher, John Rawls. Although Rawls revolutionised philosophy — he is routinely compared to figures such as Plato, Hobbes and Mill – his distinctive vision of a fair society has had little impact on politics, until now. In this talk Daniel Chandler explores how Rawls’ ideas can rehabilitate liberalism as a progressive public philosophy, and point the way towards a practical agenda that would reinvigorate democratic politics and transform, or even transcend, capitalism.

Contributor(s): Professor John Foot | But how much does the contemporary period of political upheaval compare to the past? And what does this mean for the left in Italy and beyond? To find out, we're joined by John Foot to discuss his new book Blood and Power: The Rise and Fall of Italian Fascism.

Contributor(s): Professor Brian Burgoon, Professor Michael Cox, Professor Sara Hobolt, Professor Peter Trubowitz, Professor Leslie Vinjamuri | In Geopolitics and Democracy, Peter Trubowitz and Brian Burgoon provide a new explanation of why the liberal international order has buckled under the pressures of anti-globalist political forces. They trace the anti-globalist backlash to foreign policy decisions made by Western leaders in the decade after the Cold War’s end. These decisions sought to globalize markets and pool national sovereignty at the supranational level while undercutting social protections at home—a combination of policies that succeeded in expanding the Western liberal order, but at the cost of mounting public discontent and political fragmentation. This roundtable will discuss the book and its broader implications for democracy and the liberal order going forward.

Contributor(s): Professor Leonard Wantchekon, Professor Lord Stern, Professor Diane Coyle, Professor Pranab Bardhan | A generation ago, the so-called Washington Consensus laid out a series of do´s and don’t´s for policymakers around the world, and particularly in emerging and developing countries. The world has changed a great deal since 1989 and so has the collective wisdom on what sound policies look like. Today, goals such as sustainability, equity and cohesion play a much bigger role in orienting policy design than they did in the 1980s. There is a growing sense that states should take a more proactive role in confronting all these challenges, but is also likely that many states lack the capacity to do the job well, and will need to be reformed and made fit for purpose. This panel brings together experts discussing key emerging priorities and challenges across a number of policy areas, reflecting on not just what these policy priorities are and why, but also on how they can be implemented.

Contributor(s): Professor William Cook | The general setting is the following. Complexity theory suggests there are limits to the power of general-purpose computational techniques, in engineering, science and elsewhere. But what are these limits and how widely do they constrain our quest for knowledge? The TSP can play a crucial role in this discussion, demonstrating whether or not focused efforts on a single, possibly unsolvable, model will produce results beyond our expectations. We discuss the history of the TSP and its applications, together with computational efforts towards exact and approximate solutions.

Contributor(s): Professor Catarina Dutilh Novaes | Catarina Dutilh Novaes gives a public lecture on her Lakatos Award winning book, The Dialogical Roots of Deduction. Catarina is known for her research on the history and philosophy of logic, philosophy of mathematics, social epistemology, reasoning and cognition, and argumentation theory.

Contributor(s): Paul Mason, Dr Luke Cooper, Dr Olesya Khromeychuk | Before February 2022 Ukraine was already at war with Russia. This conflict, which began in February 2014 as Russia responded militarily to the "Revolution of Dignity", had already cost thousands of Ukrainian lives by the time of the second Russian invasion. One of them was Olesya Khromeychuk's brother Volodymyr, who died from shrapnel on the frontline in eastern Ukraine. Her book, "The death of a soldier told by his sister", combines memoir and essay, in a poignant account of the costs of the human costs of war, empire and authoritarianism. The book provides a vivid answer as to why, facing a full-scale military onslaught from Russia in February 2022, the people of Ukraine chose to resist. In this public lecture, Olesya discusses the book in light of the events of this year. Her lecture is followed by a discussion with Luke Cooper and Tim Judah.

Contributor(s): Dr Cleve Scott, Geoffrey Robertson, Dr Bob Morris | What can we learn from recent constitutional changes in the Caribbean? And what are the lessons from Britain’s own Republican experiment?

Contributor(s): Dr Jonathan Birch, Professor Kristin Andrews, Dr Rosalind Arden | Since this episode was recorded the UK Animal Welfare Act 2022 has become law. This extends animal welfare protections to animals such as octopuses, lobsters and crabs - a direct result of the findings of LSE academic Dr Jonathan Birch – featured in this episode - that animals are sentient. They have the capacity to experience pain, distress or harm.For this episode, James Rattee travels to the local park to find out how smart dogs are, he’ll hear about a campaign arguing that chimpanzees are animals deserving of their own rights and, finally, he’ll ask whether insects and other invertebrates have feelings. The episode features Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor in LSE's Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, Professor Kristin Andrews, the York Research Chair in Animal Minds at York University (Toronto) and Dr Rosalind Arden, Research Fellow at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science. Research Foundations of Animal Sentience Project Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief, Kristin Andrews, Gary L Comstock, Crozier G.K.D., Sue Donaldson, Andrew Fenton, Tyler M John, L. Syd M Johnson, Robert C Jones, Will Kymlicka, Letitia Meynell, Nathan Nobis, David Pena-Guzman and Jeff Sebo. A general intelligence factor in dogs, Rosalind Arden, Mark James Adams, Intelligence Volume 55, March–April 2016, Pages 79-85

Contributor(s): Dr Mara Pasquamaria Squicciarini | Dr Mara Pasquamaria Squicciarini (@mara_squi) is based in the Department of Economics at Bocconi University and is currently a visiting academic at Harvard. Her research interests include economic history, economic growth and development, and applied macroeconomics. Patrick Wallis is Professor of Economic History at LSE. His research explores the economic, social and medical history of Britain from the 16th to 18th century.

Contributor(s): Professor Sophia Kalantzakos, Daniel Litvin, Rob Patalano, Eric Buisson | Transitioning to net-zero emissions requires a large-scale economic transition to renewable energy. Scaling up the manufacturing of the technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines, batteries and electric vehicles will result in significant demand for and dependency on the supply of a range of minerals for the foreseeable future. These ‘transition-critical minerals’, including metals, minerals and Rare Earth Elements, are required to manufacture the green technologies needed for the transition to a low-carbon economy. As a low-carbon future will not be possible without these minerals, supply chain risks and demand uncertainties are central topics that need to be assessed and addressed, with potential implications for economic and financial stability. The type of transition to a net-zero economy significantly determines the materiality of the risks, with a delayed and disorderly transition presenting greater challenges for financial and price stability.

Contributor(s): Dr Alison Winch, Dr James Muldoon, Miranda Hall, Professor Jeremy Gilbert, Professor Myria Georgiou | But are the digital platforms we have today, and the business models that drive them, good for political life? And even if they are good for some dimensions of politics, for example mobilization, do they work as well for building solidarity and for forming long-term campaigns of progressive political change? What weight should we give to the fears of polarization online versus the more positive potentials of the digital? And differences of scale matter here between urban politics and the national or global? Finally, if we do have concerns about our current digital platforms, how do we build better ones? Who should do this, and what sorts of resource will they need? Our speakers who have all written books highly relevant to these topics will address and debate these urgent questions.

Contributor(s): Dr Andrew Bailey | Andrew Bailey is Governor of the Bank of England, a position he has held since March 2020. Andrew served as Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) from 1 July 2016 until taking up the role of Governor. As CEO of the FCA, Andrew Bailey was also a member of the Prudential Regulation Committee, the Financial Policy Committee, and the Board of the Financial Conduct Authority. Andrew previously held the role of Deputy Governor, Prudential Regulation and CEO of the PRA from 1 April 2013. While retaining his role as Executive Director of the Bank, Andrew joined the Financial Services Authority in April 2011 as Deputy Head of the Prudential Business Unit and Director of UK Banks and Building Societies. In July 2012, Andrew became Managing Director of the Prudential Business Unit, with responsibility for the prudential supervision of banks, investment banks and insurance companies. Andrew was appointed as a voting member of the interim Financial Policy Committee at its June 2012 meeting. Previously, Andrew worked at the Bank in a number of areas, most recently as Executive Director for Banking Services and Chief Cashier, as well as Head of the Bank's Special Resolution Unit (SRU). Previous roles include Governor's Private Secretary, and Head of the International Economic Analysis Division in Monetary Analysis. Minouche Shafik is President and Vice Chancellor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was previously a senior leader of the Bank of England, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank. She is an alumna of LSE. Her new book, What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract, is out now.

Contributor(s): Professor Yasheng Huang | Drawing on new data, he will explore the policy implications of this historical pattern for China at a time of mounting strategic and economic rivalry with the United States.

Contributor(s): Ralitsa Angelova, Oliver Bulleid, Christian Hilber, Kath Scanlon | We’ll hear how planning restrictions established in the 1700s are still preventing development on some of London’s most valuable land. Experts will set out why we can’t afford to not build on the greenbelts that circle some of our major cities. And an Executive Director will explain how his organisation is building homes that will be truly affordable in perpetuity. Sue Windebank talks to: Ralitsa (Rali) Angelova, a young mum whose family has had the chance to buy an affordable flat in London; Oliver Bulleid, Executive Director of the London Community Land Trust; Professor Christian Hilber, an urban and real estate economist at LSE and; Kath Scanlon, Distinguished Policy Fellow at LSE London.

Contributor(s): Dr Richard V Reeves, Dr Abigail McKnight | Boys in OECD countries are 50% more likely than girls to fail at all three key school subjects: maths, literacy, and science. Meanwhile, suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in the UK. Profound economic and social changes of recent decades have left many men at a disadvantage in these areas. Many previous attempts to treat this condition have made the same fatal mistake - of viewing the problems of men as a problem with men. In his new book, Richard V Reeves explores how the male malaise is the result of deep structural challenges and societal issues. Richard draws on a careful analysis of social, economic, and demographic trends; current discussions on gender in psychology, public policy, economics and sociology; as well as on interviews with men and women, girls and boys. In particular, he examines the worrying signs that males are less responsive to social programs and policies intended to promote economic mobility.

Contributor(s): Professor Lars-Erik Cederman | Lars-Erik Cederman addresses the link between nationalism and conflict in relation to the Ukraine war.

Contributor(s): Catherine McKenna, Chris Skidmore MP | Catherine McKenna will be in conversation with Chris Skidmore MP about how to carry forward and implement the findings of the United Nations Secretary-General’s High-Level Expert Group on Net-Zero Commitments of Non-State Entities, which were published in November 2022. The Group’s report sets out a roadmap to prevent net zero from being undermined by false claims, ambiguity and “greenwash”.

Contributor(s): Professor Pinelopi Goldberg | The world is trending away from globalisation. Brexit, the rise of protectionism in the US, and calls for re- or friend-shoring are recent manifestations of this trend. Pinelopi Goldberg, the Elihu Professor of Economics at Yale University and former Chief Economist of the World Bank Group, discusses the causes and implications of the retreat from globalisation for growth and inequality.

Contributor(s): Professor Mariana Mazzucato | Where does value come from? What is the difference between value creation and value extraction? And what is the role of the state in directing and co-shaping economies that are innovative, inclusive and sustainable? Mariana Mazzucato will explain how we lost sight of what value means and why we need to rethink the economic theory and practice that is shaping our economies. The contemporary concept of value - as interchangeable with price - has trapped policymakers in a debate about public “spending” rather than public “investment.” This has enormous implications for how economies are structured, and has impacted how leaders across the political spectrum frame economic policy and industrial strategy. Notably, as industrial policy is being revived, there is an opportunity to embed dynamic conditionalities in state funding to steer growth that is sustainable and inclusive – tackling wealth creation and inequality on a pre-distributive basis. Changing the status quo requires a different understanding of public value and public purpose, and the design of policy as not just market fixing but market shaping. Key to this is also the revival of stakeholder value through a new social contract between public and private actors, ensuring that partnerships between the state, private sector, and labour create shared value. In this way, governments can impact not only the rate of growth, but it’s direction.

Contributor(s): Professor Faruk Birtek, Professor Yaprak Gürsoy, Professor Laurent Mignon, Professor Şuhnaz Yılmaz | It will assess transformations in society, foreign policy, literature and politics while providing an overview of the history of the Turkish Republic, as well as the nation’s competing understandings of itself and idealisations of its past and future. When the Turkish Republic was founded on 29 October 1923, one of its ideals was the modernisation and Westernisation of the newly built nation. In the following century, these ideals have changed in content, but in many spheres of life, dialogues with the idea of progress have continued. Relations with the West and different interpretations of modernity divided the nation. Yet the notion of participating in a historically decisive movement of progress toward something distinctively better than the past has united generations and different political groups in various ways.

Contributor(s): Daniel Jolles, Dr Aliya Hamid Rao, Belton Flournoy, Dr Claire Crawford | Weak productivity in Britain is an acute problem. Explanations have included insufficient necessary skills, an overinvestment in unnecessary skills at the university level, capital shallowing and too little creative destruction. In this webinar we explore a different explanation. We ask whether a failure to recruit and operationalise diverse talent is an underlying root cause of slow growth.

Contributor(s): Paul Johnson | Government decisions determine the welfare of the poor and the elderly, the state of the health service, the effectiveness of our children’s education, and how prepared we are for the future: whether that is a pandemic or global warming. As a society, we are a reflection of what the government spends. Johnson looks at what happened following the financial crisis of 2008-09 and the austerity years that followed. He examines the way that the government tackled the economy during Covid – when the UK budget shot up to over a trillion for the first time – and he analyses prospects for our future as we grapple with looming recession and the cost of living crisis.

Contributor(s): Professor Alex Voorhoeve, Dr Elin Palm, Dr Orla Lynskey | Prominent ethical and legal frameworks claim that governments and businesses can permissibly process personal information, under specific conditions, as soon as data subjects give their consent. This already justifies constraints on personal data processing practices to secure free, informed, and unambiguous consent, as well as to respect the context in which consent was given. But consent is not the whole story. Processing personal data without consent may be permissible in some cases when other “legitimate interests” are at stake, such as national security or fraud prevention: so, how to balance privacy and other legitimate interests? On the other hand, emerging accounts of privacy propose that obtaining individual consent is sometimes insufficient to justify personal data processing. If giving away one’s personal data reveals information about others, or if coordination failure leads to suboptimal privacy for all, collective privacy decisions may be required.

Contributor(s): Dr Nihan Albayrak-Aydemir, Roger’s Bacon, Dr Dario Krpan, Dr Celestin Okoroji, Feiyang Wang | This low diversity of thought is reflected in numerous aspects of social sciences—for example, certain research topics (e.g., those that may be easily publishable) are prioritized over other important but less desirable topics (e.g., those that are not heavily cited or easy to publish); some methodologies such as experimentation are widely used whereas less common methods (e.g., self-observation) are neglected; short-term projects with quick gains are prioritized over the long-term ones; some participant populations are understudied (e.g., non-WEIRD samples - i.e., non-western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic); and theorizing is driven by arbitrary conventions and overly reliant on available research findings while avoiding speculation that could lead to new insights. In this event, social scientists of varied backgrounds will express their perspectives on diversity of thought in social sciences followed by a panel discussion.

Contributor(s): Dr Stuart Gordon, Sveto Muhammad Ishoq, Halima | The UK government could soon be sending some asylum-seekers on a one-way flight to Rwanda as part of a controversial strategy to deter those crossing the English Channel on small boats. Joanna Bale talks to Dr Stuart Gordon, Sveto Muhammad Ishoq and Halima, an Afghan refugee living in a hotel, about what it’s like to flee your country and policy ideas to help resolve the situation. Research links: Regulating humanitarian governance: humanitarianism and the ‘risk society’ by Stuart Gordon: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/105296/ The protection of civilians: an evolving paradigm? by Stuart Gordon: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/101979/ Afghan women’s storytelling and campaigning platform: https://chadariproject.com/about-chadari/

Contributor(s): Baroness Barker, Natalie Gamble, Dr Kirsty Horsey, Professor Isabel Karpin | In 2023, the Law Commission will publish its long-awaited final proposals for reform of the law relating to surrogacy in the UK.

Contributor(s): Professor Roy Allison | Russia and Western states have long clashed over the nature of international society and the desirability of a liberal rule-based international order. Relations plunged with Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which flouted a core prohibition of the United Nations Charter system against territorial expansion by force. Putin’s renewed all-out invasion of Ukraine now appears openly revanchist. This lecture assesses the implications for international order at large and the operation of international law, including international humanitarian law, around the conflict. It dissects the peculiar logic and false justifications Putin offers for Russia’s aggression. Does he really believe Russia occupies some common civilizational and territorial space with Ukraine, justifying the subjugation of Ukraine to return ‘historic Russian regions’? Or is this cynical cover for strategic ends aimed at the mobilisation of domestic support? With no end to the war in sight, the lecture also questions what remains of the post-Cold war territorial settlement in Europe and whether an eventual negotiated settlement of the war is conceivable under the current Russian leadership.

Contributor(s): Professor Helen Thompson | The war in Ukraine, mounting cost of living crisis and the looming threat of climate change all underscore the importance of energy to contemporary politics. To help make sense of this vital aspect of 21st century political economy, the Ralph Miliband Programme is joined by Helen Thompson to discuss how many of the defining dislocations of our contemporary world are best understood through the lens of energy politics.

Contributor(s): Martin Wolf, Diane Coyle, Jesse Norman MP | Democracy and capitalism are the political and economic 'operating systems' of today's high-income democracies. But how stable is the relationship between them? The answer is 'not very', since it requires a separation of power from wealth inconsistent with almost all historical experience. In his new book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, Martin Wolf argues that this complex system can best be described as a marriage of 'complementary opposites'. The book analyses how this marriage happened, why it is fragile and how economic and political changes have undermined it. It concludes by asking what needs to be done in response to developments that threaten the survival of liberal democracy itself.

Contributor(s): Dr Hans Kluge | Three years of COVID-19 have exposed the fault lines in health systems across the WHO European Region and globally. The pandemic has also driven home the gross inequities that impact access to health within societies and between countries. As we embark on the 4th year of what the UN Secretary-General has labelled the worst global crisis since World War Two, it’s clear that governments and health partners need a new approach to strengthening health systems overall. Dr Kluge avers that a dual track approach to health strategy and policy must be our new normal. Countries must prepare for the health emergencies that lie ahead, arriving faster than ever before, while, at the same time, investing in essential, everyday health services. This approach addresses this range of health challenges, requiring political commitment at the highest levels, grassroots efforts to strengthen primary health care, innovations in health such as digital health and the adoption of disciplines such as behavioural and cultural insights.

Contributor(s): Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala | LSE President and Vice Chancellor Minouche Shafik in conversation with Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Director-General of the World Trade Organization.

Contributor(s): Vicky Pryce, Stefaan de Rynck | A close aide to Michel Barnier, Stefaan De Rynck had a ringside seat in the Brexit negotiations. In his book, Inside the Deal, which he discusses at this event De Rynck demonstrates how the EU-27’s unity held firm while the UK vacillated throughout, changing negotiators, prime ministers, their aims and tactics. From the mood in the room to the technical discussions, he gives an unvarnished account of the process and obstacles that shaped the final deal.

Contributor(s): Liam Byrne MP, Ed Miliband MP, Dr Andy Summers | Using research evidence and on-the-ground experience, they are looking at how to shape a greener economy and close socioeconomic, health and well-being divides in the UK.

Contributor(s): Marie Yovanovitch, Professor Tomila Lankina | with Tomila Lankina and Peter Trubowitz.

Contributor(s): John Alty, Geoffrey Yu, Han-Koo Yeo, Crawford Falconer, Iana Dreyer, Ignacio Garcia Bercero | The world economy is going through a phase of considerable turmoil and instability. First, globalisation seems to be reversing with an acceleration of economic disintegration among major trading powers, securitisation of global trade and investment relations within geo-economic blocks and paralysis of multilateral global governance. Second, our domestic economies are undergoing profound structural shifts in the light of the climate emergency, energy scarcity and rise of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. And third, the centre of the world economy is shifting towards the Asia and Global South. How do policy-makers see these developments? And how can states position themselves to benefit rather than lose from today’s phase of turmoil?

Contributor(s): Dr Joseph Spooner, Sara Williams | Borrowing is a fundamental part of our world, but with millions considered over-indebted before the pandemic and a deepening cost of living crisis fueled by stagnating wages and high inflation, for many the burden of debt looks only set to increase. This month, LSE iQ asks “Do we always need to pay our debts?”, exploring the reasons people might find themselves with problematic levels of debt, the options open to those in financial trouble and how bankruptcy laws could be used more impactfully to the benefit of both individuals and society. Jess Winterstein talks to: Dr Joseph Spooner, Associate Professor in the LSE Law School and author of Bankruptcy: the case for relief in an economy of debt, and Sara Williams, founder of debt advisory website Debt Camel. https://debtcamel.co.uk/

Contributor(s): Professor Stuart Wilks-Heeg, Alberto Parmigiani, Dr Kate Alexander Shaw | Questions over the motivation and effect of financial contributions to political parties and candidates have been a constant source of contention in the politics of democratic countries. However, difficulties accessing reliable data have often constrained research about political finance. In the UK the Electoral Commission has been recording all political donations since its foundation, with detailed information on the date, amount and type of contribution, and names of donors. This panel will discuss preliminary findings of a British Academy/Leverhulme funded study of these donations, and seek to draw broad conclusions about how British politics is funded and what we still need to know.

Contributor(s): Dr Alessio Terzi, Dr Anna Valero | Historically, industrialisation, capitalism, and affluence have contributed to the emissions that are warming the planet’s atmosphere. As humanity starts to grapple with the Herculean challenge of climate change, should economic growth be abandoned to stand a chance of success? Would this lead to a better society, especially in already rich nations, freeing them from pointless consumerism? In Growth for Good, Alessio Terzi takes these legitimate concerns as a starting point to draw the reader on a journey into the socioeconomic, evolutionary, historical and cultural origins of the growth imperative. Rather than simply stating impossibilities, the book draws a credible agenda to enrol capitalism in the fight to stave off climate catastrophe. Shelving command-and-control solutions, or the complete reliance on, the market, Terzi details a plan involving an activist government, proactive business, and engaged citizens.

Contributor(s): Dr Erica Thompson, Dr Stephanie Hare, Professor Diane Coyle | This discussion lifts the lid on science for decision support, so that we can be savvier with how we use science, rather than following it blindly.

Contributor(s): Dr Peter Wilson, Professor Stephanie J. Rickard, Professor John Bew, Sir Paul Tucker | As outlined in his new book, democracies are facing a drawn-out contest with authoritarian states entangling much of public policy with global security issues. He lays out some principles for a sustainable system of international cooperation, showing how democracies can deal with China and other illiberal states without sacrificing their deepest political values. Examples are drawn from the international monetary order, including the role of the US dollar, trade and investment regimes, and the financial system. The approach takes its inspiration from David Hume rather than the standard International Relations menu of Hobbes, Kant, or Grotius, so that each of power, norms and material interests matter. After his opening remarks, our panel engages in a discussion with Paul and each other, and questions from the audience.

Contributor(s): Dr Anne Giersch, Claire North, Dr Bryan W Roberts, Dr Karim PY Thébault | The asymmetry between the past and the future is called the Arrow of Time. For example, the events of the past year have shaped all of us, but the future years are ours to shape. We all perceive the Arrow: we remember the start of the pandemic, but we don't "remember" or even know when it will end in the future. We have hopes about the future, but must simply accept and learn from what has happened in the past. Where do these differences come from? How do they arise in human psychology? Do they have an origin in the physical nature of space and time? What can reflecting on the difference between the past and the future tell us about our place in the post-pandemic world?

Contributor(s): Professor Jonathan Hopkin, James Murray, Dr Andy Summers, Dr Kate Summers | The panel will reflect on what shapes public demand for tax justice, its relation to tackling inequality and the challenges posed by taxing the super-rich.

Contributor(s): Professor Baroness Wolf | Governments around the world are increasingly preoccupied with the financial 'returns' to education; and yet are overseeing the destruction of long-established and once-effective vocational education systems. Why is this? And is it inevitable?

Contributor(s): Professor Shiera Malik, Professor Siba N'Zatioula Grovogui | In these times of multiple crises - of war, ecological catastrophe and resurgent decolonial contestations of the existing order - it often feels like the traditional tools of global governance have lost their relevance and power.  Rather than merely a Western, liberal text, he offers the UDHR as a document with a plurality of authors and sensibilities; a re-reading that could help us (re-)imagine much needed alternatives to the current global order and its various crises.

Contributor(s): Professor Marc Raboy, Dr Alison Norah Gillwald, Dr Gillian Marcelle, Dr Linje Manyozo, Professor Sharon Strover, Professor Hopeton Dunn | Speakers address the legacy of LSE’s Robin Mansell, a leading figure in the field of information and communication technologies (ICTs) theory and practice

Contributor(s): Dr Luiz Awazu Pereira da Silva, Dr Deniz Igan, Dr Benoit Mojon | The debate is intensified by deep recessions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and resurgent food and energy inflation increasing cost of living in 2022, which unequally impact different groups within society. This event marks the launch of the book Inequality Hysteresis, which highlights a new facet of inequality: its persistence or ‘hysteresis’ after recessions.

Contributor(s): Professor Thierry Balzacq | Diplomatic apologies, joint military exercises, gift giving, and global summits, are assumed to be some of the most iconic rituals of world politics. However, many actions that are achieved by means of rituals can be enacted otherwise. What criteria, then, do scholars employ to say that an action or an event is a ritual, and what difference (if any) does it make to its character as well as to its efficacy? To answer this question, Thierry Balzacq develops a grammar of ritual and contrasts it to alternative theories of action in world politics. Ritual is not a residual category of a phenomenon or an event, but is a qualitatively transformed way of going about acting, which, less frequently noticed, entails moral commitments. In this respect, it is posited that ritual enacts a social order as much as it enhances the salience of the action it involves. He will show how, and examine the theoretical implications of a ritual analysis by revisiting four dominant approaches to action in international relations: discourse, performance, practice and habitus, and strategic views. It is argued that while ritual intersects with each account, it does not extend wholesale.

Contributor(s): Olena Zelenska | The event, organised in coordination with the LSE SU Ukrainian student society, was chaired by LSE Director Minouche Shafik. (For the most part, this event is delivered in Ukrainian.)

Contributor(s): Dr Aaron Cheng, Michael Steranka, Joanna Ferreria | Gaming has become a normal part of many people's everyday lives, from mobile to console games it is easier than ever to be a gamer. But how do online games affect us?  This month, LSE iQ asks: Can gaming make us happier? We talk about online abuse in gaming and the toxic nature of some gamers and how a location-based game like Pokémon Go gently nudges players to go outside to play and interact with others.  Mike Wilkerson talks to: Dr Aaron Cheng, Assistant Professor in LSE’s Department of Management; Michael Steranka, Product Director at the creators of the game Pokémon Go Niantic; and Joanna Ferreria an online blogger and avid gamer.  Research blog: https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/Latest-news-from-LSE/2022/d-Apr-22/Location-based-mobile-games-like-Pok%C3%A9mon-Go-may-help-alleviate-depression

Contributor(s): Kyriakos Mitsotakis | Is Greece on the path to a sustained economic recovery? How substantive have the reforms been? With elections due next year, and with recent controversies, political stability seems at a premium. What vision does the PM have for Greece? And, how are the geopolitics of the region changing? Where does Greece stand on the new issues facing a changing Europe?

Contributor(s): Lord Sumption, Professor Martin Loughlin, Dr Munira Mirza | It will examine the desire among some members of the public to have a democracy without parties or professional politicians, an idea which has its roots in the ancient world. Jonathan Sumption will first discuss such arguments after which there will be a panel discussion.

Contributor(s): Dr Paris Chronakis, Professor Meena Dhanda, Professor James Mark | At issue is the cultural politics of European politics, and we will be discussing how and what kind of European histories get remembered or memorialised, what and who gets included (whose statues are erected and whose toppled), and whose story is left out.

Contributor(s): Claire Harding, Dave Hill, Manny Hothi, Stewart Lansley, Professor Baroness Lister | Join us for this important discussion as our panel each presents their thoughts. Our audience are invited to contribute to the discussion as we unpick this difficult question. This event is inspired by the life, work and legacy of George Lansbury (1859–1940). A pioneering campaigner for peace, women’s rights, local democracy and improvements in labour conditions, Lansbury was an adopted East Ender who made a great contribution to local as well as national life.

Contributor(s): Professor Manisha Pathak-Shelat, Marium Saeed, Professor Sonia Livingstone, Dr Daniel Kardefelt-Winther, Patrick Burton, Dr Alexandre Barbosa | Our panel explores implementing child rights online.

Contributor(s): Professor Leigh Gardner | Leigh Gardner discusses her new book, Sovereignty without Power: Liberia in the Age of Empires, 1822-1980.

Contributor(s): Dr Louise Ashley, David Goodhart, Professor Mark Williams | Despite a narrative of merit, the City of London is characterised by persistent inequalities in its demographic make-up. Against this backdrop, Ashley asks - how does the City reproduce inequality despite an apparent commitment to objective merit, why do efforts to diversify fail to work – and crucially, who benefits?

Contributor(s): Dr Eva Micheler, Professor Sandy Pepper, Professor Alex Voorhoeve, Katherine Griffiths | Over the last 30 years senior executive pay in the USA, UK and many other developed countries has increased dramatically, generating enormous debate and, at times, public and political outrage. Sandy Pepper’s book argues that this ‘soaraway’ inflation in executive pay is the result of a market failure that has lead remuneration committees to become trapped in a prisoner’s dilemma – where they feel they must recommend over-the-odds payments in the vain hope of obtaining or retaining superior talent. For institutional investors too, these developments have created a collective action problem, with many historically unwilling or unable to intervene to curtail excessive corporate executive pay. Combatting this ‘market failure’ approach to executive pay ultimately requires a stronger, reformed ethical response from investors, companies, and executives – but what solutions are feasible?

Contributor(s): Dr Gregory T Chin | This lecture will present why it has become imperative for China to increase the international use of its currency, the Renminbi (RMB), considering the growing reliance of the United States on economic warfare, including financial warfare, and the fracturing of the liberal global monetary order. The focus is on mapping the internationalization of the RMB, particularly key recent breakthroughs in the preconditions for the RMB to function as an international currency. The primary agents in the making of the RMB into an international currency are China's Party-state, counterpart state agencies, and especially the participating market actors, Chinese corporate actors, the leading commercial banks and manufacturing-and-trading companies -- and their overseas partners -- who are increasingly using the RMB, internationally, for their economic transactions. RMB internationalization has entered a key phase, where pre-existing obstacles still have to be overcome, but where the gradual increases in the RMB's international use are also being met by profound changes in the global monetary order, namely the ongoing shifts to a more multipolar global monetary system and to digital currencies.

Contributor(s): Iain Anderson, Trevor Phillips | This is a time where the rights of all protected groups are being eroded – to note just two examples, the overturning of Roe vs Wade and the cancellation of the UK’s Safe to be Me landmark LGBT+ summit after an uproar over changes to the planned conversion therapy ban. What can civil society do to fight back against what appears to be an inexorable tide?

Contributor(s): Kate Raworth, Maria Carrasco | Doughnut Economics, a framework coined by Raworth, sets out a 21st-century economic vision of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet, through regenerative and distributive design. Over 40 cities and regions worldwide have already started to engage with the concepts and tools, aiming to turn these concepts into practice in place. How are they getting started, and what are the challenges they face? Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist and co-founder of Doughnut Economics Action Lab, will share the core concepts and tools, along with examples from cities and places that are seeking to turn this economic vision into practice. She will be joined by Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity, Maria Carrasco, for the discussion.

Contributor(s): Dr James Morrison, Professor Stephanie J. Rickard, Joseph C Sternberg, Dr Linda Yueh | A group of leading political analysts size up US national and state elections and what they mean for democratic governance in America.

Contributor(s): Professor André Singer, Professor Claudia Heiss | Is Latin America experiencing a new pink tide?  Can Lula make a dramatic political comeback in Brazil’s closely fought Presidential election? And why has Chile’s new left-wing President failed to secure revision of the Pinochet constitution?

Contributor(s): Professor Ruha Benjamin | Long before the pandemic, Ruha Benjamin was doing ground-breaking research on race, technology, and justice, focusing on big, structural changes. But the twin plagues of COVID-19 and anti-Black police violence inspired her to rethink the importance of small, individual actions. Part memoir, part manifesto, her new book Viral Justice, which she will talk about at this event, is a sweeping and deeply personal exploration of how we can transform society through the choices we make every day.

Contributor(s): Professor Barry R Weingast | Both Hayek and Smith differ from more recent attempts to define liberty. Indeed, the term, “liberty,” has largely disappeared from traditional economics. As part of a larger study of Adam Smith’s politics, Barry Weingast suggests why this is the case. The reason for this disappearance is that modern economics assumes away the problem that liberty solves, namely, in Hayek and Smith's terms, that of arbitrary power, and in modern terms, that of government predation.

Contributor(s): Ignacio Garcia Bercero, Emily Lydgate | The talk will discuss issues for a potential trade and climate negotiating agenda such as subsidies, liberalisation of goods and services with a positive climate impact, standards for measuring carbon intensity or the role of border carbon measures. It will look into the potential of tackling those issues in a WTO context either multilaterally or through open plurilateral approaches. Photo by Porapak Apichodilok on Pexels

Contributor(s): Dr Benedetta Berti, Professor Christopher Coker, Andy Salmon | After NATO published its new Strategic Concept in June 2022, in the midst of Russia’s war on Ukraine, and 12 years on from its last Strategic Concept, this event takes a look at how the strategy was formed and what it is for.

Contributor(s): Professor Leslie McCall | Questioning widespread notions of US exceptionalism, the lecture critically examines common assumptions about how Americans think about issues of economic inequality (in outcomes and opportunities and across dimensions of race and class) and related policies that reduce economic inequality. Using a wide range of existing and original data sources, as well as multiple methodological approaches, Professor McCall analyses public views in the United States over time and in a comparative context. She proposes a multi-dimensional framework for understanding public views of inequality rooted in desires for substantive economic and educational opportunities through a broad set of social rights, employment protection and support, and redistribution of pay. The in-depth study of the American case in comparative perspective and supplementary cross-national analyses suggests that this novel analytical framework can shed light on the politics of inequality throughout advanced political economies.

Contributor(s): Professor Shakuntala Banaji, Dr Ram Bhat | Social Media and Hate argues that these phenomena, and the extreme violence and discrimination they initiate against targeted groups, are connected to the socio-political contexts, values and behaviours of users of social media platforms such as Facebook, TikTok, ShareChat, Instagram and WhatsApp. The argument moves from a theoretical discussion of the practices and consequences of sectarian hatred, through a methodological evaluation of quantitative and qualitative studies on this topic, to four qualitative case studies of social media hate, and its effects on groups, individuals and wider politics in India, Brazil, Myanmar and the UK. The technical, ideological and networked similarities and connections between social media hate against people of African and Asian descent, indigenous communities, Muslims, Dalits, dissenters, feminists, LGBTQIA communities, Rohingya and immigrants across the four

Contributor(s): Geoff Tily | Without taxation there is no government. Taxation is essential, but who is to pay, and for what? For centuries people have fought over these questions, and these fights have been at the heart of the development and crises of democracy, from Magna Carta through the French Revolution to the Global Financial Crisis and the Pandemic. Bringing together internationally renowned academic experts and policymakers, this documentary retraces this fascination history across France, Britain and Germany from as far as the Middle Ages up to the present day.

Contributor(s): Dr Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa, Maarya Rabbani | Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa is Assistant Professor in Human Rights and Politics at the Department of Sociology, LSE. She is a Belgian/Rwandan International Relations scholar and former journalist and Senior Research Fellow of the Johannesburg Institute of Advanced Studies (JIAS), South Africa.  Maarya Rabbani is the 2022-23 Education Officer at LSE Students’ Union. She is a British-Afghan scholar and holds two MSc degrees in Education, and Comparative Politics from the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and Political Science, respectively.  Eric Neumayer is Professor of Environment and Development at LSE, having joined the Department of Geography and Environment in 1998.

Contributor(s): Professor Hazel V Carby, Ruby Hembrom | Indigenous, black and Latinx communities suffer the health consequences of living in the most polluted and toxic environments. Indigenous peoples across the Americas are also at the forefront of opposition to the extraction and transportation of fossil fuels. In this event, Hazel Carby will be discussing and showing the work of indigenous artists who are responding to environmental and ecological crises and degradation.

Contributor(s): Professor Abraham L Newman, Dr Jamie Martin, Professor Stephanie J. Rickard | The war in Ukraine raises questions about whether states must be ‘strategic’ about their national economic policies due to geopolitical risks. The scramble for supplies to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, long-term trends of growing competition between the United States and China and the rise of populism had already fuelled geopolitical tensions, along with fears that globalisation is eroding. As a result, some of the global economy’s most prominent players prioritise economic resilience and reshoring global supply chains with ‘friendly’ allied states. The potential outcome is a fracturing of a globalised economy based on these alliances or outright deglobalisation. All of this is culminating in escalating economic disruptions for lower-income countries, with countries in sub-Saharan Africa facing possible default on their sovereign debt. Added to this, the war in Ukraine has caused the most significant commodity shock since the 1970s. International institutions, like the World Trade Organization, continue to defend global trade and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank continue to champion international cooperation to address economic and social welfare. What are the political, social, and economic implications of these challenges for the global economy? How should international laws and institutions address these challenges to economic integration? How do precedents for twentieth-century international economic institution building help us contextualise today’s challenges?

Contributor(s): Professor June Barrow-Green | In 1916 the physician Ronald Ross published the first of three papers on the mathematical study of epidemiology or, as he called it, ‘pathometry’. The second and third of these papers appeared the following year co-authored with the mathematician Hilda Hudson. At the time Hudson, who had ranked equivalent to the 7th wrangler in the 1903 Cambridge Mathematical Tripos, was well known for her work on Cremona Transformations. So how and why did Hudson, a geometer, end up collaborating with Ross, winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1902 for his work on the transmission of malaria? And what role did she play? In her talk June Barrow-Green shall discuss the nature and extent of their collaboration, as well as the content and significance of their work.

Contributor(s): Professor Neil Cummins, Professor Sam Friedman, Sabrina Daniel | It examines how we wear and reveal our social class in English society today. Do accents really matter? Is it enough to imitate one supposed ‘social betters’ to achieve social mobility? What cost is there to the individual who changes their social status? Sue Windebank talks to an LSE Law student who reveals how she has overcome the challenges of being an asylum seeker and a care leaver to study law at the School. Professor Sam Friedman, a sociologist of class and inequality, discusses the arbitrariness of what is considered ‘high culture’. And economic historian Professor Neil Cummins reveals how class will probably determine who you marry.

Contributor(s): Professor Gary Gerstle | As a new progressivism gains steam on the left, and Donald Trump gears up for a second run on the right, we are joined by Gary Gerstle to discuss his new book, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order America and the World in the Free Market Era.

Contributor(s): Professor Alpa Shah, Professor Nikhil Anand, Dr Kasia Paprocki | Bangladesh dominates mainstream narratives of climate disaster. Frequently described as the ‘world’s most vulnerable country to climate change’, the oversimplified spectre of a major country slipping underwater has yielded a crisis narrative that erases a complex history of landscape transformation and intense, contemporary political conflicts. Colonialism, capitalism, and local agrarian struggles have so far shaped the country’s coastline more than carbon emissions. Today, both national and global elites ignore this history, while crafting narratives and economic strategies that redistribute power and resources away from peasant communities in the name of climate adaptation.  Threatening Dystopias draws on over two years of multi-sited ethnographic and archival fieldwork with development practitioners, policy makers, scientists, farmers and rural migrants, to investigate the politics of climate change adaptation in Bangladesh from multiple perspectives and scales, offering an in-depth analysis of the global politics of climate change adaptation and how they are both forged and manifested in this unique site.

Contributor(s): Professor Julian Go, Professor Noortje Marres, Professor Melinda Mills, Professor Mike Savage | We bring together four outstanding social scientists with a range of research interests and a range of traditions to discuss whether social science is explanation or it is nothing. Inspired by the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory, the contributors speak in favour or in opposition to this motion. Noortje Marres and Mike Savage will speak in opposition, while Julian Go and Melinda Mills will speak in favour.

Contributor(s): Professor Luc Bovens, Dr Susanne Burri, Professor Kieran Setiya | All human lives, even very comfortable ones, involve some degree of suffering and hardship. We face personal losses and traumas, and confront a world that seems full of injustice, misery and absurdity. Can philosophy help us to cope?

Contributor(s): Professor Robert Falkner, Dr Rita Floyd | This lecture, part of a series on Strategy: New Voices will explore the strategic nexus between great power conflict, energy independence and climate action, and how to develop effective international strategies that help us prevent catastrophic global warming. The war in Ukraine has heightened concerns over the impact that geopolitical instability will have on future climate change and energy policy. Great power tensions and conflict threaten to harm the search for international cooperation on global challenges. At the same time, Russia’s military aggression has galvanised European powers to seek strategic autonomy and reduce their reliance on fossil fuel imports. Will it also end up galvanising leading powers to accelerate the net zero transition?

Contributor(s): Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia | We are transitioning from the age of financialised capitalism to one of political capitalism. The discussion explores how political issues ranging from geopolitical rivalry to climate and environment to culture wars to wealth inequality to diversity and inclusion are now affecting every aspect of business activity and increasingly taking priority over economic considerations. Which businesses and brands can adapt appropriately and thrive in the emerging era - and how?

Contributor(s): Professor Nick Crafts | After World War 2, Britain faced issues which are familiar today: strengthening the welfare state, dealing with an inflated public debt, improving productivity performance, underpinning support for the market economy, and credibly promising a better future. The Attlee government has been widely praised for its handling of this difficult situation and it is often said that we should remember the lessons of the 1940s.

Contributor(s): Professor Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, Lina Abou Habib, Dr Steffen Hertog | The Kafala System, an employment scheme in the Middle East, has attracted much academic scrutiny and criticism over the decades. Human rights activists align the system with slavery, unfreedom, and human trafficking. In her new book, which she will discuss at this event, Rhacel Salazar Parreñas offers more nuanced accounts of workers relationships with their employers in the United Arab Emirates. Rhacel's work employs novel methods of researching the Kafala system and its impact on workers and questions concepts such as unfreedom and freedom. Whilst her arguments highlight the dehumanising treatment and lack of recognition of migrant domestic workers, her empirical data crucially illuminates the diversity of work conditions. A key argument is that rather than ‘abuse’ being the main point of reference in Kafala debates, it is the absence of labour standards in the region that leads to unequal and complex employment relationships. A diverse panel of academics, stakeholders and human rights activists will offer their reflections on Parreñas’ book, highlighting their expertise from the Middle East.

Contributor(s): Professor Emily Jackson, Professor Theda Skocpol, Professor Jeffrey K Tulis | This panel of leading experts on US history and politics consider where the Court is headed and what this means for American democracy.

Contributor(s): Professor Sophie Harman, Dr Marsha Henry | In this year’s Fred Halliday lecture, Sophie Harman seeks to answer two fundamental questions: first, why do women die when they don’t have to? and second, what happens when we take the relationship between women’s health and global politics seriously? To answer these two questions, Harman will map key trends in how women’s health is used and abused for political advantage around the world; and offer a key provocation, that these trends are fundamental to understanding, and even predicting, the chaos and crisis the world finds itself in. Women and women’s health saw it coming.

Contributor(s): Dr Rory Finnin | “If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war. If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine” is the sentiment used by many Ukrainian protesters mobilising against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In this talk, the panellists will consider both Russia's war against and invasion of Ukraine since February 2022 and the longer trajectory of Russia's aggression against Ukraine since 2014, first in Crimea and second in Donetsk and Luhansk. The panellists will reflect on what we know about Ukraine and Ukrainian citizens prior to and since Russia's aggression began, as well as perspectives we can take to understand the scale and consequences of Russia's aggression.

Contributor(s): Simon Commander, Emeritus Professor Saul Estrin | Although the connections world has not yet seriously impeded Asia’s economic renaissance, it comes with significant costs and fallibilities. In their new book, which they will talk about at this event, Saul Estrin and Simon Commander argue that if Asia’s claim to the 21st century is not to be derailed, major changes must be made to policy and behaviour to promote more sustainable economic and political systems. Join the speakers and Minouche Shafik, Director of LSE, for an evening exploring what the future could hold for Asian capitalism.

Contributor(s): Dr Tamma Carleton, Dr Asad Gilani, Professor Michael Greenstone, Dr Eric Obutey | Climate change is already increasing global temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, and resulting in more frequent and severe floods and droughts. Developing countries are most vulnerable to climate change, which can aggravate the effects of poverty and rapid urbanisation. Without effective policies for adaptation and mitigation, climate change may push hundreds of millions further into poverty and limit the opportunities for sustainable development. In order to formulate effective and equitable adaptation and mitigation strategies, governments must be equipped with a thorough estimation of the costs and benefits of various policies.

Contributor(s): Ray Dalio | Expertly putting into perspective the “Big Cycle” that has driven the successes and failures of all the world’s major empires and countries —including the Dutch, the British, and the American— throughout history. The discussion will follow the book revealing the timeless and universal forces behind these shifts and uses them to look into the future, offering practical principles for positioning oneself for what’s ahead.

Contributor(s): Dr Ganga Shreedhar, David Shukman | Sea levels are rising, carbon emissions are increasing and deforestation is continuing at an alarming rate. Human created climate change is drastically reshaping life on earth, with up to 75% of the diversity of the species on our planet on their way to becoming extinct. This month, LSE iQ asks: How can we survive the next mass extinction? We’ll discuss the dangers of greenwashing, what it’s like to witness an environmental catastrophe and how we can change our behaviour to benefit the planet. Anna Bevan talks to: Dr Ganga Shreedhar, Assistant Professor in LSE’s Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science, and Associate at the Grantham Research Institute of Climate Change and the Environment and the Inclusion Initiative; and former BBC Science Editor, and now Visiting Professor in Practice at the Grantham Research Institute, David Shukman.   Research Stories of intentional action mobilise climate policy support and action intentions (2021) by Sabherwal, Anandita and Shreedhar, Ganga Personal or Planetary health? Direct, spillover and carryover effects of non-monetary benefits of vegetarian behaviour (2021) by Shreedhar, Ganga and Galizzi, Matteo

Contributor(s): Dr Clare Balboni, Lord Deben, Dr Shaun D Fitzgerald, Professor David Keith, Dr Anna Valero | Should we also consider a Plan B of encouraging new technological solutions? And if so, what kind of solutions are there and how would we act upon them? This event brings together some new thinking on this issue.

Contributor(s): Professor Robin Burgess, Professor John Van Reenen, Professor Mar Reguant, Pol Simpson | The panel discusses new thinking and evidence from leading thinkers and practitioners on this vital subject, including detailed studies of one of the possible success stories – solar power. Does the rapid rise in the use of solar energy represent a ray of hope in addressing the climate crisis?

Contributor(s): Daniel Pink | Too often, people brush off their regrets, chosing always to stay positive and look forward. In his latest book, which he will talk about in this event, Daniel Pink points to regrets as a beacon of our individuality that can be leveraged for better decision making and to understand our core values. Grace Lordan and Daniel Pink discuss the true value in understanding regret and using it to our advantage.

Contributor(s): Lea Ypi, David Hope, Julian Limberg, Tomila Lankina | Joanna Bale talks to Lea Ypi, David Hope, Julian Limberg and Tomila Lankina about defining freedom, debunking trickle-down economics and defying the Bolsheviks.

Contributor(s): Lord Carnwath, Dr Joana Setzer, Dr Roda Verheyen, Kate Higham, Mark Odaga, Ana Carolina Haliuc, Anne Corrigan, Michael Burger | This annual report – which has been published regularly since 2017 – provides an overview of the state of the art of climate litigation and highlights recent developments and recommendations for action. The event begins with a short presentation from authors Joana Setzer and Catherine Higham on the findings of the Grantham Research Institute’s 2022 Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation Policy Report. The presentation is followed by a panel discussion, with five distinguished experts in the field. Panellists react to the report and to draw out key aspects from their own experience in the field. The report is based on data in the Climate Change Laws of the World database which has a user base of nearly 200,000 users a year. Users include policy-makers from national legislatures, environment ministries, and central banks among many others.

Contributor(s): Dr Ann Olivarius | Ann Olivarius is a pioneer of the women’s rights movement, instigating change politically, legally, and in the workplace, creating a world where women are safer and more equal in the UK and the USA. She is a trailblazing feminist lawyer who has made tackling sexual harassment and discrimination her life's work.  Join Grace Lordan in her conversation with Ann Olivarius as they look back on the progress that women have made over the last 50 years. They discuss the current threats facing the Women’s Rights Movement today from the workplace to the community to the political agenda, including why US abortion rights are under attack at this specific point in history.

Contributor(s): Valeria Gontareva | Her remarks also include observations on the Ukrainian banking sector, financial needs, global implications and worldwide economic shocks.

Contributor(s): Piroska Nagy Mohacsi, Dr Angela Lusigi, Dr Ernest Addison | This event explores the financial and economic prospects for the region’s emerging economies, the impact of COVID-19 on development prospects, and more.

Contributor(s): Dr Jonathan Birch, Huw Golledge, Penny Hawkins | In the UK, a new law requires all policymakers to have due regard for animal sentience. This law has given new urgency to the question: which other animals are sentient? Might some invertebrates, such as octopuses, crabs, snails, or even insects, have experiences that deserve respect and welfare protection?

Contributor(s): Rob Sharp, Dr Eva Polonska-Kimunguyi, Professor Myria Georgiou, Abdulrahman Bdiwi | Over the past decades, and across continents, numerous refugee “crises” have led to the explosion of the global refugee population, which has more than doubled in the last ten years. As so many are forced to leave their homes, not all refugees gain the same level of visibility, welcome, and recognition. What are the consequences for the lives of those who move and those who receive them? How do media representations of refugees affect their reception? And how do refugees use digital media to themselves tell their stories of uprooting and migration?

Contributor(s): Ed Miliband MP | For the past four years, Ed Miliband has been discovering and interviewing brilliant people all around the world who are successfully tackling the biggest problems we face, transforming communities and pioneering global movements. Go Big draws on the most imaginative and ambitious of these ideas to provide a vision for the kind of society we need.

Contributor(s): Dr Nikita Simpson, Dr James Rattee, Dr Joanna Lewis, Suad Duale | As we emerge from it, we are beginning to see the legacies of stigma and trauma that have disproportionately impacted certain groups – especially marginalised groups who are underserved by the state. This participatory short film animates longer-term ethnographic research conducted over the past 24 months across the UK by LSE’s COVID and Care Research Group, led by Professor Laura Bear. It highlights the story of psychotherapist Suad Duale and the Somali single mothers who have stepped up to support their community in this time. Co-directed by Suad Duale, Dr Nikita Simpson and Dr James Rattee, it provides insight into the profound work done by some people to ferry their communities through this crisis.

Contributor(s): Dr Imaobong Umoren, Professor Mike Savage , Dr Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa | Calls for a decolonisation of the history curriculum, or changes to the way "Empire" is commemorated and discussed, are frequently dismissed or fought against as an attack on British history. Our panel discuss why this debate matters and what we should be doing about it.

Contributor(s): Dr Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, Dr Devika Hovell, Dr Martin Binder | Multilateralism seems in crisis precisely when it is needed most. Challenges are multifaceted and originate from established, emerging and declining powers. In his address to the UN Security Council in April 2022, President Zelenskyy of Ukraine said: “It is now clear that the goals set in San Francisco in 1945 during the creation of a global international security organization have not been achieved. And it is impossible to achieve them without reforms. Therefore, we must do everything in our power to pass on to the next generations an effective UN with the ability to respond preventively to security challenges and thus guarantee peace.” What reforms could revitalise the UN and what are the prospects of them being enacted?

Contributor(s): Dr Kristin Surak, Dr Neil Cummins, Aroop Chatterjee | The COVID world has also entailed a much larger state intervention than at any time since the 1950s, linked to the twin challenges of an aging society and the need to invest in net zero, alongside any costs of recovery. This is something both of the major political parties appear to have signed on to. The question then is not only how much should we tax, but who should we tax, and how far the wealthy should be the focus of increased taxation. Questions of fairness will be central to the debate. In this event we present evidence on the trends in wealth inequality in society and reflect on the political challenges involved in addressing these.

Contributor(s): Christine Lagarde, Dr José Viñals | Since November 2019, Christine Lagarde (@Lagarde) has been the President of the European Central Bank. Between 2011 and 2019, she served as the eleventh Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prior to that she served as French Economic Finance Minister from 2007 to 2011 after having been Trade Secretary from 2005 to 2007. A lawyer by background, she practiced for 20 years with the international law firm Baker McKenzie, of which she became global chairman in 1999. In all such positions, she was the first woman to serve. In 2020, Lagarde was ranked the second most influential woman in the world by Forbes and has been named by TIME as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Christine Lagarde was named Officier in the Légion d'honneur in April 2012 and Commandeur dans l’ordre national du mérite in May 2021. José Viñals was appointed to Standard Chartered PLC in October 2016 and became Group Chairman in December 2016. José was appointed Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank in April 2019. José began his career as an economist and as a member of the faculty at Stanford University, before spending 25 years at the Central Bank of Spain, where he rose to be the Deputy Governor. José joined the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2009 and stepped down in September 2016 to join Standard Chartered PLC. Minouche Shafik is Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to this, she was Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. She is an alumna of LSE. Her new book, What We Owe Each Other: A New Social Contract, is out now. She is co-chair of the Economy 2030 Inquiry commission.

Contributor(s): Teniola Tayo, Richard Kozul-Wright | The economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on Africa have been severe, with formal and informal sectors affected by lockdowns, decreasing exports, disruptions to global supply chains, mounting debt and increasing levels of poverty. Fiscal responses have been unable to weather dramatic shifts in business and economic activity worldwide, with major challenges for local populations seeking employment and food security. With historic changes within the continent to the way trade is being conducted, a crucial part of Africa’s economic recovery from COVID-19 therefore hangs on what happens in this area. Will the much-hyped African Continental Free Trade Area really transform the continent’s economic prospects, or does an economic recovery depend on external actors? With a small percentage of Africa receiving vaccines to COVID-19, how can trade work to counter the challenges of supply?

Contributor(s): Elif Shafak | In her latest novel, award-winning author Elif Shafak explores belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal through a story of two teenagers in 1970s Cyprus, from opposite sides of a divided land who seek refuge in a taverna to forget the sorrows of the world outside. In conversation with Professor Tomila Lankina, whose latest book explores the legacies of Tsarist Russia and the Russian revolution and how they continue to shape Russian society today, she will explore what we as a society, and as individuals, can do to bring about a better post-COVID world.

Contributor(s): Ruben Lapa Maximiano, Natura Gracia, Roberto Alimonti | As the world slowly comes out of the pandemic, a number of policy questions arise: was state intervention sufficient? Were the instruments appropriate? Has the level-playing field been altered by the uneven capacity of states to dip into their own pockets? Would a European coordinated strategy have been more appropriate? The panel's aims is twofold: first, to evaluate what happened during the pandemic, taking stock of the effectiveness of the state aid measures and the competition tools used to respond to and manage the crisis; second, to assess whether any policy changes are necessary to upgrade the toolkit for the next crisis to come.

Contributor(s): Professor Nicholas Barr, Andrew Dilnot, Michelle Dyson, Lord MacPherson | A decade after the Dilnot Report called attention to the fact that the finance of social care had been ignored for too long and that the system was "confusing, unfair and unsustainable", the government announced an overhaul to the way adult social care is financed in England. The government’s proposal, to increase finance for social care through an increase in National Insurance contributions (NICs), has attracted a range of diverging opinions. The speakers will debate current proposals and possible alternatives.

Contributor(s): Dr Orla Lynskey, Professor Andrew Murray | Globally, we are seeing increasing regulatory alignment to rights-based data protection frameworks. However, a wide variety of alternative data governance initiatives with diverse objectives and conceptual starting points are also emerging. In this session we discuss the legal challenges this entails as well as the opportunities it presents for more effective data governance.

Contributor(s): Dr Jason Wong, Lara Pohl-Martell, Jocelyn Blériot | The idea of a circular economy, in which waste and pollution are eliminated through better design, reuse of resources and regeneration, is a radical solution to climate change and biodiversity loss, as well as social problems. But is a shift away from a linear economy achievable, and how?

Contributor(s): Professor Kristina Spohr, Dr Fiona Hill | A leading national security expert and best-selling author discusses Putin’s Russia, America’s future, and the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for the future of European security and democracy.

Contributor(s): Professor Oya Dursun-Özkanca, Colonel (retired) Rich Outzen, Professor Gencer Özcan | The questions that will be addressed include the following: How have relations between Turkey and NATO evolved in the past 70 years? What has been the Turkish strategy toward NATO in the past two decades? How have the US and the NATO alliance approached Turkey since the early 2000s? The talk will also assess the future prospects of Turkey’s role in NATO given the changing regional circumstances in the Black Sea region.

Contributor(s): Dr Jonathan Roberts | In this session, Dr Jonathan Roberts discusses these questions and more and how they relate to new institutions, organisations and mechanisms that aim to create significant social change. He will explore how social entrepreneurs recognise opportunities, how they mobilise resources, how they often use commercial mechanisms for the public good, and how they should always work in partnership with those they seek to help.

Contributor(s): Dr Anna Valero, Rebecca McDonald, Dr Carl Benedikt Frey | Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, underlying structural changes have placed significant pressure on labour markets. This has profound implications for inter-personal and inter-place inequalities. The challenge, therefore, is how we create good jobs in a time of crisis, where everyone and everywhere benefits. This event will discuss the opportunities a transition to net zero presents, and how skills policy needs to be reframed to support strong, sustainable and inclusive job creation.

Contributor(s): Dr Mukulika Banerjee, Dr Yascha Mounk, Professor Lea Ypi | Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the recent changes in the US electoral system, the introduction of additional documentation in the UK and growing electoral authoritarianism in the world’s largest democracy India – all indicate a distortion of democratic institutions as well of their democratic cultures. This panel examines the future of democracy as a political system and explores the importance of cultivation of values and institutions in the preservation of democracy.

Contributor(s): Dr Grace Lordan | The world of work is being shaped by the Great Resignation, technology changes and varying policies around hybrid working. But what does this all mean for skills? What skill-set should you hone to be a future leader? What skills should you acquire to be in demand on the labour market? Do we all need to be tech savvy? And what are the skills that will allow a person be in demand in the labour market a decade from now. Join Dr Grace Lordan, author of Think Big, where she will answer these questions and more. Grace will also be telling you more about the value of investing in becoming an inclusive leader through a behavioural science approach.

Contributor(s): Iman Mersal, Lola Olufemi, Mai Taha | We discuss questions of literary style through the use of photography, poetry, and personal writing, as well as questions of politics through a focus on the intimate, care work, and how past experiences shape the future. This is an inter-generational and transnational conversation: while both texts showcase place-based writing that is attentive to context, they also transcend place and engage with a transnational feminist orientation that takes care seriously as a universal experience and as a political question. These texts are exciting examples of experimental writing and publishing, demonstrating the power and beauty of feminist writing in our current moment.

Contributor(s): Carolyn Fairbairn, Torsten Bell | What can we learn from past periods of change? And how can we build a new economic strategy that responds to the challenges of the 2020s, as well as our legacy problems of weak productivity, high inequality and stagnating living standards? The UK is facing a decisive decade of huge economic change, from restructuring after Brexit and the pandemic, to urgently transitioning towards a net zero future, and adapting to technological shifts amid an ageing population. Some of these shifts present big new opportunities for people and places throughout the country. But they bring challenges too, and failing to respond to the disruption they will bring carries huge risks – to our living standards, our communities, and to our planet. The UK’s many strengths must be harnessed to manage this change well.

Contributor(s): Professor G John Ikenberry, Professor Mary Kaldor, Professor Charles A Kupchan, Professor Ayşe Zarakol | Leading experts on world politics take up these questions and others about the future of the liberal world order.

Contributor(s): Dr Grace Lordan, Helen Krause, Ruben Gnanalingam, Andrew Cohen, Fred Brettschneider | As investor interest in ESG (environmental, social, governance) grows, we consider what components of “S” should be prioritised and measured, delving into how the sector could evolve as “S” measurement becomes more sophisticated.

Contributor(s): Dr Lexi Stadlen, Professor Patricia Jeffery, Sonia Faleiro | This event marks the launch of Lexi Stadlen’s newly published Nine Paths which explores the intimate lives of nine women and their families on an island in the Sunderban, at the eastern edge of India, over the course of a year. There are weddings to celebrate and deaths to mourn, families to care for, difficult marriages to navigate and tragedies to overcome, as we observe the everyday drudgery, unexpected turmoil and the dreams of something better. A conversation chaired by Alpa Shah with Lexi Stadlen, sociologist Patricia Jeffrey who has conducted four decades of research in a Muslim village in Uttar Pradesh and journalist Sonia Faleiro who most recently wrote the The Good Girls, the ordinary killing of two low caste girls in a village in Uttar Pradesh.

Contributor(s): Professor Patrick Tomlin, Professor S. Matthew Liao, Dr Anca Gheaus | In all societies, parents have rights over their children. In particular, they have the right to make decisions on behalf of their children in all areas of their children’s lives, including education, religious observance and relationships. Parental rights fulfil two roles: protecting children’s interests and protecting parents’ interest in rearing their children in line with their values. Yet, these interests are often in tension with one another.

Contributor(s): Professor Glenn Loury | Glenn Loury explores the importance of social networks in influencing education decisions and how a lack of access to networks can act as a barrier to educational attainment. In addition, he will explore the politics of racial inequalities, with a particular focus on the US context. This will involve a critique of identity politics and the kind of anti-racism politics that has emerged in the US.

Contributor(s): Professor Ricky Burdett, Dr Amara Enyia, Tracy Jooste, Dr Robtel Neajai Pailey | Drawing on their research and practice and in conversation with each other, Atlantic Institute’s Leaders in Residence, Amara Enyia and Tracy Jooste, and LSE academics Robtel Neajai Pailey and Ricky Burdett will consider how in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic we can not only build back better, but also build differently.

Contributor(s): Professor Tim Besley, Dr Tania Burchardt, Professor Michael Cox, Sir Anthony Seldon | This event explores how the UK has changed during the 70 years of the Queen’s reign and will consider how the UK’s: economy, government and politics, social policy and foreign relations have evolved between 1952 and 2022.

Contributor(s): Yvonne Farrell, Francis Kéré, Anne Lacaton, Shelley McNamara, Jeanne-Philippe Vassal, Professor Ricky Burdett | From innovative uses of local resources and participatory design methods in Africa, to the exploration of generosity of space and economic use of materials in educational and residential buildings in cities of the global North, the speakers will argue that architecture plays an increasingly  critical role in constructing more open, resilient and healthy places for people.

Contributor(s): Simon Kuper, Professor Jane Gingrich, Professor Mike Savage | Drawing on his forthcoming book, Chums: How a Tiny Caste of Oxford Tories Took Over the UK, Kuper will discuss the dynamics and effects of Britain’s ruling class and its ‘chumocracy’, with responses from Mike Savage – a sociologist of elites – and Jane Gingrich, Professor of Comparative Political Economy. In his new book, Simon details how Oxford University has produced most of the most powerful Conservative politicians of our time. They aren't just colleagues - they are peers, rivals, friends. And, when they walked out of the world of student debates onto the national stage, they brought their university politics with them. How has this reality helped define and design modern Britain?

Contributor(s): Dr Nayanika Mathur | The Anthropocene is taken to constitute not just a new geologic age of the planet characterised by extreme events, biodiversity loss, the melting of glaciers, etc. – the climate crisis – but also as an imperative of finding new ways of doing and communicating anthropological labour.

Contributor(s): Anna Błuś, Suzanne Hoff, Elene Lam, Dr Niina Vuolajärvi | In this event, Niina Vuolajärvi will outline the main outcomes and recommendations of a policy brief on sex buyer criminalization and its intersections with immigration controls in the Nordic region. The brief is based on Vuolajärvi’s large-scale ethnographic research that includes 210 interviews conducted between 2012-2019 in Sweden, Norway, and Finland. The panel will discuss how the “Nordic model” style regulation looks like in other countries and from a perspective of anti-trafficking efforts.

Contributor(s): Dr Annette Zimmermann, Dr Zeynep Pamuk, Professor Jocelyn Maclure, Dr Etienne Brown | Public administrations increasingly use AI to automatise the allocation of public services. Judges use risk-assessment algorithms to determine a person’s eligibility for bail or parole. Social media platforms use AI to optimise content moderation, while political actors can use these platforms to engage in microtargeting and misinformation. And law enforcement agencies can use facial recognition systems and predictive analytics to strengthen surveillance. This new reality requires careful examination: Who should be responsible for selecting principles of AI governance? How can we align the decisions of AI systems with democratic values? Are “black box” algorithms undermining transparency and our capacity to exercise scrutiny over public decisions? Panellists reflect on these and related questions and engage with the audience.

Contributor(s): Lord Malloch-Brown | For decades, democracy and human-rights advocates have assumed that a growing number of governments were embracing democracy, freedom and the international law. Yet today, 38 percent of the world’s population live in countries which are not free – the highest proportion in a quarter of a century. As the enemies of open society further accelerate their attacks, and Ukraine becomes the frontline in a systems-breaking clash between democracy and authoritarianism, where do we turn next in today’s fight for open society?

Contributor(s): Dr Robin Archer | Equality is an idea that has broad appeal – most people endorse the principle that we should be equal before the law, and even defenders of the market put their case in terms of equal property rights. But the socialist idea that people should be equal in their material circumstances is more controversial, and recent trends in egalitarian political philosophy, rather than stepping up to defend it, have tended to back away.

Contributor(s): Dr Juliana Bidadanure | Age shapes social institutions, roles, and relationships, as well as how we assign obligations and entitlements within them. Each life-stage also brings its characteristic opportunities and vulnerabilities, which spawn inequalities between young and old. How should we respond to these age-related inequalities? Are they objectionable in the same way gender or racial inequalities are? Or is there something distinctive about age that should mitigate our concern for inequalities between young and old? Juliana Bidadanure addresses these and related questions, presenting the theory of justice between age groups that she develops in her book Justice Across Ages: Treating Young and old as Equals. The book advances ethical principles to guide a fair distribution of goods like jobs, healthcare, income, and political power among persons at different stages of their life. If we are ever to live in a society where people are treated as equals, she argues, we must pay attention to how age membership can alter our social standing, and we must regard with suspicion commonplace forms of age-based social hierarchy.

Contributor(s): Professor Scott Barrett | This keynote lecture explains: why, despite thirty years of diplomatic effort, global collective action on climate change has failed; how climate diplomacy can be made more effective; and what past and ongoing diplomatic failures imply for future climate diplomacy.

Contributor(s): Rupal Patel, Dr Jack Meaning | The book addresses ten questions that are the key to understanding economics, from ‘Why aren’t Freddos 10p anymore?’ to ‘What actually is money?’. Along the way, it offers idiosyncratic examples of economics in action: whether in the City of London, the Bank of England canteen, Springfield Power Plant or the National Lottery. The result is an authoritative and surprisingly witty guide to economics and why it matters.

Contributor(s): Sylvana Q Sinha, Riya Pabari, Lord Hastings, Michael Fraccaro, Dr Christian Busch | How can we set ourselves (and others) up for success and “smart luck” in a world full of uncertainty? How can we create a career that combines money and meaning—even today, when we cannot know which jobs will still exist tomorrow?  This event marks the LSE launch of the international paperback version of Christian Busch’s book Connect the Dots: The Art & Science of Creating Good Luck. By learning to identify, act on and share serendipity, we can use uncertainty as a pathway to more joyful, purposeful and successful lives. Christian Busch has studied hundreds of subjects who improved their lives by learning to see opportunities in the unexpected.

Contributor(s): Professor Nichola Raihani, Dr Erez Yoeli, Dr Moshe Hoffman | Reviving game theory, Hoffman and Yoeli use it to explain our most puzzling behaviour, from the mechanics of Stockholm syndrome and internalised misogyny to why we help strangers and have a sense of fairness. Fun and powerfully insightful, Hidden Games is an eye-opening argument for using game theory to explain all the irrational things we think, feel, and do and will change how you think forever.

Contributor(s): Professor Nancy Fraser | In the wake of the perfect storm that is COVID, how can we stop it from cannibalising our whole world?

Contributor(s): Professor Abhijit Banerjee | The recent pandemic has highlighted the importance of communicating reliable information to very large populations who are all exposed to multiple other sources of information and misinformation. The talk reviews what is known about the proper design of communication strategies—who to inform, how much information, through what means.

Contributor(s): Dr Liam Kofi Bright, Dr Zena Hitz, Professor Alex Voorhoeve | Is tranquility a recipe for good mental health, well-being and fulfilment, or merely a way to cut ourselves off from what really matters? Should a life well lived include periods of suffering and stress?

Contributor(s): Kiera Byland, Nyasha Derera, Kester Edwards, Heidi Mallet | This discussion also offers an opportunity to learn more about the challenges individuals with intellectual disabilities face, and the remarkable talents and abilities they bring to their families, neighbourhoods, communities and nations.

Contributor(s): Dr Michael Callen, Professor Michael Cox, Dr Devika Hovell, Nargis Nehan | Less than months after the western military withdrawal in August 2021, this special issue explores lessons that can be drawn from the fall of the government in Kabul. Inviting scholars from different disciplinary background, the issue reflects on why the US decided to leave, what this may mean for the Western alliance system, the consequences for women’s rights, the geopolitical fall out, international law, development and the economics of peace.

Contributor(s): Bee Rowlatt, Fawzia Amini, Baroness Kennedy | The fall of Kabul last summer was a minute-by-minute tragedy, as the Taliban swept to power and many Afghans desperately tried to escape. Among the most vulnerable were women lawyers who had formerly stood up to the Taliban, and as the ‘death lists’ began to circulate, these women had the most to lose. But as we witnessed the rolling back of human rights, the events of last August also summoned acts of immense courage and selflessness. In the spirt of Mary Wollstonecraft, Baroness Kennedy shares the extraordinary stories behind the evacuation of Afghan women judges following the fall of Kabul, and her own connection to their escape. This exchange examines the hopes for women's rights internationally, set the story we all watched on the news into the framework of international justice, and consider those who are left behind.

Contributor(s): Philip Keefer, Professor Aldo Madariaga, Dr Erin McFee | Trust is the belief that others will not act opportunistically. It is faith in others—in their honesty, dependability, and goodwill. Trustworthy people make promises they can keep, follow through on those promises, and do not violate social norms. When trust is absent, society and its members suffer: citizens demand and politicians supply public policies that do not advance collective welfare, feeding disenchantment with democracy; citizens and government officials demand increasing regulation and red tape that slow growth and restrict access to social programs; and the performance of firms and public sector organisations declines as mistrust undermines collaboration, recruitment and innovation. The event discusses the sources and consequences of mistrust and reforms that can offset it.

Contributor(s): Professor Annette Lareau, Sibylle Gollac, Dr Aliya Rao | The event will examine a host of related issues including gender dynamics (and tensions) surrounding wealth and philanthropic giving in families, particularly when the wealth and economic expertise of the wife exceeds that of her husband. Professor Lareau highlights the “stickiness” of gender in shaping these family dynamics, thereby complicating and stigmatising the formidable economic advantages these women hold. Following her presentation, Sibylle Gollac and Dr Katharina Hecht will join the discussion.

Contributor(s): Professor Julian Go | Sociology was born in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a project in, of, and for empire. Its concerns, theories, and epistemology therefore reflected the standpoint of metropolitan elites. Sociology today carries the legacies of this imperial tradition, including its analytic biases.

Contributor(s): Professor Boris Vujcic, Dr Debora Revoltella, Francis Malige, Fokion Karavias, Dr Anthony Bartzokas | What are the forces reshaping finance in South East Europe? What are the lessons learned from the policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic? What are the prospects for banks during the recovery phase? How technology and nonfinancial corporations are transforming the banking sector? A panel of experts from the region discuss key challenges from the build-up of vulnerabilities, proposals by various institutions for future action and the role that banks and investors could play towards building back better after the pandemic.

Contributor(s): Dr. Aaron Reeves, Laura Lane, Daphine Aikens | As food and energy prices soar, it’s predicted that the demand for food banks will reach record highs as those on low incomes and benefits face an uphill battle to make ends meet. Joanna Bale talks to LSE’s Aaron Reeves and Laura Lane, as well as Daphine Aikens, founder and CEO of Hammersmith and Fulham food bank, and some of her clients.

Contributor(s): Sylvie Goulard, Frank Elderson, Otávio Damaso, Dr Ma Jun | Panellists discuss the findings of the report of the Joint NGFS-INSPIRE Study Group on Biodiversity and Financial Stability. The report investigates and strengthens the case for action to enable central banks and supervisors to not only understand the issues the planet is facing due to the unparalleled loss of biodiversity, but also to define the actions that must be taken within existing mandates in the collective effort to address this vital challenge. The report sets out how financial risks stemming from biodiversity loss can have implications for financial stability and therefore the core objectives and policy frameworks of central banks and supervisors. The decline of ecosystem services as a result of biodiversity loss poses physical risks for economic and financial actors that depend upon those services.

Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox, Professor Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, Professor Peter Trubowitz | The defeat of Donald Trump in November 2020 followed by the attack on the US Congress on 6 January 2021 represented a tipping point moment in the history of the American republic. Divided at home and facing a world sceptical of American claims to be the ‘indispensable nation’ in world politics, it is clear that the next few years will be decisive ones for the United States. But how did the US, which was riding high only 30 years ago, arrive at this critical point? And will it lead to the fall of what many would claim has been one of the most successful empires of modern times? In this volume, Michael Cox, a leading scholar of American foreign policy, outlines the ways in which five very different American Presidents – Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden - have addressed the complex legacies left them by their predecessors while dealing with the longer-term problems of running an empire under increasing stress. In so doing, he sets out a framework for thinking critically about US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War without ever losing sight of the biggest question of all: can America continue to shape world affairs or is it now facing long-term decline?

Contributor(s): Professor Shani Orgad, Professor Rosalind Gill, Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola, Dr Katherine Angel | Interrogating the prominence of confidence in contemporary discourse about body image, workplace, relationships, motherhood, and international development, Orgad and Gill demonstrate how “confidence culture” demands of women near-constant introspection and vigilance in the service of self-improvement. They argue that while confidence messaging may feel good, it does not address structural and systemic oppression. Rather, confidence culture suggests that women—along with people of colour, the disabled, and other marginalised groups—are responsible for their own conditions. Rejecting confidence culture’s remaking of feminism along individualistic and neoliberal lines, Orgad and Gill explore alternative articulations of feminism that go beyond the confidence imperative.

Contributor(s): Professor Richard Whitman, Professor Ben Tonra, Dr Kate Ferguson | The invasion of Ukraine seems to have brought not only a new geopolitical environment, but also a re-evaluation of UK foreign policy priorities post-Brexit. What does this mean for the prospect of ‘Global Britain’? Is a British foreign policy outside the EU better able to set its own path or is it even more exposed to the vagaries of international politics? To what extent does the emerging security architecture in Europe suit British priorities? And are relations between the UK and the Republic of Ireland finally out of their recent rocky patch?

Contributor(s): Professor Margaret MacMillan | The growth of the Axis and the failures of the democracies to counter it are often blamed for the outbreak of war in 1939. Is this fair? And could the Western democracies have done more to make common cause with the Soviet Union against the Axis? This lecture focusses on the two years from 1939-1941 and key turning points such as the Nazi-Soviet pact, the Soviet–Japanese Neutrality Pact, the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Japanese attack on the United States and other powers.

Contributor(s): Professor Cathy McIlwaine | As part of ongoing debates within feminist geography and beyond, the discussion explores the intersections among multiple types of direct and indirect gendered violence across borders and territories. The lecture draws empirically on research conducted over the last 5 years on violence against Brazilian migrant women in London and among women living in the favelas of Maré in Rio de Janeiro. The discussion reflects the feminist co-production of research with a range of organisations and on the role of arts-based methods and engagements in enhancing understandings of gendered violence and through which diverse forms of resistance emerge.

Contributor(s): Professor Philipp Ager | The 1920s border closure is one of the most fundamental changes to United States immigration policy in the past century. In the early 20th century, European immigrants faced few restrictions for entry into the US and close to one million immigrants arrived on the nation's shores each year. This era of open immigration ended in the 1920s with a series of increasingly restrictive immigration quotas, eventually limiting entry from affected countries to 150,000 a year. Professor Ager will discuss the socio-economic consequences this policy had for the US population at that time, and what lessons can be learned from it.

Contributor(s): Professor Sara B Hobolt, Professor Liesbet Hooghe, Professor Lauren McLaren | Sara Hobolt is the Sutherland Chair in European Institutions and Professor in the Department of Government at LSE.  Liesbet Hooghe is the WR Kenan Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Research Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence.  Lauren McLaren is Professor of Politics at the University of Leicester. Chris Anderson is Professor in European Politics and Policy.

Contributor(s): Dr Alexandra Gomes, Professor Patrick Wallis, Professor Emily Jackson, Professor Julia Black | We’ll be hearing from Dr Alexandra Gomes, co-creator of Kuwaitscapes (More on the research project that inspired the game, and to download the Kuwaitscapes game), Professor Patrick Wallis, who created an audio drama from the records of a historical document discovered about the Lock Asylum, a home for down-and-out women, Professor Emily Jackson, whose work on fertility has led to a change in the law, and British Academy President and LSE Professor Julia Black, who is spearheading the SHAPE campaign.

Contributor(s): Professor Tomila Lankina | The Estate Origins of Democracy in Russia: From Imperial Bourgeoisie to Post-Communist Middle-Class, challenges the notion that the Soviet Union destroyed the social structure of the past and built a new, Soviet, society, with a new party and nomentklatura elite.

Contributor(s): Dr Alina Averchenkova, Professor Barry Buzan, Professor Kathy Hochstetler, Dr Miriam Prys-Hansen, Professor Stacy Vandeveer | Great powers are also great polluters, particularly when it comes to the global greenhouse gas effect. Through the 2015 Paris Agreement and recent international conferences, all major powers - from the United States to China, India, Brazil, Russia and the EU - have committed to bringing greenhouse gas emissions under control and decarbonising their economies by 2050.

Contributor(s): Dr Anthony Masters, Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter | Anthony Masters is Statistical Ambassador for the Royal Statistical Society. David Spiegelhalter is Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge. They are the authors of COVID by Numbers: making sense of the pandemic with data. Qiwei Yao is Professor in the Department of Statistics at LSE.

Contributor(s): Elizabeth Nyamayaro | Dr Christine Chow talks with Elizabeth Nyamayaro about her outstanding leadership in launching one of the world's largest global solidarity movements for gender equality, HeForShe, in addition to her work in the UN and her best-selling book I am a Girl From Africa.

Contributor(s): Professor Cheryl Schonhardt Bailey, Dr Stephen Holden Bates, Lord Tyrie | In recent decades, we have seen an explosion in expectations for greater accountability of public policymaking. But, as accountability has increased, trust in governments and politicians has fallen. By focusing on the heart of public accountability—the reason-giving by policymakers for their policy decisions (i.e. deliberative accountability)

Contributor(s): Dr Rachel Gong, Dr Sabina Lawreniuk, Dr Murray Mckenzie, Dr Do Young Oh, Abbey Pangilinan | COVID-19 presents huge challenges to governments, businesses, civil societies, and people from all walks of life, but its impact is highly variegated, affecting society in multiple negative ways, with uneven geographical and socioeconomic patterns. In this regard, this edited volume brings together the voices of researchers who work on and in Southeast Asia to show how COVID-19 reveals existing contradictions and inequalities in our society, compelling us to question what it means to return to 'normal' and what insights we can glean from Southeast Asia for thinking about a post-pandemic world.

Contributor(s): Winnie Byanyima | This event with Winnie Byanyima, the feminist activist who leads the UN’s response to HIV and AIDS and who chairs the People’s Vaccine Alliance for COVID-19, will highlight lessons rooted in ongoing experience from the AIDS response and the commonalities between the two pandemics, as well as learnings from other health crises, to set out an approach that can actually succeed in keeping us all safe. The COVID-19 crisis has alerted world leaders to the urgency of stopping and preventing pandemics, which are recognised as undermining health, stability, and economic progress. But the path on which the world is embarking to overcome pandemics cannot succeed, because it is failing to address their underlying systemic drivers. Inequalities are increasingly preventing overwhelming majorities in most developing countries from accessing COVID-19 vaccines, enabling the pandemic to spread and the virus to mutate. If we end inequalities upfront, we will increase our odds of ending AIDS, ending COVID-19 and winning against future pandemics. But business as usual will fail. In this time of emergency, the only realistic approach is a radical one, the only safe response is to be bold.

Contributor(s): Tim Davie | With constant scrutiny of its public service remit, multiple new entrants in the market and changes in the way audiences consume content, what’s the future of the BBC?