Explore every episode of the podcast Autumn 2013 | Public lectures and events | Video

Contributor(s): The Hon Mr Justice Peter Jackson | One of the most senior High Court judges assigned to the Family Division, Peter Jackson will answer your questions sent via Twitter to @LSELaw using #LSEJackson. Peter Jackson is a High Court Judge.

Contributor(s): Natalie Hanman, Lola Okolosie, Tracey Reynolds | The panellists will interrogate current representations of feminism in the media and share interventionist strategies that are already going on or that might be taken up in the future. Natalie Hanman is the editor of Comment is Free at theguardian.com. Lola Okolosie is a writer, teacher and prominent member of Black Feminists. Tracey Reynolds is a reader in social and policy research at London South Bank University.

Contributor(s): Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed, Dr John Chalcraft, Dr Ewan Stein | Three years after the Arab uprisings started in Tunisia, a panel of academics will reflect on the causes and drivers behind these seminal events, how they have transformed countries like Egypt; but also why they have had less impact in other countries, such as Saudi Arabia. Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre at LSE and Research Fellow at the Open Society Foundation. She was Professor of Anthropology of Religion at King’s College, London between 1994 and 2013. Previously, she was Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. Dr John Chalcraft works on the history and politics of the modern Middle East with special reference to Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, protest movements, migration, labour history, crafts and guilds, transnationalism, contentious politics, hegemony, and history from below. Dr Ewan Stein is Lecturer at the School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW), University of Edinburgh from 2008-2011. Dr Stein's research interests include political Islam, the role of ideas in foreign policy and international relations, state-society relations and the links between social and normative change in Middle Eastern regional politics.

Contributor(s): Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed | Professor Al-Rasheed will introduce her new book and discuss the ‘question of women’ in Saudi Arabia in light of the interconnection between state, religion and society.

Contributor(s): Richard Nesbitt | Richard Nesbitt is chief operating officer, CIBC. In this role, he is responsible for the global operations of Wholesale Banking, Technology and Operations, Strategy and Corporate Development, CIBC's International Operations, including CIBC First Caribbean International Bank, and Treasury. Mr Nesbitt joined CIBC in 2008 following his more than 20 years of experience in the securities industry. From 2004 to 2008 he was chief executive officer of TSX Group having joined TSX as president of TSX Markets in 2001. Prior to joining the company in 2001, Mr Nesbitt served as president and chief operating officer of BayStreetDirect Inc., an internet based investment dealer. Before that, Mr Nesbitt was president and chief executive officer of HSBC Securities Canada for three years, after having worked for 10 years at CIBC Wood Gundy. He has also worked with Mobil Oil Canada Ltd for five years and spent two years as a lecturer at the University of Western Ontario, Richard Ivey School of Business. Mr Nesbitt holds a MSc in Accounting and Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an MBA from the University of Toronto, Rotman School of Management and a BA (Honours) in Business Administration from The University of Western Ontario, Richard Ivey School of Business. Mr Nesbitt is an Advisory Committee member on the Women in Capital Markets Advisory Council, chair of the Finance Committee for Pan Am Games 2015, chair of the Rotman School of Management - Financial Services Advisory Board and a member of the SickKids Foundation Board of Directors and the London School of Economics, North American Advisory Board.

Contributor(s): Dave Trott | In this lecture Dave Trott will explain how to out think the competition, and how to use creativity to get upstream and redefine a problem you can’t solve into one you can. Dave Trott is currently chairman of The Gate London. Part of The Gate worldwide, it has offices in New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Edinburgh and Dublin. As part of the creative team behind ‘Hello Tosh Gotta Toshiba’, ‘Ariston and on and on', the Cadburys Flake ads and many more, Dave’s former agency Gold Greenlees Trott was voted Agency of the Year by Campaign Magazine, and Most Creative Agency in the World by Ad Age in New York. In 2004 he was given the D&AD President’s Award for lifetime achievement in advertising. He is author of Predatory Thinking: a masterclass in outwitting the competition.

Contributor(s): Professor Naila Kabeer | The Millennium Declaration, signed by over 180 world leaders at the start of the new millennium, committed the international community to targeted achievements on a number of goals by 2015. Along with poverty reduction and human development, these goals included gender equality and women's empowerment. Now, as we draw closer to 2015, there have been worldwide consultations on what will replace the MDG agenda. This lecture will focus on the gender politics of this process: the gender text, and sub-text, of the goals themselves, the extent to which gender advocates and activists were involved in the formulation of the goals, how the goals relate to previous gender-related commitments of the international community, including the Beijing Platform for Action and the Vienna Declaration on human rights and what has been achieved so far. It will conclude by examining how feminist organisations are seeking to influence the post-MDG agenda. Naila Kabeer joins the Gender Institute in October 2013 as professor of Gender and Development. Prior to this, Professor Kabeer has been professor of Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and professorial fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex where she worked for many years. She has also worked as a senior research fellow at the Department for International Development, UK between 2009-2010. She was the Kerstin Hesselgren Professor at the University of Goteberg, Sweden in 2004-2005 and senior sabaticant with IDRC Regional Office in South Asia in 2005-2006. Her research interests include gender, poverty, social exclusion, labour markets and livelihoods, social protection and citizenship and much of her research has focused on South Asia. Her publications include Reversed realities: gender hierarchies in development thought, The power to choose: Bangladeshi women and labour supply decision-making in London and Dhaka and, more recently, Gender and social protection in the informal economy. She has carried out extensive training and advisory work with national and international NGOs (including Oxfam, ActionAid, Women for Women International, BRAC, PRADAN and Nijera Kori) as well as for a number of international development agencies (including the UNDP, UNICEF, World Bank, SIDA, NORAD and UN Women). She is currently on advisory editorial committee for the journals Feminist Economics, Development and Change and Gender and Development and she is also on the board of the Feminist Review Trust.

Contributor(s): Christopher Schroeder | The west has one narrative around the Middle East based on political instability and sectarian unrest. In parallel, and little understood, a new generation has come of age in the region, as around the globe, never knowing a world without technology. While these tools of connection, collaboration and innovation have changed the political dynamics on the ground, a second revolution is happening in parallel. Young entrepreneurs are starting companies by the thousands, creating solutions to local and regional problems, and building world-class competitive products and services. They are, in fact, taking control of their economic futures from the bottom up. Schroeder will share the stories of some of these startups, and describe the broader ecosystem challenges and opportunities changing in the Middle East. And he will show that as we move to a world -- within a decade -- of five billion people accessing broadband, the Middle East is a lens into a massive shift we should all be engaging in now.

Contributor(s): Martin Howe QC, Professor Philip Leach, Caroline Lucas MP, Emily Thornberry MP, Professor Alan Sked | On the 60th anniversary of the entry into force of the European Convention on Human Rights, a panel of politicians and experts consider, what has the ECHR ever done for us? Is it a vital outside check on the way those in power treat the people they govern, or an unwelcome and undemocratic interference in domestic affairs? Is the court an overloaded and inefficient machine, or a victim of its own success? Is the effect to prioritise the rights of the few at the expense of the interests of the many, or the realisation of a post-war commitment to the value of all human beings? What does UK positioning on ECHR membership mean for those outside our borders? In light of senior Conservative members of the UK government canvassing the possibility of the UK leaving the Convention, this ‘Question Time’-style event will give audience members the chance to grill the panel on whether Churchill’s legacy has passed its use-by date or remains just as vital today as it was sixty years ago.

Contributor(s): including Camila Batmanghelidjh, Commander Matt Bell, Professor Stephen Briggs, Charlotte Cecil, Professor Leon Feinstein, Frank Field MP, Dr Ernest Gralton, Sharon Hodgson MP, Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch, Professor Corinne May-Chahal | A one day conference to launch LSE research into the model of work used by Kids Company and to discuss what really makes a difference for vulnerable children. Camila Batmanghelidjh CBE is the founder and CEO of Kids Company. She was joined by Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch from the Department of Social Psychology at LSE, as well as senior academics, consultants, and researchers from UCL and elsewhere.

Contributor(s): including Camila Batmanghelidjh, Commander Matt Bell, Professor Stephen Briggs, Charlotte Cecil, Professor Leon Feinstein, Frank Field MP, Dr Ernest Gralton, Sharon Hodgson MP, Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch, Professor Corinne May-Chahal | A one day conference to launch LSE research into the model of work used by Kids Company and to discuss what really makes a difference for vulnerable children. Camila Batmanghelidjh CBE is the founder and CEO of Kids Company. She was joined by Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch from the Department of Social Psychology at LSE, as well as senior academics, consultants, and researchers from UCL and elsewhere.

Contributor(s): including Camila Batmanghelidjh, Commander Matt Bell, Professor Stephen Briggs, Charlotte Cecil, Professor Leon Feinstein, Frank Field MP, Dr Ernest Gralton, Sharon Hodgson MP, Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch, Professor Corinne May-Chahal | A one day conference to launch LSE research into the model of work used by Kids Company and to discuss what really makes a difference for vulnerable children. Camila Batmanghelidjh CBE is the founder and CEO of Kids Company. She was joined by Professor Sandra Jovchelovitch from the Department of Social Psychology at LSE, as well as senior academics, consultants, and researchers from UCL and elsewhere.

Contributor(s): Robin Burgess, Abhijit Banerjee, Dean Karlan and Mushtaque Chowdhury | Robin Burgess, Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Abhijit Banerjee, Ford Foundation International Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology led a discussion regarding Transforming the Economic Lives of the Ultrapoor. Chaired by Oriana Bandiera (LSE), Burgess and Banerjee were joined by two discussants: Dean Karlan (Yale University) and Mushtaque Chowdhury (BRAC).

Contributor(s): Sunder Katwala | This lecture will examine attitudes towards immigration, integration and opportunity in Britain today. National identity remains important to many people. Can it be a positive force? Sunder Katwala is director of the identity and integration think-tank British Future, and former general secretary of the Fabian Society.

Contributor(s): Paul Collier, Antonio Estache, Keith Palmer | Paul Collier (Co-Director, Centre for the Study of African Economies and Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford) will be speaking on the topic of Financing Infrastructure Investment in Africa. Antonio Estache (European Centre for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics) and Keith Palmer (InfraCo and Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund) will act as discussants. Tony Venables (Oxford) will chair the session.

Contributor(s): Trevor Manuel, Professor Francesco Caselli | This public lecture is part of Growth Week 2013 which takes place at LSE from 23-25 September organised by the International Growth Centre. There will be two further public lectures featuring Professor Paul Collier and Professor Abhijit Banerjee. More information about these can be found at Growth Week 2013. Trevor Manuel, current minister in the Presidency and head of the South African National Planning Commission will be speaking on the opening night of Growth Week. Trevor Manuel was the South African minister of finance from 1996-2009 during the presidencies of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe. He was a member of the ANC's National Executive Committee from 1991 to 2012. Among many international posts, he has chaired the International Monetary Fund's Development Committee, served as special envoy for Development Finance for UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon, and served on the Commission for Africa and the task team on Global Public Goods. In 2011 he became a co-chair of the Transitional Committee of the Green Climate Fund, a UN fund to help poorer nations combat and adapt to climate change. Mr Manuel has received numerous honorary doctorates and awards, being named Africa Finance Minister of the Year in 2007. Francesco Caselli is the Norman Sosnow Professor of Economics at LSE.

Contributor(s): Ertharin Cousin | Conflict and insecurity present a growing challenge to humanitarian agencies as they strive to reach those in need of food assistance. Access is vital if lives are going to be saved and children are to be given the nutritional support they need to thrive. In a world of increasingly complex emergencies, shifting allegiances and fluid frontlines, there is an even greater risk that some communities may be left beyond the reach of the agencies that are there to help. Ertharin Cousin is the executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme, the world’s largest humanitarian organisation. Last year, WFP provided food assistance to more than 97 million people in 80 countries. Ertharin is an exceptional advocate for improving the lives of hungry people worldwide, and travels extensively to raise awareness of food insecurity and chronic malnutrition.

Contributor(s): Richard Kozul-Wright, Professor Robert Wade | The Trade and Development Report 2013 contends that to achieve durable and inclusive growth, developing and transition economies will need to move towards a new form of development, away from a focus on net-export advantages which depend on exploiting on global imbalances and towards strengthening domestic demand and expanding regional and South-South economic linkages. Richard Kozul-Wright is a senior UN economist heading the unit on Economic Integration and Cooperation Among Developing Countries in UNCTAD. He was previously in charge of the World Economic and Social Survey in UNDESA, New York. He has worked in New York and Geneva on a number of annual flagship publications including The World Investment Report, The Trade and Development Report, the Report on Economic Development in Africa and The World Economic Situation and Prospects. He holds a Ph.D in economics from the University of Cambridge. He has published extensively on economic issues including, inter alia, in the Economic Journal, the Cambridge Journal of Economics, The Journal of Development Studies, and the Oxford Review of Economic Policy. His latest book is The Resistible Rise of Market Fundamentalism (with Paul Rayment) for Zed Press. He has also edited volumes on Transnational Corporations and the Global Economy (Macmillan), Economic Insecurity and Development (United Nations Press) and Climate Protection and Development (Bloomsbury). He has written more popular pieces on economics and development for the Guardian and other newspapers. Robert Wade is professor of Political Economy and Development in the Department of International Development at LSE. He has worked at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, 1972-95; the World Bank, 1984-88; the Princeton Woodrow Wilson School 1989/90; MIT Sloan School 1992; and Brown University 1996-2000. He was a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton 1992/93; the Russell Sage Foundation 1997/98; and the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin 2000/01. He is the author of Irrigation and Politics in South Korea (1982), Village Republics: The Economic Conditions of Collective Action in India (1988, 1994), Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asia's Industrialization (1990, 2003). He won the American Political Science Association's award of Best Book in Political Economy, 1992. Established in 1964, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development promotes the development-friendly integration of developing countries into the world economy. UNCTAD has progressively evolved into an authoritative knowledge-based institution whose work aims to help shape current policy debates and thinking on development, with a particular focus on ensuring that domestic policies and international action are mutually supportive in bringing about sustainable development.

Contributor(s): Felipe Larraín Bascuñán | Since March 2010, Felipe Larraín Bascuñán is the minister of Finance of the Government of President Sebastián Piñera. He has a PhD (1985) and Master of Arts (1983) in Economics from Harvard University, and Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Universidad Católica de Chile (1981). He has been a professor of Economics at Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, where he previously served as Associate and Assistant Professor. From 1997 to 2002 he was affiliated to Harvard University, first as the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies (1997-99), then as Faculty fellow (1999-2002). Since 1985, he has served as economic advisor to several American governments, including Bolivia, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Venezuela. Felipe Larraín has been a consultant on macroeconomic issues to the United Nations, the World Bank, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He is the editor and author of ten books, including: Macroeconomics in the Global Economy, co-authored with Professor Jeffrey Sachs, (Prentice Hall:New Jersey; Harvester Wheatsheaf: London, 1993), which has been translated into Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.

Contributor(s): Philip Coggan | In The Last Vote, Philip Coggan shows how democracy today faces threats that we ignore at our own risk. Amid the turmoil of the financial crisis, high debt levels, and an ever-growing gap between the richest and the rest, it is easy to forget that the ultimate victim could be our democracy itself. Tracing democracy's history and development, from the classical world through the revolution of the Enlightenment and on to today, Coggan revisits the assumptions on which it is founded. What exactly is democracy? Why should we value it? What are its flaws? And could we do any better? The Last Vote is a wake-up call, and an illuminating defence of a system, which, in Churchill's words, is the worst possible form of government, except for all the others. He proposes ideas for change and improvement to the system itself so the next vote we cast will not be the last. Philip Coggan was a Financial Times journalist for over twenty years, and is now the Buttonwood columnist for the Economist. In 2009 he was named Senior Financial Journalist in the Harold Wincott awards and was voted Best Communicator at the Business Journalist of the Year Awards. He is the author of The Money Machine, and Paper Promises, winner of the Spears Business Book of the Year Award and long listed for the Financial Times Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.

Contributor(s): Peter Blair Henry | Thirty years ago, China seemed hopelessly mired in poverty, Mexico triggered the Third World Debt Crisis, and Brazil suffered under hyperinflation. Since then, these and other developing countries have turned themselves around, while First World nations, battered by crises, depend more than ever on sustained growth in emerging markets. In Turnaround, economist Peter Blair Henry argues that the secret to emerging countries’ success (and ours) is discipline—sustained commitment to a pragmatic growth strategy. With the global economy teetering on the brink, the stakes are higher than ever. And because stakes are so high for all nations, we need less polarization and more focus on facts to answer the fundamental question: which policy reforms, implemented under what circumstances, actually increase economic efficiency? Pushing past the tired debates, Henry shows that the stock market’s forecasts of policy impact provide an important complement to traditional measures. Through examples ranging from the drastic income disparity between Barbados and his native Jamaica to the “catch up” economics of China and the taming of inflation in Latin America, Henry shows that in much of the emerging world the policy pendulum now swings toward prudence and self-­-control. With similar discipline and a dash of humility, he concludes, the First World may yet recover and create long-­-term prosperity for all its citizens. Peter Blair Henry is the dean of New York University’s Stern School of Business and former professor of International Economics at Stanford University. In 2008, he led Barack Obama’s Presidential Transition Team in its review of international lending agencies such as the IMF and World Bank. A member of the board of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Kraft Foods Group, Peter received his PhD in economics from MIT and Bachelor’s degrees from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of North Carolina, where he was a Morehead Scholar and a finalist in the 1991 campus-­-wide slam dunk competition. Born in Jamaica, Peter became a US citizen in 1986.

Contributor(s): Professor Jason McKenzie Alexander | It is often said that openness and transparency are required for liberal democracies. But is this true for openness and transparency of personal information? Jason McKenzie Alexander is professor of philosophy at LSE.

Contributor(s): Brendan Paddy | Is showing a tragic portrait of people in the developing world the only effective strategy to call for action and funding from people in donor countries? Can’t we change the perspective toward victims in crisis? Polis reporter Asuka Kageura gives her response to the Polis Media Agenda Talk by Brendan Paddy, Head of Communications at the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), who was speaking in a personal capacity at LSE.

Contributor(s): Dr Christian Emery | During this talk, Dr Emery will discuss the main findings from his new book: 'US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution: the Cold War Dynamics of Engagement and Strategic Alliance'. In February 1979, a revolution led by a seventy-six year old cleric espousing a relatively obscure interpretation of Shia Islam succeeded in dislodging one of Washington's most powerful allies in the Middle East. Although low-level analysts had long warned of a crisis looming in Iran, Carter's senior foreign policy advisors, distracted by more pressing foreign policy initiatives, had resisted any serious rethinking of US strategy. Dr Emery will examine the nature of the adjustment they were forced to make. He will show that, contrary to the claims of Iran's leaders, US diplomats tried in good faith to build bridges with the new regime. Good faith was not enough, however, and Dr Emery will discuss how Cold War dogma and a range of misperceptions undermined America’s 'new' policy. His talk will then focus on how US policy objectives in Iran were refashioned in light of three major and converging crises: the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, and the onset of the Iran-Iraq dynamic. Dr Emery will provide a fresh perspective on the origins of one of the most bitter and enduring confrontations in international relations.

Contributor(s): Mark Goldring | Mark Goldring is chief executive of Oxfam GB and has decades of experience within international development, including as chief executive of VSO and chief executive of Mencap, the UK’s leading disability charity. Mark read law at Oxford and has a Masters in social policy and planning in developing countries from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was awarded a CBE in 2008 for services to tackling poverty and disadvantage.

Contributor(s): Lord Browne of Madingley | In 1997, Lord Browne broke ranks with the rest of the oil industry and acknowledged the risk posed by the climate change. In this lecture he will reflect on the progress made since that speech, and the prospects for the future. John Browne is a former chief executive of BP.

Contributor(s): Alex Massouras (artwork), Alexis Milne (artwork), Nikolas Barnes (play), Rob Oldfield (play), Daniel Koczy (paper) | Following the second issue on fakeness (launched November 2012), CCC’s third issue examines the centrality of the idea of Crisis and attempts to uncover its fluid, ambivalent forms within the contemporary sphere. We are not seeking another theorization or a repetition of the apparent manifold state and the concept of crisis. Instead, we would like to talk about the blind spots within the concept. What is expected and not expected of a crisis? What are the current forms of crisis? Can crisis provide a tool for transformation and social change? In which ways does crisis become a trigger for acting in current circumstances? How does it relate to our understanding of creativity and pulsations towards freedom? How might we rethink the multiple and continuous transformative elements of crisis as moments of clarity? Critical Contemporary Culture is an online journal that envisions an alternative cultural-intellectual public space. In our contemporary moment, the combination of theoretical reflection with engaged cultural practice is as important as ever. We want to have a conversation with artists and students about the status of culture because we believe that we all have common interests and a shared culture.

Contributor(s): Dr David Stuckler | The Body Economic puts forward a radical proposition. Austerity, it argues, is seriously bad for your health. We can prevent financial crises from becoming epidemics, but to do so, we must acknowledge what the hard data tells us: that, throughout history, there is a causal link between the strength of a community's health and its social protection systems. Now and for generations to come, our commitment to the building of fairer, more equal societies will determine the health of our body economic. David Stuckler is a Senior Research Leader in Sociology at the University of Oxford. He is co-author with Sanjay Basu of The Body Economic.

Contributor(s): Jeremy Scahill | Dirty Wars, winner of the Sundance Film Festival Cinematography award, follows the reporting on a US night raid gone wrong in an Afghan village with journalist Jeremy Scahill discovering a cover-up by an elite military unit. What follows is an international investigation into America's expanding covert wars. The Dirty Wars film screening will be followed by a Q&A with the investigative reporter, screenwriter and producer of the film, Jeremy Scahill. This film is described by Glenn Greenwald, formerly of The Guardian, as '"one of the most important political films of the last 20 years". Jeremy Scahill is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of books, Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, the basis for this documentary, and the best selling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He has previously worked as a producer and correspondent for Democracy Now! And has reported for many newspapers worldwide. He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute. Dirty Wars opens in cinemas and is available on itunes from 29 November.

Contributor(s): Professor Robin Cohen, Professor David Downes, Daphna Golan, Thomas Hammarberg, Professor Harvey Molotch | Stan Cohen was a world class sociologist, criminologist and public intellectual whose insight, analysis, commitment and wit inspired and influenced innumerable students, activists and colleagues. This event honours Stan and reflects on his legacy. Robin Cohen, Stan’s brother, is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford. David Downes is Emeritus Professor of Social Policy at LSE. Daphna Golan is founding research director of B'Tselem. Thomas Hammarberg is a human rights defender and former Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. Harvey Molotch is Professor of Sociology and Metropolitan Studies at New York University. Margo Picken is a visiting senior fellow at the LSE Centre for the Study of Human Rights.

Contributor(s): Professor Anoush Ehteshami | The victory of Rouhani represents the defeat of the most peripheral groups in the Iranian political spectrum. In a day, one could say, Ahmadinejad and his supporters arguably lost all of their clout and popular appeal. The support they had amassed during the previous eight years apparently melted away, with no-one in the end making a fuss about the rejection of Ahmadinejad’s candidate for the presidency. This is the first significant development to note – the neoconservative order has been shattered. Secondly, we can also say that this election result provides evidence for seeing the election process, for all its constraints and conditionalities, not as ideological but rather highly circumstantial – perhaps, personal. Public sentiment drove support for Khatami in 1997 and Ahmadinejad in 2005, and played its role in the voters’ support for Rouhani in 2013. The political ground shifted very quickly in all these three elections once the final victor had managed to make a positive impression on the electorate. Thirdly, in this instance, there was another struggle going on: that between the Leader and the urban voters. Thus, fourthly, in supporting Rouhani’s candidacy, the latter wanted to send a strong message to the Leader to the effect that they were against the policies implemented by the previous government which he had so emphatically endorsed. Though himself doubtless an establishment figure, Rouhani nevertheless came to represent an alternative to the order created by the previous Leader-endorsed administration. Thus, when asked about their electoral preferences, many Iranians simply replied that they selected their preferred candidate on the basis of how ‘different’ they were from the incumbent president. What are the implications of this shift in policy terms? Finally, given this context and background, it is fair to ask, what drives President Rouhani’s worldview and what constitutes his foreign policy agenda? What does his election victory tell us about Iran and the where it might be heading?

Contributor(s): Dr Nina Morgan | What role does metaphor have in shaping our emotional lives? Reading texts by Freud and Derrida, this lecture will focus on the emergence of metaphor in times of crisis. Nina Morgan is associate professor of English and interdisciplinary studies at Kennesaw State University.

Contributor(s): Dimitar Bechev, Lawrence Meredith, John Peet, Professor Robert Cooper | Enlargement is widely hailed as the EU’s most successful policy, largely responsible for the successful transition from dictatorship to democracy first in Southern Europe, then in Central and Eastern Europe after the end of the Cold War. Yet forty years after the first enlargement, which saw the UK join the European Community, confidence in the European project seems to be at an all-time low. From enlargement fatigue within the EU to Russian overtures to Eastern European states and the fading prospects of Turkish accession, enlargement faces daunting challenges. In the context of the ongoing economic and political crises in the EU, we may well ask: Is EU Enlargement in crisis? Dimitar Bechev is a senior policy fellow and head of Sofia office of the European Council for Foreign Relations. Robert Cooper is a visiting professor at LSE IDEAS. Lawrence Meredith is head of strategy and policy at the Directorate General for Enlargement at the European Commission. John Peet is Europe editor at The Economist. Before joining The Economist he was a civil servant, working for the Treasury and the Foreign Office from 1976 to 1986.

Contributor(s): Alec Ross, Professor Michael Cox | Information is transforming what power means and how it operates. Social media, wikileaks, surveillance and big data represent the battleground of a new contest between individuals, corporations and the state that is redefining the structures of power relations. Alec Ross discusses how the information age is changing global politics. Alec Ross is one of America’s leading experts on innovation. He was appointed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Senior Adviser for Innovation, tasked with maximising the potential of technology and innovation in service of America’s diplomatic goals, having previously served as Convener for Technology & Media Policy on Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. He is currently writing a book to be published by Simon & Schuster about the industries and businesses of the future. Professor Michael Cox is Founding Co-Director of LSE IDEAS. He is also Head of the United States Programme, Executive Programme Director and an Academic Management Committee Member.

Contributor(s): Professor Calliope Spanou | The Ombudsman will focus on the establishment 15 years ago of the Ombudsman institution in Greece, highlighting its place and role in the political-administrative system of the country. She will also present current challenges in the context of economic austerity, lack of trust in institutions as well as demands for a new relationship between citizens and the state in Greece. Professor Calliope Spanou is the Greek Ombudsman, and Professor of Administrative Sciences at the University of Athens. Professor Kevin Featherstone is the Eleftherios Venizelos Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies, Professor of European Politics, and Director of the Hellenic Observatory.

Contributor(s): Lina Sinjab | In this talk, the BBC's Lina Sinjab will focus on the realities on the ground in Syria and the resilient civil society that is striving to continue amidst the civil war and the Islamic challenges.

Contributor(s): Professor Nick Couldry | Professor Couldry challenges some ‘digital age’ myths about how we gather on social media platforms and the value of ‘big data’, and considers the new forms of agency and injustice emerging alongside them. Nick Couldry is professor of media, communications and social theory and author of Media, Society, World.

Contributor(s): Professor Damian Chalmers, Professor Sebastien Dullien, Yiannos Papantoniou | The single European market has been a remarkable achievement. Its completion could substantially boost growth- especially in the EU’s struggling economies. Has the euro crisis put paid to these hopes? 'The Europe Question: perspectives from the UK’ initiative aims to bridge the evident gap in understanding and mutual distrust between the UK, its European partners and the EU institutions in Brussels, through a sober and systematic examination of the most fundamental issues surrounding European integration and the UK's place within the European project. This initiative by ECFR, the LSE European Institute and the European Commission Representation in the UK constitutes the next chapter in the well-received ‘Europe at the Crossroads’ initiative. Damian Chalmers is professor of European Union Law at LSE. Sebastian Dullien is senior policy fellow at ECFR and professor of international economics at HTW Berlin. Yiannos Papantoniou was the Greek economy and finance minister from 1994 to 2001.

Contributor(s): Professor Liu Wei | China has built a relatively well-off society by the end of the 20th century, transforming from a low-income country to a lower-middle-income one. In the first decade of the 21st century, China has further elevated itself to an upper-middle-income country. Based on these achievements, the country sets its new goals for economic development: a sustainable economic growth to double its scale, a high-income economy with a higher per capita GDP, a transformation in the economic structure and an overall modernisation. Since China took its baby-steps toward an upper-middle-income economy in 2010 at a time when the government began to retreat from its growth-stimulating policies against the 2008 financial crisis, new features of China’s economic imbalance have emerged. The country now faces two risks: great pressure from inflation and a lack of demand to drive up the economy. Professor Liu Wei is executive vice president of Peking University in charge of humanities and social sciences, continuous education, sports and technology transfer at the university. He got his bachelor, master and Ph.D. degrees in economics at Peking University. Before the current position, he served as dean of School of Economics, assistant president and vice president of Peking University. He is also the chief editor of the academic journal Economic Science. His research interests include economic theories of socialism in political economics, economic transition theories in institutional economics, industrial structure evolution in development economics, and enterprise ownership. He was appointed as chief expert in the projects “Research on the Development of China’s Market Economy” (2003) and “Research on China’s Monetary Policy and Transmission Mechanism” initiated by the Ministry of Education of China. He was also responsible for the key project “The Trend of China’s Mid-term and Long-term Economic Growth and Structure Changes” (2009) supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China. Professor Liu is also a member of the Theoretical Economics Section of the Disciplinary Appraisal Panels under the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, Vice Chair of the Steering Committee for Economics Teaching of the Ministry of Education of China and Vice Chair of Expert Committee on Discipline Development and Specialty Setup of the Ministry of Education of China. This lecture is available in both English and Chinese.

Contributor(s): Professor Liu Wei | China has built a relatively well-off society by the end of the 20th century, transforming from a low-income country to a lower-middle-income one. In the first decade of the 21st century, China has further elevated itself to an upper-middle-income country. Based on these achievements, the country sets its new goals for economic development: a sustainable economic growth to double its scale, a high-income economy with a higher per capita GDP, a transformation in the economic structure and an overall modernisation. Since China took its baby-steps toward an upper-middle-income economy in 2010 at a time when the government began to retreat from its growth-stimulating policies against the 2008 financial crisis, new features of China’s economic imbalance have emerged. The country now faces two risks: great pressure from inflation and a lack of demand to drive up the economy. Professor Liu Wei is executive vice president of Peking University in charge of humanities and social sciences, continuous education, sports and technology transfer at the university. He got his bachelor, master and Ph.D. degrees in economics at Peking University. Before the current position, he served as dean of School of Economics, assistant president and vice president of Peking University. He is also the chief editor of the academic journal Economic Science. His research interests include economic theories of socialism in political economics, economic transition theories in institutional economics, industrial structure evolution in development economics, and enterprise ownership. He was appointed as chief expert in the projects “Research on the Development of China’s Market Economy” (2003) and “Research on China’s Monetary Policy and Transmission Mechanism” initiated by the Ministry of Education of China. He was also responsible for the key project “The Trend of China’s Mid-term and Long-term Economic Growth and Structure Changes” (2009) supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China. Professor Liu is also a member of the Theoretical Economics Section of the Disciplinary Appraisal Panels under the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council, Vice Chair of the Steering Committee for Economics Teaching of the Ministry of Education of China and Vice Chair of Expert Committee on Discipline Development and Specialty Setup of the Ministry of Education of China. This lecture is available in both English and Chinese.

Contributor(s): Caroline Criado-Perez | Caroline Criado-Perez is a freelance journalist, broadcaster and feminist campaigner. Co-founder of The Women’s Room, an organisation that campaigns for more women experts in the media, she also started and ran the Keep Women on Banknotes campaign. Caroline is currently completing an MSc in Gender at LSE, where her dissertation is on the representation of women experts in the media. Caroline has appeared in international, national and local media (online, print and broadcast), both as an expert on feminist issues, and as a general media commentator. Caroline has also spoken at schools and conferences, and was featured in the Independent on Sunday’s Happy List 2013.

Contributor(s): Professor Yongjin Zhang | Is there any significant international thought in antiquity beyond the West? If there is, what insights can it offer? Inspired by Martin Wight’s profound contributions to international relations so steeped in historical and philosophical depth, this lecture explores how order as a pivotal idea of international relations is deliberated in ancient Chinese political thought. It investigates how alternative visions of order in international relations are imagined and the ways in which the moral and political pursuit of order is conducted in the relations among states in Ancient China. In establishing a broad claim that ancient Chinese political and philosophical deliberations are rich in international thought, it will be argued that a Wightian exploration of ancient Chinese thought is integral in our quest for international theory today. Yongjin Zhang is professor of international politics at the University of Bristol and editor of International Orders in the Early Modern World: before the rise of the West.

Contributor(s): Professor Mike Savage , Professor Bev Skeggs | In his inaugural lecture, Professor Savage will unravel "the paradox of class": that overt class politics and consciousness decline as divisions become more entrenched. He draws on research from the BBC’s Great British Class Survey and the public reaction to its findings. Mike Savage is professor of sociology at LSE. Beverley Skeggs is head of the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, London. She is soon to be an ESRC professorial fellow working on A Sociology of Value and Values.

Contributor(s): Professor Michael Cox | It has become the truism of our age that power is fast ebbing away from a declining West to the East and the "rest". Some indeed predict that the 21st Century will either be Asian or dominated by the so-called BRICs. But how far has this process really gone? Michael Cox is founding co-director of LSE IDEAS and professor of International Relations at LSE.

Contributor(s): Dr Rachel Cooper, Professor Eileen Munro, Professor Emily Simonoff | The classification, identification and treatment of mental illnesses in children raises particular challenges. For example, what are the appropriate criteria for diagnosing children with a mental disorder? How can we avoid the risk of stigmatisation that some children and their families experience? What are the risks of not identifying mental illness in children and how does it impact on their well-being, self-esteem, academic attainment and social development? Is it true that there is an increased tendency towards medicalizing certain behaviours that might once have been seen as normal (if challenging)? To what extent is it possible to predict which children will experience deficits in physical, psychological and social development due to problematic parenting, and what are the implications for public policy decision making? Rachel Cooper is senior lecturer in philosophy at Lancaster University. Eileen Munro is professor of social policy at LSE. Emily Simonoff is professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at King’s College London.

Contributor(s): Professor Roberto Mangabeira Unger | The progressive left lacks the imagination to tackle the fundamental problems of society. Renowned social theorist Roberto Unger calls on fellow progressives in Britain to think beyond current institutional arrangements. Roberto Mangabeira Unger is the Roscoe Pound Professor of Law at Harvard University. He served as a minister in the Brazilian government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2007-2009. Jo Fidgen is a presenter and reporter on BBC radio. Previous editions of Analysis have focused on pornography, feminism and the new Swedish model. She studied philosophy at Oxford and political theory at the LSE.

Contributor(s): Dr Andrew Blick, Bernard Donoughue, Professor George Jones | Discreet, inconspicuous, prudent... the perfect Prime Ministerial aide should always be in the background, a low-profile figure unknown outside the Westminster bubble. When reality falls short of the ideal – as when Cameron’s head of communications Andy Coulson was arrested in connection with the News of the World phone hacking affair – the impact upon the Prime Minister can be drastic. However, for as long as there has been a Prime Minister, he or she has depended on the help of a cast of supporting actors who have courted acclaim and scandal in equal measure. At Power’s Elbow tells their story for the first time, uncovering the truth behind three centuries’ worth of Prime Ministers and their aides. Its subjects range from the early media-managers and election-fixers of Sir Robert Walpole, to the teams supporting the wartime premierships of David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, to the semi-official ‘Department of the Prime Minister’ established under Tony Blair. Packed with unusual characters, this is a fascinating peek at the power behind the political throne – the history of the most mysterious and misunderstood job in British politics. Andrew Blick is Lecturer in Politics and Contemporary History at the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies, King’s College London. He has worked as an assistant in the Prime Minister’s Office and has written extensively about British Politics. George Jones has been Emeritus Professor of Government at LSE since 2003 and was Professor of Government between 1976 and 2003. He has written and edited a number of books on British government. Bernard Donoughue was a senior adviser to the Labour governments of 1974-79. He is a businessman and author and was created a life peer in 1985.

Contributor(s): Professor Roger Brownsword, Dr Sarah Edwards, Dr Sarah Richmond | The continuing development of brain imaging technologies is now bringing into reach the correlation of brain activity with psychological states and traits, such as personality traits, mental health vulnerabilities, (unconscious) preferences and desires, or truthfulness. At the same time, different groups, such as employers, advertisers, health insurers and the government, all have strong interests in the knowledge offered by the neurosciences. How concerned should we be about these developments, and how can we ensure the protection of our privacy and dignity? Roger Brownsword is professor of law at King’s College London. Sarah Edwards is senior lecturer in research ethics and governance in the Centre for Philosophy, Justice and health at University College London. Sarah Richmond is senior lecturer in philosophy at University College London.

Contributor(s): Jesse Norman MP | Edmund Burke and Michael Oakeshott are often considered as the intellectual founding fathers of British conservatism. But in fact they disagree on some fundamental issues. What are those issues, and who is right? Jesse Norman is Member of Parliament for Hereford and South Herefordshire. His book Edmund Burke: Politician, Philosopher, Prophet has been recently published to wide acclaim. He was awarded Parliamentarian and Backbencher of the Year in 2012.

Contributor(s): Dr Carrie Friese, Professor Charis Thompson | The natural world is marked by an ever-increasing loss of varied habitats, species extinctions, and new kinds of dilemmas posed by global warming. At the same time, humans are working to actively shape this natural world through contemporary bioscience and biotechnology, as humans seek scientific solutions to environmental crisis. Cloned endangered animals in zoos sit at the apex of these trends. In her new book Carrie Friese argues that cloning technologies significantly affect our conceptualizations of and engagements with wildlife and nature. Carrie Friese is associate professor of sociology at LSE.